Re: 026 keypunch

From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Tue May 22 2007 - 13:44:42 CDT

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    hsav@tbbs.net asked:

    > I was looking at "UnicodeData.txt", in hope of finding some of the queer
    > characters used for the IBM 1400s, 7090, 7040, and such, group mark,
    > record mark, numeric blank, .... Nothing matches. Are they there?
    >
    > Although these were controls, there were graphics, too, for them. The
    > record-mark looked like a sanserif double-dagger, and more symmetrical.
    > Another was made of a long stroke crossed by three short strokes, and a
    > third of a "b" with a stroke across its stem--the like of this had often
    > been among the marks used for a blank space when it was important to show
    > howmany there were in a character-string. One was made of two curved
    > strokes meetind at a point in the middle.

    What you are talking about are identified in the IBM Character
    Data Representation Architecture as the following GCID's:

    SM670000 Substitute Blank [That is the small b shape with slash.]

    SS950000 Record Mark [Vertical bar across two short horizontal bars]

    SS960000 Segment Mark [Horizontal bar across 3 short verticals]

    SS970000 Group Mark [Vertical bar across three short horizontal bars]

    The substitute blank is encoded in Unicode as:

    U+2422 BLANK SYMBOL

    The other 3 weren't explicitly encoded per se, but could be
    considered glyph variants for use with the graphic pictures
    for control codes, and in particular:

    U+241E SYMBOL FOR RECORD SEPARATOR
    U+241F SYMBOL FOR UNIT SEPARATOR
    U+241D SYMBOL FOR GROUP SEPARATOR

    respectively.

    The particular *shapes* for 2 of these glyphs were later added to
    Unicode as mathematical characters, so if you simply need to
    display the appropriate shapes, without concern for the mathematical
    or nonmathematical use of the symbols in question, you can
    use:

    U+29E7 THERMODYNAMIC [Vertical bar across two short horizontal bars]

    U+29FB TRIPLE PLUS [Horizontal bar across three short verticals]

    I don't know of an encoded symbol that has a vertical bar across
    three short horizontal bars, but in a pinch it could be
    represented as a sequence:

    <U+2261 IDENTICAL TO, U+20D2 COMBINING LONG VERTICAL LINE OVERLAY>

    --Ken



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