From unrza3@cd4680fs.rrze.uni-erlangen.de (Markus Kuhn) Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,comp.std.misc,comp.protocols.iso,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: Standards FAQ Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 11:13:52 +0100 Archive-name: standards-faq Last-modified: $Date: 93/03/04 10:59:50 $ Version: $Revision: 1.3 $ Frequently Asked Questions about International Standards with Answers --------------------------------------------------------------------- This text is a monthly posting to the USENET groups comp.protocols.iso, comp.std.misc and comp.std.internat. Its purpose is to give answers to some of the questions appearing most often in these groups and to collect interesting information about standards that appeared in USENET discussions. This standards FAQ has previously been part of the osi-protocols FAQ posted in comp.protocols.iso, so many items listed here may still be quite OSI standard oriented. I hope, the knowledgeable readers will help me to cover also other topics. If you have a suggestion how this text might be improved or have a text that you would like to be added, please send it to Markus Kuhn . Contributions, that I can simply copy into the text are especially welcome. This FAQ is crossposted to news.answers and won't expire there on well- managed news systems until the next version has been posted. As a consequence of being crossposted to news.answers, this text will also be automatically archived on many FAQ servers all over the world (e.g., look with anonymous ftp at pit-manager.mit.edu [18.172.1.27] in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers). You'll also find there many other answers to frequently asked questions. Don't be angry if anything in this text is incorrect. As with all information exchanged on USENET, you only get what you pay for and the current author isn't paid a single pfennig for this FAQ. Better mail me the correction! I hope you enjoy it ... Markus Contents -------- What are ISO, CCITT, ANSI, ...? ! Why can't I ftp ISO standards? ! Where can I get standard documents? How can I get in contact with the committees? Where can I ftp CCITT recommendations? ! Which Internet resources provide information about standards? What's the meaning of CD, DIS, IS? ! ISO standards relevant to computing + ISO standards of general relevance + Some CCITT standards + ISO paper sizes + What is ISO 9000? ! What's the address of my national standard body? + References A '+' in the first column marks a topic that has been added since this FAQ was last posted the last time and a '!' marks a change. Trivial typographic changes are not marked. What are ISO, CCITT, ANSI, ...? ------------------------------- Many countries have national standards bodies where experts from industry and universities develop standards for all kinds of engineering problems. Among them are, for instance, ANSI American National Standards Institute USA DIN Deutsches Institut fuer Normung Germany BSI British Standards Institution United Kingdom AFNOR Association francaise de normalisation France UNI Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificatione Italy NNI Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut Netherlands SAA Standards Australia Australia SANZ Standards Association of New Zealand New Zealand NSF Norges Standardiseringsforbund Norway DS Dansk Standard Denmark and about 80 others. The International Organization for Standardization, ISO, in Geneva is the head organization of all these national standardization bodies. Together with the International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC, ISO concentrates its efforts on harmonizing national standards all over the world. The results of these activities are published as ISO standards. Among them are, for instance, the metric system of units, international stationery sizes, all kinds of bolt nuts, rules for technical drawings, electrical connectors, security regulations, computer protocols, file formats, bicycle components, ID cards, programming languages, International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), ... Over 10,000 ISO standards have been published so far and you surely get in contact with a lot of things each day that conform to ISO standards you never heard of. Within ISO, ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) deals with information technology and OSI. The International Telecommunication Union, ITU, is the United Nations specialized agency dealing with telecommunications. At present there are 164 member countries. One of its bodies is