[tex-live] Technical showstoppers for TL2003

[Karl Berry]

    test file.  With TL2003, you get  ^^e9 printed instead of 'é',
    with TL7 you got 'é' printed as expected.

Is the lmodern package crucial to this test?  I do not have lmodern
installed in my TL7 (since it didn't exist at the time).

When I comment out \usepackage{lmodern} and run your test8bit.tex with
my TL7 latex (with no cmdline options) under linux, the resulting
test8bit.exa file uses ^^e9 (and so does TL2003), unlike your result.
Any idea on what the difference could be?

    that the option '-translate-file=cpx8bit.tcx' should  somehow be

Do you mean cp8bit.tcx in particular?  I don't see cpx8bit.tcx nor any
other cp*8bit.tcx files, although there are many cp*.tcx files.

I could imagine programming a default of cp8bit.tcx easily enough,
but won't that cause incompatibilities in other ways?  I mean, how about
a simple plain TeX:
\immediate\openout1 = foo.exa
\write1{L'été est fini.}

Does that write ^^ notation for you?  It does for me, in both TL7 and
TL2003, and that is good, because that is what the TeXbook says should
happen.

Thanks,
k