U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)?
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On Aug 13, 2012, at 7:37 AM, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)? Do you have non-unicode fonts where it is located at 0xD7, instead of the × multiplication sign which should be there? I have 25CA in a large number of fonts on my machine.
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 13 Aug 2012, at 12:37, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)? Because they put it there in 1984. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
Am Montag, 13. August 2012 um 14:24 schrieb Michael Everson: ME On 13 Aug 2012, at 12:37, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)? ME Because they put it there in 1984. My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered that important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set with its limited space. The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the #, and I have to consider any historical use of the (real) lozenge when describing the # in a keyboard-related German publication I have to make. (The name Raute for # seems to derive from the International Telecommunication Union standard ITU-T E.161, which requires the name square, or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages for the sign on the lower right corner of 12-key telephone keypads, which is translated into Raute instead of literally Quadrat. The term square is also used that way in the name of U+2317 VIEWDATA SQUARE, which is a straight # like it is in fact shown on most telephone keypads.) - Karl
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
Karl Pentzlin, Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:04:24 +0200: Am Montag, 13. August 2012 um 14:24 schrieb Michael Everson: ME On 13 Aug 2012, at 12:37, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)? ME Because they put it there in 1984. My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered that important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set with its limited space. Mac fonts also included ƒ (LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK). This was due to the fact that names of folders used the name 'foo ƒ] - or 'foo U+0192', if you wish. It was, however, usually only when the system or an app created a folder name that the ƒ was added. Humans creating a folder name seldom added it, I think. So I suspect that U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE was used in some visible place in the system and/or in applications. I have used Mac since roughly System 7, but I don't remember what the U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE was used for. But I have a vague memory of having seen it in some outline - thus, where the bullets are used e.g. in HTML unordered lists (ul). If so, then it was a character that, like the ƒ, was not typed by users very often. The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the #, and I have to consider any historical use of the (real) lozenge when describing the # in a keyboard-related German publication I have to make. On my Norwegian Mac keyboard, I must type Option+Shift+A to get the ◊. And the difficult shortcut is another indication that it is not used very often. -- leif halvard silli
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 13 Aug 2012, at 15:20, Leif Halvard Silli wrote: Mac fonts also included ƒ (LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK). This was due to the fact that names of folders used the name 'foo ƒ] - or 'foo U+0192', if you wish. It was, however, usually only when the system or an app created a folder name that the ƒ was added. Humans creating a folder name seldom added it, I think. No, humans learnt to do it. And we still do: it's right there on alt-f on the US/GB/IE keyboards. It's unfortunate that this italic character which is really the same thing as the florin sign was unified with the African Ƒƒ because I am sure it makes fonts tend to be unsuitable for African use. In fact Just looking at it in this e-mail I see that my own ƒ is not really suitable, as it should be as long as a j. fjƒɲ. I[m going to go fix that. So I suspect that U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE was used in some visible place in the system and/or in applications. I have used Mac since roughly System 7, but I don't remember what the U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE was used for. But I have a vague memory of having seen it in some outline - thus, where the bullets are used e.g. in HTML unordered lists (ul). If so, then it was a character that, like the ƒ, was not typed by users very often. Less so than the ƒ, but many of us learnt to use the ƒ for our folder names. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
Michael Everson, Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:38:48 +0100: On 13 Aug 2012, at 15:20, Leif Halvard Silli wrote: Less so than the ƒ, but many of us learnt to use the ƒ for our folder names. I too learned to use the ƒ for folder names. But while I learned to do it, I seldom did it as it had no practical consequences whether I did user it or not. It appeared to be purely about esthetics. -- Leif Halvard Silli
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
The LOZENGE is also found in GOST 10859; my guess that it was there not to represent sown fields or female fertility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lozenge#Symbolism) but rather for its usage in modal logic to express the possibility of the following expression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lozenge#Modal_logic) as it contains quite a few other symbols used in mathematical logic. Leo On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 6:28 AM, Michael Everson ever...@evertype.com wrote: The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 13 Aug 2012, at 16:33, Leif Halvard Silli wrote: I too learned to use the ƒ for folder names. But while I learned to do it, I seldom did it as it had no practical consequences whether I did user it or not. It appeared to be purely about esthetics. Back in the days before Macs used filetype extensions it was handy to have a folder named Allatuq ƒ if your font was also named Allatuq. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Karl Pentzlin wrote: The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the # I learnt in 7th grade what “Raute” means. “#” is not a Raute. The center field of “#” is called Raute or Rhombus. BTW, Herr Pentzlin: http://www.machsmit.de/media/mainteaser/header-ichwillserleben.png http://www.machsmit.de/kampagne/printmedien.php show what the braindead German DIN keyboard layout has done to the apostrophe (’): Killed by the acute accent (´). http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/apostrophe.html But if you don’t understand the difference between a Raute and a Nummernzeichen, you probably can’t tell an apostrophe (’) from an acute accent (´) either.