the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee, CCITT. A Plenary Assembly of the CCITT, which takes place every few years, draws up a list of 'Questions' about possible improvements in international electronic communication. In Study Groups, experts from different countries develop 'Recommendations' which are published after they have been adopted. Especially relevant to computing are the V series of recommendations on modems (e.g. V.32, V.42), the X series on data networks and OSI (e.g. X.25, X.400), the I and Q series that define ISDN, the Z series that defines specification and programming languages (SDL, CHILL), the T series on text communication (teletex, fax, videotext, ODA) and the H series on digital sound and video encoding. Since 1961, the European Computer Manufacturers Association, ECMA, has been a forum for data processing experts where agreements have been prepared and submitted for standardization to ISO, CCITT and other standards organizations. Why can't I ftp ISO standards? ------------------------------ ISO standard documents are copyrighted by ISO, and their price is much higher than the costs for printing and shipping the papers. This is because the expenses of running ISO are covered completely by selling the standards. ISO has no other source of money for its operation. Consequently, ISO standards are NOT available as public domain documents to Internet users. Many people feel that this is a great disadvantage and ISO is at the moment examining other methods of distributing the documents (e.g. CD-ROM, magnetic tapes and online access) but the odds are very low that ISO standards will become freely redistributable files like Internet RFCs in the near future (i.e. this decade). BTW: The costs of actually developing standards is borne by the thousands of organizations which pay for the time and travel expenses of the delegates to national and international level meetings. By a liaison contribution from ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 to the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), very few OSI standards (e.g. ISO 8073, ISO 8473, ISO 9542, ISO 10589) ARE available as PostScript files with ftp from merit.edu in directory pub/iso. Where can I get standard documents? ----------------------------------- ISO standards are sold by the national standards body members (e.g. ANSI, DIN, ...), by special companies, and by the General Secretary in Geneva. The best way to order standards is normally to contact your national standards body. ISO publishes an 'ISO Bulletin' with information about current standardization activities and articles about various standards. It lists all the ISO standards published or withdrawn, the DISs circulated, the CDs registered, etc. It also has a calendar of all upcoming ISO meetings. You can get it from your national standards body or from the General Secretary in Geneva. You may get more information on this from: International Organization for Standardization Promotion and Press Department Case Postale 56 CH-1211 Geneve 20 Switzerland ISO publishes an annual 'ISO Catalogue' which lists all ISO standards currently in force and other ISO publications (e.g. guides and standards handbooks) with a price code. It contains an entry like ISO 4074-2:1980 Rubber condoms-- Part 2: Determination of length Ed. 1 2 p. Code A TC 157 Preservatifs masculins en caoutchouc-- Partie 2: Determination de la longueur for each ISO standard in both English and French and a few other lists. You have to ask your national standards body how much you have to pay them for a standard with price code A (e.g. 20 Swiss francs in Switzerland and 27,10 DM in Germany). The price depends on the number of pages of the document. Code A means 1 or 2 pages. :-( You can order all CCITT recommendations from International Telecommunication Union General Secretariat - Sales Section Place des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 20 Switzerland There you can also get a free ITU List of Publications. The 1988 series of recommendations has been published as the 'Blue Book' (consisting of Volumes each dealing with a specific topic and bound as "Fascicles" of a few hundred pages each) which fills about 16,000 pages or a whole shelf. Not all of the Blue Book volumes are about OSI, the rest deals with the phone, ISDN, telex and teletex nets, fax protocols, international tariffs, etc. In the past, CCITT recommendations have been published in a four year cycle. These publications are identified by the color of their binding: 1960 red, 1964 blue, 1968 white, 1972 green, 1976 orange, 1980 yellow, 1984 red