Re: Unit Scaling Prefixes: (was Birthday Wish)

[paul o johnson <pojhome@FLASH.NET>]

Wow!!! You've told me more about computers than I ever imagined, Phil; more, in
fact, than I really want to know about them. I hope to God I can continue to be a
good physics instructor without delving any deeper into these mysteries. Thanx a
bunch.

poj

Phil Parker wrote:

> > Date:    Thu, 15 Apr 1999 15:16:42 -0500
> > From:    paul o johnson <pojhome@FLASH.NET>
> >
> > Now wait a minute, Phil. All applications by all developers interpret the A
> > key as
> > the Roman letter A in English fonts and as the Greek letter alpha in Symbol
> > font,
> > do they not?
> I assume you refer to PostScript fonts here. The ability to use them at all is
> app-dependent.  If you fixed the apps and fonts, you could use multiple
> keyboards -- one for each font (assuming your OS supported more than one).
>    But between the keyboard and the app is another layer, called the code page
> on PCs.  A developer could assume a different code page than you're using and
> the results would be amusing at best.  I think there are still more languages
> in the world than code pages.
>    A pressed key sends a signal, the code page interprets it into ASCII or
> some other convention, the result is passed to the app, and the app then
> interprets that result as some character in the current alphabet.
>
> > I routinely use only three word processing applications, but this
> > is
> > true in all three of them: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, and Adobe
> > Pagemaker. When I want a sigma, I type S, select it and change it to Symbol
> > font,
> > and I get a sigma.
> All three you mention can use PostScript fonts (Type I to be specific).
> And those two PostScript fonts have consistent tables just to enable that
> trick.  Compare Dingbats.
>
> > To my knowledge, all applications use the same relationship
> > between English and Greek letters.
> No, only those that are basing their relationship on those two PostScript
> fonts (or clones, such as TrueType or BaKoMa).  One could use a genuine Greek
> font and it might have a completely different encoding.
>
> > But even if they didn't, all applications would necessarily interpret a
> > separate alpha key as alpha, etc.
> Not necessarily; see, there's really no such thing as an alpha key.  It's ALL
> in the software.
>
> > What am I missing?
> Font tables, code pages (or the equivalent on Unix, Mac, etc.), and key codes.
> Also, key codes depend on the type of keyboard (AT, Sun, etc.).
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> Phil Parker        pparker@twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu
> Random quote for this second:
>   Parkinson's Fourth Law:
>   The number of people in any working group tends to increase
>   regardless of the amount of work to be done.