Re: Confusion over character objects

[Robert W. Kerns <RWK at MIT-MC>]

#/ *NEVER* generates anything except fixnums.  In NIL, MACLISP of any flavor,
FRANZ, or LISPM.  The NIL syntax for character objects is ~x, not #/x.

The reason for character objects is that you can't tell that '111' is a
representation of a character by looking at it, let alone that it is 'o'.
It is not necessary to have character objects to have character-set
independence.  All that is required is that your references to whatever
representation of characters actually use that character so that converting
your source file converts the references.  #/o satisfies that.