and 1988 blue. The 1992 White Book will be the last four year collection of all recommendations. After this, recommendations will be published separately. An ITU document ordering form may be retrieved from the ITU Teledoc mail server (see below) or with anonymous ftp from ftp.uni-erlangen.de in pub/doc/ccitt/ordering-documents. The CCITT 1988 Blue Books are also available from: United Nations Bookshop General Assembly Building Room: G.A. 32 B New York, NY 10017 phone 212-963-7680 +1-800-553-3210 (outside NY) fax 212-963-4910 Visa or Mastercard are accepted over $15.00. $2 per book for shipping/handling. UPS over 5 books is free of charge. E.g. the fascicle with X.400-X.420 costs $68.70. All ECMA standards are free and can be ordered at no cost from European Computer Manufacturers Association 114 Rue du Rhone CH-1204 Geneva Switzerland phone +41 22 7353634 fax +41 22 7865231 telex 413237 The address of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute is: ETSI BP 152 F-06561 Valbonne Cedex France phone +33 92 94 42 00 fax +33 93 65 47 16 The address of the Conference of European Posts and Telecommunications Administrations, CEPT, is CEPT Liaison Office Seilerstrasse 22 CH-3008 Bern Switzerland phone +41 31 62 20 81 fax +41 31 62 20 78 Their documents are called "Norme Europeene de Telecommunication", NET, and they allow you to test terminal equipment one for all of the EC. CEPT is covered by EEC Directive 86/361. The address of the ANSI sales department is: ANSI Attention: Customer Service 11 West 42nd St. New York, NY 10036 phone (212) 642-4900 DIN, ISO and other standards are sold in Germany by Beuth Verlag Postfach 1145 W-1000 Berlin 30 Germany phone +49 30 2601-0 fax +49 30 2601-1231 telex 183622 bvb d teletex 302107 bvb awg For several years the US company OMNICOM published a newsletter about OSI development and distributed copies of ISO standards. Document distribution for OMNICOM (which is out of business) has been taken over by Phillips Business Information. The phone number 1-800-OMNICOM still works, but is answered by Phillips. Phillips Business Information 7811 Montrose Rd Potomac, MD 20854. phone +1-800-OMNICOM or (301) 424-3338 fax (301) 309-3847 It is highly recommended to compare prices before ordering standards! How can I get in contact with the committees? --------------------------------------------- The standard way is to contact the members of your national standards body. Some of these people will also serve as your country's representatives to the international organizations. Only very few experts active within ISO and CCITT are regularly reading USENET but most are reachable with Internet mail. The editor of the new ASN.1 encoding rules standard (ISO 8825) is Bancroft Scott The most active participants in the X.gc group working on a news extension for the X.400 electronic mail protocols similar to USENET are Jacob Palme, Stockholm University Hiromiki Moriyama Murray Turoff, New Jersey Inst. of Technology Steve Benford, Nottingham University Where can I ftp CCITT recommendations? -------------------------------------- There was an experimental ftp server for CCITT recommendations but this service was shut down in the end of 1991 and the files it provided weren't very high quality (incomplete, missing graphics and tables). If you still see CCITT documents in the file system of some Internet ftp servers, then these are illegal files now, as the material is still copyrighted by ITU! ITU now operates its own public document store (Teledoc). At the moment, it can only be reached as a mail server (Teledoc Auto-Answering Mailbox, TAM), but an interactive VT interface and ftp access are planned for early 1993. The TAM is an X.400 "robot" mailbox at ITU headquarters in Geneva. Its address is: X.400: S=teledoc; P=itu; A=archom; C=ch Internet: teledoc@itu.arcom.ch You can send it messages like HELP LIST LIST CCITT LIST CCITT/REC GET 1449 At the moment, Teledoc offers only short summaries of CCITT recommendations. Full text support in various formats (e.g. ODA) is expected in early 1993. The project coordinator for Teledoc is Robert Shaw . Which Internet resources provide information about standards? ------------------------------------------------------------- The author of this FAQ maintains an ftp archive where information about ISO standards is collected at anonymous ftp server ftp.uni-erlangen.de in pub/doc/ISO/english. Contact mskuhn@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de if you would like to contribute anything. The RFCs are ftpable from nic.ddn.mil, nisc.sri.com, nnsc.nsf.net and from many other