FW: NBSP &c.

From: Lori Brownell (loribr@MICROSOFT.com)
Date: Mon Feb 10 1997 - 12:34:15 EST


See my comments below.

Thanks - Lori

Lori Brownell
Personal and Business Systems
Microsoft Corp.

> ----------
> From: unicode@Unicode.ORG
> Sent: Sunday, February 09, 1997 10:55:21 AM
> To: unicode@Unicode.ORG
> Subject: Re: NBSP &c.
> Michael Everson wrote:
> > Microsoft is a big, powerful, rich company with a huge market share.
> I am
> > constantly astonished to see such an important company release what
> looks
> > and feels like beta-ware on their captive audience. No, I'm not just
> trying
> > to bash Microsoft -- but even recently on this forum we've seen them
> > talking about how one of their products "sort of" supports Unicode.
> I'm
> > impatient for Unicode. ...
> >
> Since we're asking questions of vendors... I have a few about the
> Lucida
> Console Unicode font that comes with NT:
>
> . Are there different national versions of it?
> [Lori Brownell] No, there is only one font named Lucida Console.
>
> . How come the USA version does not include Hebrew or Arabic? I can
> understand the omission of CJK (because it is huge, not because it
> is
> not needed in the USA -- see, for example, any Chase Bank ATM in
> New
> York City...) but Hebrew and Arabic do not account for a large
> number
> of code positions, and there is certainly plenty of need for these
> scripts in the USA.
> [Lori Brownell] Because at the time this font was created NT did not
> support the layout and shaping required to support Hebrew and Arabic
> display. That will no longer be the case with the release of our
> Hebrew and Arabic versions of NT4, so we are investigating adding
> these glyphs to our collection of European fonts.
>
> . Does the version of Lucida Console that accompanies the Hebrew
> version
> of NT include Hebrew?
> [Lori Brownell] There is not a Hebrew version of NT in the market
> yet. The Beta is scheduled for release next month.
>
> . Does the version of Lucida Console that accompanies the Arabic
> version
> of NT include Arabic?
> [Lori Brownell] Same status as Hebrew.
>
> And so on... If indeed we have different versions in different
> countries,
> what is the explanation? Is there a size limitation?
> [Lori Brownell] There aren't different versions of Lucida Console.
>
> And most important:
>
> . At what point can we expect to find a reasonably well-populated
> Lucida
> Console font on any 32-bit Windows system?
> [Lori Brownell] Our font strategy is to subset fonts so that a single
> font has a reasonable collection of glyphs in it. By this I mean that
> our European collection will likely expand to include Hebrew and
> Arabic and that we are considering other groupings that make sense to
> include within a single font. Then we will use other technologies to
> enable full glyph coverage in a single font environment.
>
> - Frank
>
> P.S. About NBSP... You can type Alt-0160 on any Windows keyboard.
> Not
> pretty, but there you are.



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