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 13 Aug 2012, at 14:04, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Am Montag, 13. August 2012 um 14:24 schrieb Michael Everson: ME On 13 Aug 2012, at 12:37, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)? ME Because they put it there in 1984. My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered that important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set with its limited space. Good luck? The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the #, and I have to consider any historical use of the (real) lozenge when describing the # in a keyboard-related German publication I have to make. I don't think so. At http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raute_(Symbol) you will see that # is named Doppelkreuz, and ◊ is named Raute and indicates Subtotal. (The name Raute for # seems to derive from the International Telecommunication Union standard ITU-T E.161, which requires the name square, or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages for the sign on the lower right corner of 12-key telephone keypads, which is translated into Raute instead of literally Quadrat. The term square is also used that way in the name of U+2317 VIEWDATA SQUARE, which is a straight # like it is in fact shown on most telephone keypads.) Again, this does not seem to make sense given the use of # and ◊ and * on that 1970 adding machine. Perhaps that was a translation error in the ITU standard; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raute_(Symbol)#Raute_und_Doppelkreuz does address this, though I don't know if it addresses it in a satisfactory way. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 6:04 AM, Karl Pentzlin karl-pentz...@acssoft.dewrote: My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered that important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set with its limited space. The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the #, and I have to consider any historical use of the (real) lozenge when describing the # in a keyboard-related German publication I have to make. (The name Raute for # seems to derive from the International Telecommunication Union standard ITU-T E.161, which requires the name square, or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages for the sign on the lower right corner of 12-key telephone keypads, which is translated into Raute instead of literally Quadrat. The term square is also used that way in the name of U+2317 VIEWDATA SQUARE, which is a straight # like it is in fact shown on most telephone keypads.) This seems strange: # looks nothing like a Raute (=rhombus). If I remember correctly, it was sometimes called Gatter or Lattenzaun. However, I have not used German computers for 16 years... markus
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On Aug 13, 2012, at 9:24 AM, Michael Everson wrote: On 13 Aug 2012, at 14:04, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Am Montag, 13. August 2012 um 14:24 schrieb Michael Everson: ME On 13 Aug 2012, at 12:37, Karl Pentzlin wrote: Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the Mac OS Roman character set (at 0xD7 = 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman)? ME Because they put it there in 1984. My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered that important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set with its limited space. Good luck? I do not believe it was for accounting, logic, or mathematical use. It was included in the original Macintosh character set as shown in Figure 2 of the Font Manager chapter of Inside Macintosh, volume I (1985), but was not included in the shaded mathematical set in that figure. At that time it was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND. I think it may have been intended as an unfilled complement to the BLACK DIAMOND used as one of the Menu Manager user-interface elements at 0x11-0x14 in that figure. However, by the time of Inside Macintosh: Text in 1993, the character was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25CA LOZENGE (see Figure 1-36, The Standard Roman character set). I do not have any definitive word on this since I was not involved in the creation of the original Macintosh character set. - Peter E
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
Andreas Prilop, Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:09:44 +0200 (CEST): On Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Karl Pentzlin wrote: The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the # I learnt in 7th grade what “Raute” means. “#” is not a Raute. It is simpler to say what it is not than it is to say what it is ... (See below.) The center field of “#” is called Raute or Rhombus. ··· snip ··· But if you don’t understand the difference between a Raute and a Nummernzeichen, you probably can’t tell an apostrophe (’) from an acute accent (´) either. You should by more sympathetic to your own (German) misunderstandings - and also pay more attention to what Karl said here: ]] (The name Raute for # seems to derive from the International Telecommunication Union standard ITU-T E.161, which requires the name square, or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages [[ In Norwegian, the '#' on a phone keyboard is called 'firkanttast' = 'square key'. The name has always puzzled me as everyone can see that it isn't really what we usually mean by a square/quadrat/firkant/Viereck. But when I hear that is a result of an ITU standard, then I understand it better ... The word 'Raute' reminds of the Norwegian 'rute' - and my Norwegian book on etymology assumes that 'rute' is derived from 'Raute'. The Norwegian 'rute' may refer to a cell in a (data) table or in a square board for chess. Such a 'rute' is of course a square. Perhaps German 'Raute' has a similar possibility of being interpreted as square? Btw, the Norwegian for 'diamond', in the playing card sense, is 'ruter'. The 'ruter' in the playing card sense, is easily associated with 'rute' - in other words: square. However, we see that it is not a square, in the normal sense. The modern German name for diamond cards, Karo, geht auf lateinisch quadrum „Viereck, Quadrat“ zurück. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karo_(Farbe) -- Leif Halvard Silli