sites all over the world. For information about POSIX, look at the file ~ftp/usenet/comp.std.unix on ftp.uu.net. Other ftp locations with information about OSI and other ISO standards are: address directory content ------------------------------------------------------------------------- osi.ncsl.nist.gov * GOSIP stuff ftp.uu.net networking/osi ISODE networking/x25 X.25 software nic.ddn.mil protocols DoD and GOSIP related stuff rfc RFC Repository cs.ucl.ac.uk src ISODE, PP, OSIMIS, ... osi-ds Internet X.500 documents ietf-osi-oda Internet ODA documents aun.uninett.no ietf/mhs-ds X.500 based routing drafts ftp.ifi.uio.no pub/SGML SGML/HyTime related things dkuug.dk i18n internationalisation standards ftp.ripe.net ripe/docs/iso3166-codes ISO Country Codes isode.com * ISODE Consortium documents merit.edu pub/iso few ISO standards (CLNP etc.) The USENET group comp.protocols.iso.x400 has been created for discussions about the X.400 OSI e-mail protocol suite. Harald Tveit Alvestrand is posting an X.400 FAQ and product list monthly there and Jacob Palme posts his reports from the CCITT/ISO X.400 study group meetings in the same group. These texts are also available on ftp.uni-erlangen.de. What's the meaning of CD, DIS, IS? ---------------------------------- [Posted by Brad Smith :] Replies to an earlier posting of mine indicated a lack of familiarity with current ISO procedures for developing and gaining consensus on international standards. Here are some notes to update you. The 1989 revision of the ISO/IEC Directives specify the accepted procedure for developing and approving International Standards. This is a complicated process with many activities and critical milestones so if you do any standards work, you will probably want to get a copy of the document for reference. THE ISO PROCESS: The Directives give a set of procedures for managing the work of a committee which define five stages of document approval: The Proposal Stage Voting members ballot on the creation of a new standards project. The Preparatory Stage Project Leader manages the development of a Working Draft. The Committee Stage Consensus is achieved on a Committee Draft. The Approval Stage National bodies vote on a Draft International Standard. The Publication Stage ISO publishes the International Standard. PROPOSAL STAGE: The Proposal stage begins with a suggestion for a new area of standardization activity (see [ISO1] - clause 2.2, page 17). The suggestion is documented on an ISO New Work Item Proposal form and is sent out by the committee's Secretariat to all participating and observing members of the committee, to all liaison organizations, and to other national bodies of ISO. A three-month voting period is prescribed. All voting members have an obligation to reply. Approval requires a simple majority vote and a commitment by at least five national bodies to actively participate. Projects can be placed within an existing Working Group (WG), or a new WG can be created to act as a focus for technical development work. The Proposal stage ends when a New Work Item is approved, is registered with the ISO, and is included in the list of projects within the program of work of the SC-4 Committee. PREPARATORY STAGE: The Preparatory stage of ISO standards development covers the creation of a working draft of the ultimate standard (see [ISO1] - clause 2.3, page 17). The work is performed by experts from participating countries organized into working groups and advisory groups under the guidance of a convener, and further subdivided into project areas each under the direction of a Project Leader (see [ISO1] - clause 2.1.6, page 16). Different committees may decide on different procedures to govern the development of working drafts of their standards. In our committee, Working Group conveners have been encouraged to subdivide the technical work into logical tasks each under the direction of a Project Leader. Project Leaders report to the Convener of their parent Working Group. The Working Group convener usually serves as a Project Leader (see [ISO1] - clause 2.3.3, page 17) but is additionally responsible for coordinating any other Project Leaders in the WG as well. As technical work is completed by a WG, it is documented in a working draft of an ISO standard and begins the process of consensus-building and approval. Generally, each document has an editor who has custody of the electronic form of the document, but the project leader has the overall responsibility for coordinating the efforts necessary to gain approval of the draft as an international standard. The ISO Directives do not