Russian numero sign

[Paul Pogonyshev]

Activate `russian-computer' input method and type S-3 (i.e. the hash
sign on US English layout.)  This inputs Russian numero sign, which
looks like capital latin `N' with a small underlined circle by the
right side.  (AFAIK, it was also used in French typography before.)

Now, Emacs puts this character in the buffer (output of
`describe-char'):


  character: � (3696, #o7160, #xe70)
    charset: cyrillic-iso8859-5 (Right-Hand Part of Latin/Cyrillic Alphabet 
(ISO/IEC 8859-5): ISO-IR-144.)
 code point: #x70
     syntax: .  which means: punctuation
   category: y:Cyrillic
   to input: type "#" with russian-computer
buffer code: #x8C #xF0
  file code: not encodable by coding system mule-utf-8-unix
    display: by this font (glyph code)
     -ETL-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-C-80-ISO8859-5 (#xF0)


Which means that you cannot save this character into an UTF-8 file
even though UTF-8 is meant to be able to encode anything in Unicode.

There is actually a Unicode character `numero sign', U+2116, which I
can type in other desktop applications (probably through XIM) by
the same Shift-3 combo with Russian layout.  When copied into Emacs,
this character is displayed as a box (i.e. no glyph for it is found)
and is described like this:


  character: № (342742, #o1235326, #x53ad6, U+2116)
    charset: mule-unicode-0100-24ff (Unicode characters of the range 
U+0100..U+24FF.)
 code point: #x75 #x56
     syntax: w  which means: word
buffer code: #x9C #xF4 #xF5 #xD6
  file code: #xE2 #x84 #x96 (encoded by coding system mule-utf-8-unix)
    display: by this font (glyph code)
     -Adobe-Courier-Medium-R-Normal--17-120-100-100-M-100-ISO10646-1 (#x2116)


So, is there an easy way to fix Emacs to input the Unicode character
instead of that 3696 or make them same character somehow?  It is kind
of annoying that I cannot input the numero sign in an UTF-8 buffer
even though I have a key for it on the keyboard.  I don't really care
if the glyph is not found, it is probably a deficiency in the font,
not Emacs, but I think UTF-8 unencodable characters is something that
should not exist at all, especially when you have the corresponding
Unicode character.

Paul