From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sat Aug 27 2005 - 13:54:35 CDT
From: "Curtis Clark" <jcclark-lists@earthlink.net>
> To me, the criterion has always been "Does it need to be exchanged
> electronically in plain text?" Although I have no interest in making a
> case for the pause symbol, I think a case could be made.
There are similar symbols that are used to mean ON/OFF which are commonly
used in lots of texts, as well as on various devices and their documentation
(although only rich text), such as lit on/lit off light bulbs (approximating
those with a sun symbol with rays, or with bullets or with checkboxes is not
adequate in plain-text). Quite similar symbols are used for audio
ACTIVE/MUTE (a white or black speaker, with or without sonor waves)
Similar symbols exist also for meaniong IN/OUT (generally an arrow entering
into or exiting from an open square box or open circle), for meaning
LOCKED/UNLOCKED (also used on some keyboards for the capslock key)
Add the logos used to identify connectors on PCs; see the symbols near your
USB, Firewire, Ethernet and modem/phone connectors, or that differenciate
mouse and keyboard PS/2 connectors, or near buttons to switch on/off the
radio devices: Wifi (antenna dish) and Bluetooth (its special 'B' logo), or
that differentiate audio connectors (micro input, speaker output, headphone
output, aux/line inputs...)
Add also the ramp symbols used for audio volume control (also used to
display the signal reception status on mobile phones), or for showing the
charge status of batteries (or simply their correct mounting orientation in
a battery conection box).
Then add the various logos used for showing compliance with various national
or international standards (look behind you PC, or at your AC/DC
adapter...).
And don't forget the common technical symbols used to mean AC (a horizontal
sine wave quite similar to the tilde symbol, but often shown over a dashed
line) or DC (a horizontal line over a 3-segment dashed line) power supplies
or plugs... Or the key symbols used on "multimedia keyboards" (such as the
Email key that shows a letter, but I think it is already encoding in
wingdings).
This list is infinite, because such new ideographs are regularly invented to
replace technical terms that general public will confuse. However, too many
of them are copyrighted logos attached to proprietary technologies, and
should not be encoded (for example the CD and DVD logos, or the RDS logo on
FM radios), or the Windows and Apple symbols on PC/Mac keyboards...
I would not be surprised if there were also symbols for printed postal
stamps.
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