give details of the process for developing a working draft within the hierarchy of projects, WGs, and advisory groups. That is left for each SC to establish for itself. Our committee has a detailed set of procedures which are available if anyone wants to see them. The Preparatory stage for any one Part ends when a working draft of that Part has been approved by the Project Management Advisory Group. It is at that time given to the Secretariat of SC-4 who formally registers the Part as a Committee Draft with ISO (see [ISO1] - clause 2.3.8, page 18). COMMITTEE STAGE: The Committee stage begins with the circulation of the document in the form of a Committee Draft (CD) for formal balloting (see [ISO1], clause 2.4.1, page 18 and SC4 Res# 73). The ballot is sent out by the committee Secretariat to all participating and observing countries of SC-4 and also to Class A Liaison organizations. All recipients are asked for comments on the CD. Voting members are asked to vote on the acceptance of the CD for registration as a Draft International Standard. All voting members have an obligation to reply. A three month voting period is prescribed. Ballot comments are collected and summarized by the Secretariat. A team consisting of the Secretariat, the committee Chairman, the affected Conveners, and the affected Project Leaders review the ballot comments to determine the degree of consensus obtained. Based on the evaluation, a decision is made whether to a) discuss the CD and comments at the next meeting, b) register the CD as a Draft International Standard, or c) ask that a revised CD be prepared for circulation If at least three voting members of SC-4 disagree with proposal b) or c) of the Secretariat, the CD will be put on the agenda for discussion at the next committee meeting. Failure to attain consensus approval of a Part will trigger determination c) above and thus cause the document to be returned to the Working Group level for the preparation of a revised Committee Draft. It should be noted that both an English and a French text must be available for each Part during the Approval stage which comes next. This translation should be instigated at an early date to allow time for a quality effort. The Committee stage ends for a CD when the Part is accepted by committee ballot. The document is then given to the Secretariat who formally submits the English and French versions to ISO for registration of the Part as a Draft International Standard (see [ISO1] - clause 2.4.7, page 19). APPROVAL STAGE: The Approval Stage begins with circulation of the English and French versions of the Part in the form of a Draft International Standard (DIS) for formal balloting (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.1, page 19). The ballot is sent out by ISO Central Secretariat to all national bodies of ISO (our committee members plus others). Recipients are asked to vote on the approval of the DIS as an International Standard. All national bodies have an obligation to reply. A six-month voting period is prescribed. Ballot comments are collected by ISO and are returned to our committee. The DIS is approved if a two-thirds majority of votes cast by voting members of our committee are in favor and if not more than 25% of the total number of votes cast are negative. Abstentions are excluded when counting votes (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.3, page 20). If so approved, the committee Chairman, in cooperation with the Secretariat, and in consultation with the ISO Chief Executive Officer makes a decision whether the document should be published without change or whether an amendment should be drafted to reflect persuasive technical comments received (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.4, page 20). If an amendment is drafted, it requires a two-month vote as above. If the DIS is not approved, the Committee Chairman, in cooperation with the Secretariat (and, if necessary the Project Leader and the affected WG Conveners), and in consultation with the ISO Chief Executive Officer, makes a decision whether to prepare a new DIS for a two-month vote or to refer the document back to committee for further work (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.6, page 20). The Approval stage ends with the decision of the committee Chairman to publish. The Secretariat then prepares the final manuscript and sends it to ISO. PUBLICATION STAGE: The ISO Chief Executive Officer does final preparation of the Foreword and sends the proof back to the SC-4 Secretariat for review. Further editorial or technical amendments are unacceptable