Let me try this again, since I botched some of my reply to Davide. I
should have included the materials in angle brackets when I originally
wrote
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 <font>) 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
<distance from the centerline of adjoining charcacters from it's
centerline to the> centerline <of an adjoining character> 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 <dozen> non
printing control characters (carriage return, line-feed,. tab, bell,
&c) <to bring the number of characters up to 128> were adapted for the
teletype, and subsequently adapted by ASCII. <While early PC's had 128
more characters than the ASCII set ("extended ascii") until the ANSI
standardization, there was not standardized set of characters.>
Where I wrote:
So while the ANSI 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 would have been more correct to say:
"The ANSI 256 Character limit was a standardization of it's
non-standardized predecessors, but was a significant increase in the set
of available characters, whether compared with the 128 character ASCII
set, or with the typical font of a Typeface. Granted, many of the
characters adapted for the upper 128 characters in the 256 character set
were adapted from printer's symbols, but these symbols were never part
of a standard type font, but rather, were included in sets of their own,
like the "Wingdings" set that accompanies Windows, which were sized to
the same sizes as the type with which they were used, but which were not
part of standard text fonts."
ns
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