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

From: Peter Edberg <pedberg_at_apple.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:11:59 -0700

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
Received on Mon Aug 13 2012 - 12:15:09 CDT

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