On 23 Oct 2006 at 15:26, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: [just a request: can you *please* put a blank line after the quote and before your reply? When you don't, my email client can't properly tell where the quotes end and the new text begins, and I end up having to completely rewrap everything; it's also harder to read!]
> 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. Well, it's not relevant with typewriters until the 1970s, because before that point all typewriters were fixed-pitch, so there was not any possibility of proportionally-spaced numbers. > 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. Yes, but does that change the meaning of the discussion? Our fonts are scalable, but for a printer, they had to have the entire character set reproduced in all the point sizes they wanted to use. I don't see how that fact makes any difference in the current discussion. > 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. That means they didn't have a fixed width. > > 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. Typewriters offered no variation in typeface until the 1950s or so, so I just don't see how this makes a difference. The point of comparison is not typewritten text, anyway, but TYPESET text. > 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. Because they didn't have to accommodate multiple languages, since most printers would have been printing in only one language. > 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. I disagree. With only 90 slots you had ligatures in one of the typefaces you describe. That's because it was a monolingual typeface so there was plenty of room to fit in extra characters. Computer fonts could have done the same things if they'd limited themselves to a single language. > 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. And we're still struggling with the 256-character limit in Finale because music fonts are still limited to that. I wonder how long it will be before we transition over to full Unicode font sets in everything? -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
