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

On 8/13/2012 12:25 PM, Ken Whistler wrote:
> Regarding another stray comment in this thread, Michael Everson said:
>
> "The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437."
>
> That is definitely not true. Michael may be misremembering the diamond
> from the
> set of 4 card suit symbols, which definitely are in DOS CP437.

Remember that CP 437 was implemented as rather low resolution bitmaps
for onscreen display on screens that showed terminal-like appearance.

In that context, you can't distinguish a lozenge from a squished diamond
(*) from a diamond suit symbol.

While the character is one a of a set, it was not uncommon to have
people make do with somewhat similar characters standing in for each
other. In the early years such "unifications" were, if not encouraged,
then widely tolerated.

So, even if the lozenge, as such, may not have been in CP437, anyone who
wanted to display one, would have used the card suit.

A./

(*) because of fixed character cells, some characters or symbols where a
bit distorted to fit the cell, so if you saw a lozenge like shape you
couldn't be sure that it wasn't intended to be a diamond that had be
shoehorned into the character cell...
Received on Mon Aug 13 2012 - 14:53:06 CDT