[msla]

Apparently, this is because of a standard they're required to conform to, not database software in specific:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40265929

> As far as I can tell, this isn't an issue with the specific database itself, but the standard they are required to record geographic data in, which the end of the article mentions as "BS 7666".

On the other hand, you’re naïve if you think English hasn’t already been simplified to fit on machinery such as typewriters and cheap printing presses. This process began long before computers.

[eesmith]

The Linotype machine supported fl, ff, ffi, ℔, œ, and æ. See https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Linotype... linked to from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine. Or see https://archive.org/details/LinotypeKeyboardPractice/page/n9... .

Even cheap printing presses could handle more than you think. Here's a type case layout from 1846, again with æ, œ, fl, ff, and ffi, fi and ffl. https://archive.org/details/printingapparatu00holtrich/page/... .

That book is for the "Parlour printing press [which] was invented by Mr. Cowper for the amusement and education of youth, by enabling them to print any little subject they had previously written, provided the printing did not exceed in size the dimensions of an ordinary duodecimo page, which measures about 5 inches by 3 inches."

[thaumasiotes]

Did it support þ? That would be the best-known example of written English being changed to accommodate a printing press rather than the other way around.

[eesmith]

No. But that doesn't really fit since þ had mostly died out by the 1300s, with only few remaining uses by Caxton's printing - long before the 1800s.

I also wouldn't call those typewriters or cheap printing presses.

[thaumasiotes]

Is there something relevant about the 1800s? I said þ was an example of the written language changing to accommodate the printing press, not changing to accommodate the 1800s.

[eesmith]

I had responded to msla's comment about "typewriters and cheap printing presses". Those didn't exist in the 1500s.

þ's disappearance from English is not due to either, though the lack of þ in available type faces was certainly an issue.

[thaumasiotes]

But the reference to "cheap printing presses" has to be interpreted as actually being a reference to type, as you have already done with your archive.org link. The press itself cannot either support or fail to support any graphical forms; there's no difference in the press whether you're using type or block printing.

Press quality issues are things like "are the surfaces flat" / "how much pressure can the press apply" / "how many pages can we press before running into a mechanical issue".

[calibas]

With the printing press it makes sense, there's physical constraints that make things very difficult if you want to support a huge number of different characters. Those limitations don't exist anymore though.

On one hand we have systems supporting Unicode and just about every character imaginable, it's an example of using technology to go beyond the limitations of the past. You could have a system that supports emojis on street signs, but instead we're going the opposite direction and introducing artificial limitations that are even more restrictive than 500 year-old technology.