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 13 Aug 2012, at 18:09, Andreas Prilop wrote: On Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Karl Pentzlin wrote: The problem I am confronted with is that this character shares its German name Raute with the # I learnt in 7th grade what “Raute” means. “#” is not a Raute. The center field of “#” is called Raute or Rhombus. The German WP mentions that in the context of the now discontinued Bildschirmtext, it was called Raute: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelkreuz_(Satzzeichen) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildschirmtext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildschirmtext But otherwise, Raute is the same as English lozenge: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raute_(Symbol) Hans
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 8/13/2012 10:11 AM, Peter Edberg wrote: I do not believe it was for accounting, logic, or mathematical use. It was included in the original Macintosh character set as shown in Figure 2 of the Font Manager chapter of Inside Macintosh, volume I (1985), but was not included in the shaded mathematical set in that figure. At that time it was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND. I think it may have been intended as an unfilled complement to the BLACK DIAMOND used as one of the Menu Manager user-interface elements at 0x11-0x14 in that figure. However, by the time of Inside Macintosh: Text in 1993, the character was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25CA LOZENGE (see Figure 1-36, The Standard Roman character set). I do not have any definitive word on this since I was not involved in the creation of the original Macintosh character set. Adding on to Peter's information, in an attempt to be slightly more definitive... People are missing the fact that the lozenge as encoded at D7 in MacRoman, but *also* was E0 in the Symbol set for the Mac. And E0 in the Symbol set was mapped to lozenge in PostScript. So the proximate reason why U+25CA LOZENGE appeared in the Macintosh character sets can be laid at the feet of LaserWriter PostScript support, I suspect. We did consider, back in 1990, whether the MacRoman D7 should be mapped to U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND, instead, but the decision, for whatever reason, it was decided that MacRoman D7 and MacSymbol E0 were both lozenge. That may account for the shape change that Peter mentions in documentation from 1993. There is some early font information which suggests that the original intent, however, may have been to have an open diamond. If you look at high quality font documentation, e.g., the HP Book of Characters from 1992, the MC Text Symbol Set (12J) shows an open diamond shape at D7, instead of the lozenge. But the confusion regarding the identity of this character can be illustrated by comparing the MS: PS Math Symbol Set (15M), which shows an open diamond at E0, versus the AS: 'Symbol Symbol Set (19M), which shows a lozenge shape at the same position. Both of those fonts are clearly intended to cover the same set, although the glyphs are all separately designed. Settling on the lozenge may have had more to do with Adobe designs winning out, rather than anything else. An open diamond is also rather common in various mathematical pi fonts from the era, including Ventura Math, which was also closely related to the Adobe symbol encoding. Of course, it is a separate question as to why lozenge (or open diamond) was added to the MacRoman set in the first place, as well as the Symbol set -- that may have something to do with early notions about user-interface elements, as Peter surmises, but the fact that it wasn't carried over into most of the early non-Roman character sets for the Mac would indicate that even if it had been intended as a user-interface character of some sort, that was dropped in international usage. I agree with Peter that the choice probably had nothing much to do with accounting, logic, or math per se, except insofar as one of those usages may have figured into the choice of elements for the original PostScript symbol set. I can trace it back to a 1985 edition of the PostScript Language Reference Manual. If people *really* want to know what it was for, I would suggest starting there and digging back further into the documentation trail at Adobe Systems prior to 1985. John Warnock is still around -- somebody who knows him could presumably just ask him. ;-) Regarding another stray comment in this thread, Michael Everson said: The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437. That is definitely not true. Michael may be misremembering the diamond from the set of 4 card suit symbols, which definitely are in DOS CP437. --Ken
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 8/13/2012 12:25 PM, Ken Whistler wrote: Regarding another stray comment in this thread, Michael Everson said: The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437. That is definitely not true. Michael may be misremembering the diamond from the set of 4 card suit symbols, which definitely are in DOS CP437. Remember that CP 437 was implemented as rather low resolution bitmaps for onscreen display on screens that showed terminal-like appearance. In that context, you can't distinguish a lozenge from a squished diamond (*) from a diamond suit symbol. While the character is one a of a set, it was not uncommon to have people make do with somewhat similar characters standing in for each other. In the early years such unifications were, if not encouraged, then widely tolerated. So, even if the lozenge, as such, may not have been in CP437, anyone who wanted to display one, would have used the card suit. A./ (*) because of fixed character cells, some characters or symbols where a bit distorted to fit the cell, so if you saw a lozenge like shape you couldn't be sure that it wasn't intended to be a diamond that had be shoehorned into the character cell...
