--- gforth/kernel/xchars.fs	2007/10/17 15:50:01	1.10
+++ gforth/kernel/xchars.fs	2007/12/31 18:40:26	1.13
@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 \ extended characters (either 8bit or UTF-8, possibly other encodings)
 \ and their fixed-size variant
 
-\ Copyright (C) 2005,2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+\ Copyright (C) 2005,2006,2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 
 \ This file is part of Gforth.
 
 \ Gforth is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 \ modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
-\ as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
+\ as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3
 \ of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 
 \ This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
@@ -16,8 +16,7 @@
 \ GNU General Public License for more details.
 
 \ You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-\ along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
-\ Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
+\ along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
 
 \ We can do some of these (and possibly faster) by just using the
 \ utf-8 words with an appropriate setting of max-single-byte, but I
@@ -83,11 +82,11 @@ Defer -trailing-garbage ( xc-addr u1 --
     over >r +x/string
     r> xc@ ;
 
-Create xholdbuf 8 allot
 : xhold ( xc -- )
     \G Put xc into the pictured numeric output
-    xholdbuf 8 xc!+? 2drop
-    BEGIN  1- dup  xholdbuf u>=  WHILE  dup c@ hold  REPEAT  drop ;
+    dup xc-size negate chars holdptr +!
+    holdptr @ dup holdbuf u< -&17 and throw
+    8 xc!+? 2drop drop ;
 
 \ fixed-size versions of these words