RE: [bug #56015] tty device should handle bullet character more intelligently

[Jeff Conrad]

> We already have the concept of a fallback character; it's what the .fchar
> request is for.  And an overstriking fallback is the very next thing in
> tty.tmac anyway.

I was aware of the fallback to \z+o; my observation is similar to yours:
nowadays, this usually results in ‘o’, which is recognizable because
I’ve become accustomed to it over the course of 30 years, but I think a
fallback to asterisk would be preferable because it’s generally more
common and therefore more immediately recognizable.

Subject to hearing the original rationale, I’d go even further and
eliminate the conditionals altogether—either the asterisk or lower-case
‘o’ is more recognizable as a bullet.  In any event, I wouldn’t restrict
a fix to utf8; I’d want it to apply to my cp1252.  I’d agree that cp1252
is a dinosaur that deserves to die, but it’s no worse than latin1, and
at least for now, there are issues with UTF-8 on Windows.

Jeff