at this stage. The Publication stage ends with the release of the document as an International Standard. [FAQ author's note: The reference [ISO1] hasn't been resolved in Brad Smith's original posting, but, according to the ISO Catalogue, the complete ISO ceremony of creating a standard is defined in: IEC/ISO Directives -- Part 1, Procedures for the technical work, 1989, 140p., ISBN 92-67-10150-1. IEC/ISO Directives -- Part 2, Methodology for the development of International Standards, 1989, 62p., ISBN 92-67-10149-8. IEC/ISO Directives -- Part 3, Drafting and presentation of International Standards, 1989, 2nd ed., 82 p., bilingual, ISBN 92-67-01055-7. Harald Alvestrand wrote me, that there is also something called a "CD ballot" that is needed to get a document from "expert contribution" status to "CD" status, and that there are exceptions to the "French required" rules. He has one DIS that says on the cover: "In accordance with the provisions of Council Resolution 21/1986 this DIS is submitted in the English language only"] ISO standards relevant to computing ----------------------------------- A summary of ISO and CCITT standards relevant to OSI (Open System Interconnection) protocols is part of the osi-protocols FAQ which is posted to comp.protocols.iso. ISO 646 Good ol' 7-bit ASCII with national variants IEC 824 Terminology related to microprocessors ISO 2022 ESC sequences for switching between various character sets ISO 2382 Information technology -- Vocabulary ISO 3166 Codes for the representation of names of countries. These are well known in the Internet as top-level domain names. ISO 4217 Codes for the representation of currencies and funds ISO 5218 Representation of human sexes Sex is represented by a one-character language independent numerical code: 0=not known, 1=male, 2=female, 9=not specified. The standard also specifies, that "no significance is to be placed on the fact that 'Male' is coded '1' and 'Female' is coded '2'. This standard was developed based upon predominant practice of the countries involved and does not convey any meaning of importance, ranking or any other basis that could imply discrimination." :-) ISO 6429 ASCII Control Codes, also known as VT100/VT320/ANSI escape sequences ISO 6709 Representation of latitude, longitude and altitude of geographic positions. ISO 8601 Representation of Dates and Times ISO 8632 Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) ISO 8652 The Ada programming language ISO 8859 Several 8-bit ASCII extensions. Especially ISO 8859-1, the Latin alphabet No. 1 has become widely implemented and may already be seen as the de-facto standard ASCII replacement. ISO 8859-1 west european languages (latin 1) ISO 8859-2 east european languages (latin 2) ISO 8859-3 other latin characters (latin 3) ISO 8859-4 north european languages (latin 4) ISO 8859-5 latin/cyrillic ISO 8859-6 latin/arabic ISO 8859-7 latin/greek ISO 8859-8 latin/hebrew ISO 8859-9 latin 1 modification for turkey (latin 5) ISO 8879 Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), a format for storing documents together with their logical structure and perhaps layout information in a standardized way. (see also USENET group comp.text.sgml) ISO 9127 User documentation and cover information for consumer software packages ISO 9592 Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics Interface (PHIGS) ISO 9593 PHIGS Language Bindings (Fortran, Pascal, Ada, C) ISO 9541 Font and Character Information Interchange ISO 9636 Graphical device interfaces ISO 9660 CD-ROM volume and file structure ISO 9899 The C programming language ISO 9945 UNIX style system calls and shell commands (POSIX) ISO 10646 A 32-bit character set called UCS containing (nearly) all characters used on this planet that will hopefully solve most of the character set troubles with computers one day. Today only the 16-bit subset UCS-2 has been defined, also known as 'Unicode' that is expected to become pretty popular soon and will be supported by Windows NT, Plan 9 and other new operating systems. ISO 10744 HyTime -- A hypertext/multimedia extension to SGML ISO standards of general relevance ---------------------------------- (Of course, there are a more then 10,000 of them, so this list will always contain only a few of the more well-known international standards.) ISO 3 Preferred numbers ISO 9 Transliteration of Slavic Cyrillic characters into Latin characters ISO 31 The international system of physical quantities, units and symbols ISO 216 Paper sizes -- A and B series ISO 233 Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters ISO 259 