Re: Terminal Graphics Proposal

From: Frank da Cruz (fdc@watsun.cc.columbia.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 01 1998 - 10:27:25 EDT


> > Unicode already has a block of Control Pictures at U+2400 through U+2421,
> > but (except for "NL" at U+2424) these go horizontally across the character
> > cell, rather than diagonally, thus making them difficult to distinguish
> > from normal alphanumeric text. A new, parallel block of C0 control
> > pictures is needed in which the abbreviations are displayed diagonally.
>
> That's a glyph variation - the Unicode Standard explicitly states that
> you can use whatever preferred glyph you like for these. Indeed, IIRC,
> ISO 10646-1 has considerably different suggested glyphs for these characters.
>
My concern is that the pictures in the Unicode book go horizontally. Although
I do not claim to be an expert on Unicode fonts, I have never seen one that
implemented this block, so I don't actually know how it looks. However, I'd
say that the horizontal arrangement would make it extremely difficult for the
viewer to discern the cell boundaries, as in:

  NULSOHSTXETXEOTENQACKBELDELNAKSYNETBCANSUBESCCANACKSSASS3SPAEPACSISCI

And thus, at minumum, the table in the book should be altered to show all
control pictures arranged diagonally, and all future control picture additions
should also be arranged that way.

> > E0F0 Reverse Question Mark DEC VTxxx, Wyse, Televideo (1)
>
> I would suggest U+FFFD for this.
>
U+FFFD means "this character is not in Unicode" (or in this font), which is
not quite the same meaning as "this character is illegal in this context"
on the VT terminals. Anyway, reverse question mark is a regular glyph
character on the Wyse and Televideo models.

- Frank



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