Re: ASCII and Unicode lifespan

From: JFC (Jefsey) Morfin (jefsey@jefsey.com)
Date: Wed May 18 2005 - 21:48:37 CDT

  • Next message: Dean Snyder: "Stateful encoding mechanisms"

    At 17:13 18/05/2005, Philippe VERDY wrote:
    > > The motivation for the sqrt(2) ratio: if you fold a piece of A paper in
    > two, you get exactly an A piece. Thus you can print two A4 pieces side by
    > side on an A3 piece, without margins. If you scale up an A4 piece, you
    > can fit precisely an A3 piece, without margins (and conversely). Combine
    > the two, and you can print two A4 pieces side by side, scaled down, on
    > one A4 piece, without margins. Very convenient.
    > >
    > > The motivation for one of the A = 1 square meter: the metric system.
    > >
    > > The motivation for the actual dimensions: given the constraints above,
    > 297 x 210 is close to 270 x 210, the previously used common size (at
    > least in France). I don't know where that older standard comes from.
    >
    >I've never seen and used 21x27cm paper. If it has existed, it may be
    >because of bad spelling when commanding paper reams of 21x29,7cm.
    >Or because 21x27cm resulted from detachable bands of roughly 1.5cm with
    >glue on a standard A4 paper, or to avoid cutting the folded paper sheet
    >inserted in a DL envelop.

    21x27 became progressively obsolete after 21x29.7 it became the Government
    document size 1970 as part of European unification, taking the German
    system, as compatible with the Metric System. As documented. This made to
    change the furniture :-)

    BTW paper is defined by the wheight of an A0 page. "80" is the common
    quality used. Three A4 pages in an envelope can be sent with the standard
    post stamp.

    A point which may help some to better feel what canonical, implied,
    assumed, reference, etc. may mean when refering to relations between
    Unicode, ISO 10646, ISO 639, ISO15924 etc. : "1893: These [received] metric
    prototypes were declared "fundamental standards of length and mass" in the
    <http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/mendenhall.html>Mendenhall Order.
    Since that date [in the USA], the yard, pound, etc. have been officially
    defined in terms of the metric system." I am not sure many know that. The
    assumed canonical yard actually has the metter as a reference, for 112 years.
    jfc



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu May 19 2005 - 10:08:11 CDT