Re: U+25CA LOZENGE - why is it in the "Mac OS Roman" character set (and therefore widespread in current fonts)?

From: Karl Pentzlin <karl-pentzlin_at_acssoft.de>
Date: 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. 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
Received on Mon Aug 13 2012 - 08:07:05 CDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Aug 13 2012 - 08:07:06 CDT