chunk of https://github.com/LAStools/LAStools/commit/4fd9a353cb4405ca6ab3edc58b80d7430bb99d05
Index: src/lasindex.cpp
--- src/lasindex.cpp.orig
+++ src/lasindex.cpp
@@ -143,7 +143,7 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
     for (i = 1; i < argc; i++)
     {
-      if (argv[i][0] == '�') argv[i][0] = '-';
+      if (argv[i][0] == 0x96) argv[i][0] = '-';
     }
     if (!lasreadopener.parse(argc, argv)) byebye(true);
   }
