Foobar

Yes it's possible. NMDC is ASCII, which is a subset of UTF-8. It's just that DC++ and its derivatives seem to have so limited capabilities regarding the different character set codings - can you even choose the set you'd like to use? In Valknut I have been using UTF-8 successfully.

It's the original protocol, so of course it's old. And that is good; it's stable and functional. Maybe ADC is the future (maybe not), but it doesn't mean that DC as such should be killed. They can co-exist.

Yes it is the real specification. How could have the hub and client coders ever been able to code new DC software, if there hadn't been any specification. The specification defines the protocol. True; it was not an open specification by the author of DC, but it was reverse engineered afterwards. True; it is not a real standard, but more like a de-facto standard. Right, and to be able to co-operate, a certain protocol has to be followed. Definitively a single client programmer (the author of DC++) should not have broken the DC compatibility with other clients. I just wonder when he's going to remove the capability to connect to DC hubs. He's going for ADC...

Well, in DC world I like to prefer DC compatible clients. Valknut is fully compatible with DC so it's a good choice. DC++ is leaning towards ADC and is not DC compatible anymore. Same with ApexDC++; does not fulfill the DC specification. Here's the DC protocol specification: http://kjarni.cc/files/dc/dcprot.htm If a client is not compatible with DC, it should not be allowed on DC hubs... plain and simple. DC as DC, ADC as ADC, why should they be mixed?

Debian GNU/Linux with XFCE window manager. Dual desktop; the blue one is on TV actually.

Balder, click with 2nd mouse button on any chat window and choose Text Encoding for input and output. There are several character sets available. (I'm talking about the Linux version, I'm not sure if it's the same in Windows.)

Pedja is correct. (He already explained it quite well.) This whole "fixed character set" issue is maybe a fault in DC++ itself, and not directly ApexDC++ related. Just like in IRC, a DC client should include an option to choose the character set to be used, because the used protocol (DC) does not define it in any way. For example Valknut has this option.