Apostrophe, and DIN keyboard (was: U+25CA LOZENGE)
Hello, am 2012-08-13 18:09, schrieb Andreas Prilop: http://www.machsmit.de/media/mainteaser/header-ichwillserleben.png http://www.machsmit.de/kampagne/printmedien.php show what the braindead German DIN keyboard layout has done to the apostrophe (’): Killed by the acute accent (´). DIN 2112 (from 1928) for mechanical typewriters had indeed no apostrophe key, due to lack of keys (remember: there are 4 more letters in the German alphabet than in the US-English one). However, this standard has been withdrawn, in 2002. DIN 2137 (from 1976) is for computers: These keyboards always had both the acute, and grave, accents, and the (ASCII) apostrophe. Andreas’ example does not present any evidence that an acute accent is involved. It could as well be a real U+2019 apostrophe, rendered in a slanted, sanserif font. As the text is presented in PNG, i. e. grafic, format, you really cannot tell the difference. Best wishes, Otto Stolz
German »Raute« (was: U+25CA LOZENGE)
Hello, am 2012-08-13 20:48, schrieb Leif Halvard Silli: The word 'Raute' reminds of the Norwegian 'rute' - and my Norwegian book on etymology assumes that 'rute' is derived from 'Raute'. The Norwegian 'rute' may refer to a cell in a (data) table or in a square board for chess. Such a 'rute' is of course a square. Perhaps German 'Raute' has a similar possibility of being interpreted as square? Btw, the Norwegian for 'diamond', in the playing card sense, is 'ruter'. The 'ruter' in the playing card sense, is easily associated with 'rute' - in other words: square. However, we see that it is not a square, in the normal sense. The modern German name for diamond cards, Karo, geht auf lateinisch quadrum „Viereck, Quadrat“ zurück. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karo_(Farbe) In German, »Raute« is a synonym of »Rhombus«, i. e. an equilateral quadrilateral. Hence, every »Raute« is a »Quadrat« (square), but not vice versa. (A square has also four equal angels.) Rhombuses are often depicted resting on a vertex, whilst squares are usually depicted resting on an edge. But the orientation of a geometrical shape really does not change its geometric features, nor its name. Best wishes, Otto Stolz
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
I joined the Lisa group in late '83, and that was soon absorbed into the Mac group. As I recall, the MacRoman character set was already done, based on the Lisa. This predated the laserwriter, so that wasn't the origin. The long 'f' was for use as a currency symbol (particularly for Gulden). I don't know where the lozenge came from, but the purpose was not for mathematical, logical, or accounting purpose (as Peter said). I believe the main purpose was as an alternate bullet shape. Mark https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033 * * *— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —* ** On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Ken Whistler k...@sybase.com wrote: On 8/13/2012 10:11 AM, Peter Edberg wrote: I do not believe it was for accounting, logic, or mathematical use. It was included in the original Macintosh character set as shown in Figure 2 of the Font Manager chapter of Inside Macintosh, volume I (1985), but was not included in the shaded mathematical set in that figure. At that time it was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND. I think it may have been intended as an unfilled complement to the BLACK DIAMOND used as one of the Menu Manager user-interface elements at 0x11-0x14 in that figure. However, by the time of Inside Macintosh: Text in 1993, the character was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25CA LOZENGE (see Figure 1-36, The Standard Roman character set). I do not have any definitive word on this since I was not involved in the creation of the original Macintosh character set. Adding on to Peter's information, in an attempt to be slightly more definitive... People are missing the fact that the lozenge as encoded at D7 in MacRoman, but *also* was E0 in the Symbol set for the Mac. And E0 in the Symbol set was mapped to lozenge in PostScript. So the proximate reason why U+25CA LOZENGE appeared in the Macintosh character sets can be laid at the feet of LaserWriter PostScript support, I suspect. We did consider, back in 1990, whether the MacRoman D7 should be mapped to U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND, instead, but the decision, for whatever reason, it was decided that MacRoman D7 and MacSymbol E0 were both lozenge. That may account for the shape change that Peter mentions in documentation from 1993. There is some early font