David W. Fenton wrote:
Did you read the rest of my post?
Yes, I read the remainder of your post, but I was not disagreeing with
your conclusion, so much as disagreeing with the information stream from
which you came to write the phrase "because they were created for
computer use". My original point was that the statement
The computer "innovation" was having nothing *but* fixed-width
numbers, whereas older fonts had both for use in different contexts.
ignored older devices where the innovation you assert was due to the
computer, were actually made. For example, the typewriter, like the
computer, had the "innovation" of a limited subset of about 88 (plus or
minus a few) characters. Also, my answer was informed by my something I
observed when consulting a reprint of an old edition (I think 1896) of
the ATF typeface catalog by Garland Press, and by a difference in word
usage. Where we use the word font somewhat loosely today to mean a
collection of characters designed to have a cohesive use, this is not
the standard printer's term used for that; in most instances what we
today call a "font", a printer would have called a "typeface", and the
printer would have used the word "font" to refer to a quantity of type
of a particular typeface.
But after reviewing materials I own, including the books _Type / The
Designer's Type Book (Revised edition)_ by Ben Rosen and _The Designer's
Guide to Text Type"_, both published by Von Nostrand, I find that in
fact, the type specimen books suggest that numbers were (with a single
exception in each) constant width in each set I examined. The numerals
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 were all the same width, (based upon a
uniform distance from vertical centerline of one character to the next).
Only the "1" appears to have a different centerline than the others.
Computer fonts with both [constant and variable width numeral glyphs]
are becoming more common, but for 15 years or so, we lacked them in
most of the common fonts. *That* is vastly different from traditional
typography and was the result of a decision probably based on the
original 256-character limit to a font set.
The original limit of characters seems to have been fewer about ninety;
the number of keys on an old standard typewriter keyboard. From an
examination of the specimens in the above volumes, the standard font of
a typeface seems to have contained upper and lower case letters;
numerals; and punctuation: . , : ; ! ? ‘ ’ “ ” $ and & (plus a few
more), and ligatures for ff, fi, fl, ft, and sometimes ffl. Most of
these were used in the 88 key typewriter keyboard, and the set from the
typewriter keyboard, plus a couple of non printing control characters
(carriage return, line-feed,. tab, bell, &c) were adapted for the
teletype, and subsequently adapted by ASCII. So while the 256 character
set limit was a function of the design of early consumer computers in
the late 1970's, it was a substantial increase in the set of available
characters, and not a "limitation" at all.
So how can I bring this all back to a Finale connection? Well, music
types were among the largest fonts of characters available from type
vendors. Where a standard typeface contained 100 characters or fewer in
the font, spread across the "upper" and "lower" cases, a font of music
types contained more than three hundred types, spread across the
"upper", "lower", and "side" cases.
ns
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