Transliteration of Hebrew characters into Latin characters ISO 269 Correspondence envelope sizes ISO 639 Code for the representation of names of languages (e.g., en=English, de=German, ... a few 100 others) ISO 838 Paper holes for general filing purposes ISO 1000 SI units and recommendations for the use of their multiples and of certain other units. ISO 2108 International standard book number (ISBN) ISO 3602 Romanization of Japanese (kana script) ISO 5966 Presentation of scientific and technical reports ISO 7000 Graphical symbols for use on equipment ISO 7001 Public information symbols ISO 7098 Romanization of Chinese ISO 7144 Presentation of theses and similar documents ISO 9000 Quality management and quality assurance (also ISO 9001 - ISO 9004). [... to be continued ...] Some CCITT standards -------------------- E.123 A notation for international telephone numbers (a '+' followed by the country code, followed by a space, ...) E.163 The international telephone numbering plan defining the structure of the phone number system and defining the country codes (e.g. 1=USA, 49=Germany, ...). X.25 An interface to a public or private packet data network X.3/X.28/ Specification of a device (PAD) that allows to connect X.29 asynchronous ASCII terminals to X.25 networks. X.3 defines the parameters that allow to control the PAD operation, X.28 specifies the command language offered to the terminal user and X.29 is the protocol used by the PAD over X.25. V.21 Duplex 300 bits/s modem modulation. V.22 Duplex 1200 bits/s modem modulation. V.22bis Duplex 2400 bits/s modem modulation. V.32 Duplex modem modulation up to 9600 bits/s. V.32bis Duplex modem modulation up to 14400 bits/s. V.42 HDLC based error correction protocol for modems. V.42bis Lempel-Ziv based data compression algorithm for HDLC protocols. [... to be continued ...] ISO paper sizes --------------- The paper end formats defined by ISO in the A, B and C series are used today in nearly all countries apart from North America. The formats have been determined according to the following rules: - A0 has an area of one square meter. - The format of all members of the A, B and C series is 1 : sqrt(2). - You get the next higher format by cutting the paper in two equal pieces parallel to the shorter side. This results again in an 1 : sqrt(2) format (that's the big advantage of this format). - The size of a B paper is the geometric mean between the size of the corresponding A paper and the next bigger A paper. E.g. B1 is between A1 and A0. - The size of a C paper is the geometric mean between the size of the A and B paper with the same number. The following table lists the paper sizes rounded to an integral number of millimeters, which is the official definition: 4 A0 1682 x 2378 2 A0 1189 x 1682 A0 841 x 1189 B0 1000 x 1414 C0 917 x 1297 A1 594 x 841 B1 707 x 1000 C1 648 x 917 A2 420 x 594 B2 500 x 707 C2 458 x 648 A3 297 x 420 B3 353 x 500 C3 324 x 458 A4 210 x 297 B4 250 x 353 C4 229 x 324 A5 148 x 210 B5 176 x 250 C5 162 x 229 A6 105 x 148 B6 125 x 176 C6 114 x 162 A7 74 x 105 B7 88 x 125 C7 81 x 114 A8 52 x 74 B8 62 x 88 C8 57 x 81 A9 37 x 52 B9 44 x 62 C9 40 x 57 A10 26 x 37 B10 31 x 44 C10 28 x 40 The most popular sizes are perhaps: A0 technical drawings A4 letters, magazines, documents A5 books C4,C5,C6 envelopes B4,A3 supported by many copy machines, newspapers There are also stripe formats possible, e.g. 1/3 A4 99 x 210 2/3 A4 198 x 210 1/4 A4 74 x 210 1/8 A4 37 x 210 1/4 A3 105 x 297 1/3 A5 70 x 148 etc. (The values have been copied from DIN 476 (Dec 1976) which is the German version of the ISO 216 standard). What is ISO 9000? ----------------- Q. I've seen recently announcements of several big companies in newspapers, where they tell their customers that they now conform to ISO 9000. What is ISO 9000? A. A standard for the development process of a product. Q. Why has ISO 9000 been written and what does it mean if a company claims to conform to ISO 9000 ? A. I think, it means that the product which carries the ISO 9000 certified mark has undergone a well-defined, well-engineered, well-monitored design/development/testing/production process. (This in turn is expected to imply that the product is not a result of some hap-hazard development and thus is of a superior quality.) The agency which registers a product as ISO registered expects that the business produce a "Quality Manual". They verify the manual against the ISO 9000 standards. Then they verify that the design/development/test etc. processes closely agree with what is mentioned in the Quality Manual, recommend corrective actions, if any, and