information which suggests that the original intent, however, may have been to have an open diamond. If you look at high quality font documentation, e.g., the HP Book of Characters from 1992, the MC Text Symbol Set (12J) shows an open diamond shape at D7, instead of the lozenge. But the confusion regarding the identity of this character can be illustrated by comparing the MS: PS Math Symbol Set (15M), which shows an open diamond at E0, versus the AS: 'Symbol Symbol Set (19M), which shows a lozenge shape at the same position. Both of those fonts are clearly intended to cover the same set, although the glyphs are all separately designed. Settling on the lozenge may have had more to do with Adobe designs winning out, rather than anything else. An open diamond is also rather common in various mathematical pi fonts from the era, including Ventura Math, which was also closely related to the Adobe symbol encoding. Of course, it is a separate question as to why lozenge (or open diamond) was added to the MacRoman set in the first place, as well as the Symbol set -- that may have something to do with early notions about user-interface elements, as Peter surmises, but the fact that it wasn't carried over into most of the early non-Roman character sets for the Mac would indicate that even if it had been intended as a user-interface character of some sort, that was dropped in international usage. I agree with Peter that the choice probably had nothing much to do with accounting, logic, or math per se, except insofar as one of those usages may have figured into the choice of elements for the original PostScript symbol set. I can trace it back to a 1985 edition of the PostScript Language Reference Manual. If people *really* want to know what it was for, I would suggest starting there and digging back further into the documentation trail at Adobe Systems prior to 1985. John Warnock is still around -- somebody who knows him could presumably just ask him. ;-) Regarding another stray comment in this thread, Michael Everson said: The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437. That is definitely not true. Michael may be misremembering the diamond from the set of 4 card suit symbols, which definitely are in DOS CP437. --Ken
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
On 8/13/2012 12:50 PM, Asmus Freytag wrote: In that context, you can't distinguish a lozenge from a squished diamond (*) from a diamond suit symbol. While the character is one a of a set, it was not uncommon to have people make do with somewhat similar characters standing in for each other. In the early years such unifications were, if not encouraged, then widely tolerated. So, even if the lozenge, as such, may not have been in CP437, anyone who wanted to display one, would have used the card suit. Sure. Just like people regularly conflated the Greek letter beta and German esszet (E1) in CP437, which was placed between lowercase alpha (E0) and uppercase gamma (E2), just to further confuse everybody. ;-) But I wasn't looking at the screen of a 1984 vintage IBM PC in this case -- I was looking at the IBM Corporate Specification for character sets, which identifies CP437 position 04 as SS03 Diamond Suit Symbol. (And at high quality laser font documentation.) Incidentally, while people may have attempted to use CP437 04 as a lozenge instead of a card suit, in the 1980's they would have had little to no success in trying to exchange it, because the IBM PC overloaded the C0 positions in CP437 for screen display. So programs could poke 04 to the screen display to show a diamond shape, but when you tried to use that as an interchangeable character you usually ended up with garbage instead. --Ken
Re: German »Raute« (was: U+25CA LOZENGE)
Otto Stolz, Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:14:17 +0200: am 2012-08-13 20:48, schrieb Leif Halvard Silli: Norwegian 'rute' may refer to a cell in a (data) table or in a square board for chess. Such a 'rute' is of course a square. Perhaps German 'Raute' has a similar possibility of being interpreted as square? In German, »Raute« is a synonym of »Rhombus«, i. e. an equilateral quadrilateral. Hence, every »Raute« is a »Quadrat« (square), but not vice versa. (A square has also four equal angels.) Rhombuses are often depicted resting on a vertex, whilst squares are usually depicted resting on an edge. But the orientation of a geometrical shape really does not change its geometric features, nor its name. Thanks. If I ever learned that a rhombus could be a quadrat, then I had forgotten it. Conclusion: Another reason to not be too categorical about how irrelevant 'Raute' as name for the '#' might be. -- Leif Halvard Silli
