On the possibility of encoding a portable interpretable object code into Unicode

From: William_J_G Overington (wjgo_10009@btinternet.com)
Date: Tue Mar 24 2009 - 09:31:15 CST

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    I am hoping that one day a portable interpretable object code will be added to regular Unicode.

    If that happens, then it would be added into a high plane of Unicode, perhaps plane 12.

    Each code point used in the portable interpretable object code would represent a command to a virtual machine that would be obeyed by the application program, such as a document reader, that processed the Unicode characters as software. Thus dynamic illustrations and indeed interactive illustrations could be added into a text document using a non-proprietary format that is also in Unicode plain text format. This could perhaps have far-reaching implications for the future of information technology.

    Is anyone interested in such a development of encoding non-text items as Unicode characters please?

    Adding a portable interpretable object code to regular Unicode will not be an easy goal to achieve and could take quite a time to achieve, yet it is a goal that I feel would be worthwhile to achieve.

    I have carried out some experiments using an encoding in Plane 15, which is Supplementary Private Use Area-A. I have made a font and I have used Microsoft WordPad in order to save a short test program as a file of plane 15 characters encoded in UTF-16 format. I have not, however, implemented a program to interpret the code points as software.

    Some readers might like to have a look at the following thread, from where the font and some other files are available. Please note that I started using plane 0 and later moved the encoding to plane 15 so that a high plane was being used.

    http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2364

    However, that is an experimental system, trying out the concept: a system to be encoded in regular Unicode would need much research and development effort by many people in order to achieve the best system possible.

    So, this is a note that will hopefully produce interest in the idea and hopefully some progress.

    William Overington

    24 March 2009

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