RE: Vertical bar translation

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom Liotta)]

midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   6. RE: Vertical bar translation (Vern Hamberg)
>
>Tom, I don't know whether this'll make sense, but it's straight from the 
>Printer Device Programming manual, which has a lot on fonts, etc., in 
>Appendix D.
>
>>Character sets are used with code pages to determine how each character 
>>will appear in the printed output. Code pages consist of hexadecimal 
>>identifiers (code points) assigned to character identifiers.
>
>As I understand this, a character set is all the possible characters in a 
>font, which IBM identifies as a type family (Sonoran Serif, e.g.), a 
>typeface (bold compressed), and a type size (10 pt) - Sonoran Serif 10 pt bold.

Vern:

The first quoted sentence is probably where I first got an inkling of 
"character set" to distinguish a piece of the whole puzzle.

That manual is the one I've gone back to over and over and over to resolve 
specific issues. Your added comments illustrate some of the problem. In order 
to discuss what _seems_ like should be a straightforward concept -- a 
"character set" -- we already have to consider four additional concepts: fonts, 
type families, typefaces and type sizes. Granted, these are generally somewhat 
known, but there's no good discussion of anything in that manual that seems to 
be linked to concrete, real-world examples. Or maybe I've just never read it 
cover to cover. (Snore....zzzzzzz...)

After going through it often enough, I came up with my internal idea of what 
"character set" means. I really hope somebody can step up and be the Scott 
Klement of CCSIDs, etc., and present a comprehensible discussion. This stuff 
cries out for FAQ entries. I'm pretty sure the same troubles arise on every 
platform.

Tom Liotta

-- 
Tom Liotta
The PowerTech Group, Inc.
19426 68th Avenue South
Kent, WA 98032
Phone  253-872-7788 x313
Fax    253-872-7904
http://www.powertech.com


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