after a few periodic (at least 6 monthly) assesments certify the product as an ISO 9000 registered product. Q. A few practical examples? Basically, it results in "Document everything you do" and "Do what you have documented". It is expected that there will be a documented procedure for everything that is done in the design/development/testing of a product. The ISO inspectors are quite meticulous about these things. (I heard some of the ISO coordinators relating there experiences.) Key changes needed: o Training of the full time personnel to understand ISO 9000 standards, ISO Audit, etc. o Alerting all the employees of upcoming ISO audits and having periodic educational talks on how to work in a ISO framework. o Slowly changing the work habits of the employees so that: They do what is documented and the document says exactly what they are doing. Key considerations: o Financial commitment involved in getting ISO registed. (Close to $20k per product over a 2 year period in external costs + internal costs in training people work hours lost during the audits (3-5 days a years) + cost of the QC department). [Figures based on UL's ISO 9000 registration figures.] o Will the employees be happily willing to work in this tight "document everything you do" framework? Advantages: o "ISO approved" seems to be a green signal for the European customers to buy a product. If ISO 9000 is forseen as a "way to go" for the future in US/World then it would be a good idea to start early. [I wish to thank Sandeep Phadke , who attended a seminar on ISO 9000 recently, for this USENET interview.] What's the address of my national standard body? ------------------------------------------------ The address of the ISO headquater is: International Organization for Standardization Case postale 56 1, rue de Varembe CH-1211 Geneve 20 Switzerland national (022) 749 01 11 (In correct and complete Telephone ------------------------------- CCITT E.123 notation :-) international +41 22 749 01 11 Telefax +41 22 733 34 30 Telex 41 22 05 iso ch Telegrams isorganiz And here comes a list of the current 91 member bodies of ISO. According to ISO regulations, only one organization "most representative of standardization in its country" is allowed to be ISO member body in each country. Revisions to the following addresses are announced in the monthly ISO Bulletin. Each Organization with a '*' is a sales agent for ISO publications in its country. Albania (DSMA) * Drejtoia e Standardeve dhe e Mjeteve Martese ne Ministrine e Ekonomise Bulevardi: Deshmoret e Kombit TIRANA TF 2 62 55 TX 42 95 koplan ab TG standardi tirana Algeria (INAPI) * Institut algerien de normalisation et de propriete industrielle 5, rue Abou Hamou Moussa B.P. 1021 - Centre de tri ALGER TP +213 2 63 51 80 TF +213 2 61 09 71 TX 6 64 09 inapi dz Argentina (IRAM) Instituto de Racionalizacion de Materiales Chile 1192 1098 BUENOS AIRES TP +54 1 383 37 51 TF +54 1 383 84 63 TX 2 60 86 iflex ar Australia (SAA) * Standards Australia P.O. BOX 458 NORTH SYDNEY - N.S.W. 2059 TP +61 2 963 41 11 TF + 61 2 959 38 96 TX 2 65 14 astan aa TG ausstandard north sydney ... Denmark (DS) * Dansk Standardiseringsraad Baunegaardsvej 73 DK-2900 HELLERUP TP +45 3977 0101 TF +45 3977 0202 TX 11 92 03 ds stand TG danskstandard Email ds@itc.dk ... [Well, typing this list becomes boring VERY quickly ... Perhaps someone else will volunteer or we wait until I feel really depressive and need a task like this. Do you know a list hacking expert who could finish these addresses in a free hour? I could fax you the list or scan and ftp you a 300dpi PostScript file of the 3 pages. Markus :-) ] References ---------- Carl F. Cargill Information Technology Standardization Theory, Process, and Organizations 1989 DEC Digital Press ISBN 1-55558-022-X The book gives a good survey of standardization in the realm of information technology. I wish to thank the following people and others for their contributions to this text (and the osi-protocols FAQ): David Gay Kit Lueder Don Provan David Torr See-Mong Tan Harald Tveit Alvestrand Kerry Raymond Alasdair Grant Lakshmoji Rao John A. Shriver Ketil Albertsen K.C. Chan Alex McKenzie John Levine Peter Desnoyers Keld Simonsen Bancroft Scott Bill Stallings <72500.3562@CompuServe.COM> Jutta Degener Norbert Gerfelder Kristy Brown Uwe Kunzler Sandeep Phadke [End of standards FAQ] -- Markus Kuhn, Computer Science student -=-=- University of Erlangen, Germany Internet: mskuhn@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de | X.500 entry available German postal code garbage collection finished. New ID: D-91080 Uttenreuth