Re: German »Raute« (was: U+25CA LOZENGE)
On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Otto Stolz otto.st...@uni-konstanz.dewrote: In German, »Raute« is a synonym of »Rhombus«, i. e. an equilateral quadrilateral. Hence, every »Raute« is a »Quadrat« (square), but not vice versa. The other way around, right? Every »Quadrat« (square, has right angles) is also a »Rhombus« (equilateral, but not necessarily right angles). markus
Re: German »Raute« (was: U+25CA LOZENGE)
2012/8/13 Otto Stolz otto.st...@uni-konstanz.de: Hello, am 2012-08-13 20:48, schrieb Leif Halvard Silli: The word 'Raute' reminds of the Norwegian 'rute' - and my Norwegian book on etymology assumes that 'rute' is derived from 'Raute'. The Norwegian 'rute' may refer to a cell in a (data) table or in a square board for chess. Such a 'rute' is of course a square. Perhaps German 'Raute' has a similar possibility of being interpreted as square? Btw, the Norwegian for 'diamond', in the playing card sense, is 'ruter'. The 'ruter' in the playing card sense, is easily associated with 'rute' - in other words: square. However, we see that it is not a square, in the normal sense. The modern German name for diamond cards, Karo, geht auf lateinisch quadrum „Viereck, Quadrat“ zurück. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karo_(Farbe) In German, »Raute« is a synonym of »Rhombus«, i. e. an equilateral quadrilateral. Hence, every »Raute« is a »Quadrat« (square), but not vice versa. (A square has also four equal angels.) Correction: * Every »Quadrat« (square) is a »Raute« (Rhombus), a Rhombus/Raute being not restricted to right angles. * Every »Raute« (Rhombus) is also a lozenge, a lozenge being not necessarily equilateral like a Raute/Rhombus, but having two pairs of two connected equal vertices. So a »Quadrat« (square) is also a lozenge (as well as being also a rectangle). But in Unicode, the names for the less restricted shapes are not refering to the particular, more restricted cases : these specific cases are used to differenciate these restrictions: So the shape of a lozenge character should not have right angles (otherwise it will be a square character, independantly of its rotation), and thus its diagonals should have different lengths. The rotation of a lozenge or a square will be significant and should be encoded distinctly (if they are laying on an horizontal vertex, or if they have their diagonals oriented horizontally and vertically). It may happen that the lozenge or square is slightly sheared when shown in italic style or oblique style, with some fonts or with renderers synthetizing these styles (in that case their diagonals would no longer be orthogonal).
Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the Mac OS Roman character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?
For African use as a Latin letter, it's unfortunate that most fonts show ƒ (LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK) in italic style, as if it was a florin symbol. This letter should better be vertically straight, like an f with just the hook added below, and adopting an italic style only in italic fonts, not in roman fonts. Only the florin sign should remain italic and thus disunified (its shape should not change significantly in italic fonts, as it could collide easily with surrounding digits or could become too large to fit in monospaced cells for digits with standard figure-width). A renderer using a font that does not have a mapping for the florin sign should be able to synthetize it by italicizing the vertical shape of the LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK, or better by using the mapping of that letter in an italic variant font in the same font family. 2012/8/13 Michael Everson ever...@evertype.com: On 13 Aug 2012, at 15:20, Leif Halvard Silli wrote: Mac fonts also included ƒ (LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK). This was due to the fact that names of folders used the name 'foo ƒ] - or 'foo U+0192', if you wish. It was, however, usually only when the system or an app created a folder name that the ƒ was added. Humans creating a folder name seldom added it, I think. No, humans learnt to do it. And we still do: it's right there on alt-f on the US/GB/IE keyboards. It's unfortunate that this italic character which is really the same thing as the florin sign was unified with the African Ƒƒ because I am sure it makes fonts tend to be unsuitable for African use. In fact Just looking at it in this e-mail I see that my own ƒ is not really suitable, as it should be as long as a j. fjƒɲ. I[m going to go fix that.
