RE: Odp: RE: What to do if a legacy compatibility character is defective?

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 15:04:04 -0700 

The characters  1FB70—1FB81 1FBB5—1FBB8 1FBBC , as specified in Unicode 
13.0—17.0, are defined with 1÷8 blocks. This implies that the blocks span 1÷8 
of the width or height of the character cell, which is subject to the geometric 
alignment relative to the character cell bounding box, and not subject to font 
variation. From a typographical standpoint, this is equivalent to a 1×8, 8×1, 
or 8×8 bitmap being stretched to the size of the character cell. However, some 
of the legacy computing platforms that the characters were intended for use 
strokes of a different thickness than 1÷8 width or height, subject to font 
variation, and therefore contradict the Unicode definition of those characters. 
This makes the characters unusable for representing text from those platforms.  
 Dnia 24 października 2025 23:42 Erkki Kolehmainen 
<[email protected]> napisał(a):  I, for one, fail to understand 
why the thickness of a box drawing character (line) would constitute a 
fundamental distinction.  As far as I understand, such differences
 fall indeed in the category of font variation. In most cases, I trust, the 
original users didn’t even know the exact values; they just wanted to draw a 
box. So, please…     Sincerely Erkki I. Kolehmainen       From:  Unicode 
<[email protected]>  On Behalf Of  [email protected] 
via Unicode    Sent:  perjantai 24. lokakuuta 2025 23.56    To:  unicode 
<[email protected]>    Subject:  Pd: Odp: RE: What to do if a 
legacy compatibility character is defective?    How is it a “proper 
explanation,” to claim that 'No evidence of a document that would make a 
distinction between the corresponding characters in the different code pages 
was provided.', when the proposal already thoroughly explains the
 distinction?     How is it a “proper explanation,” to claim that 'The 
document is making glyph distinctions, while the Unicode standard is based on 
character identities.' when the proposal already clearly explains how the 
legacy characters differ in their
 fundamental identity from their Unicode counterparts?     How is it a “proper 
explanation,” to make a claim that the issues 'can be solved by using 
appropriate fonts' when the proposal already makes it clear that they 
can't?     I don't see any logic in that response.     Dnia 24 
października 2025 22:17 Doug Ewell via Unicode <  [email protected] 
> napisał(a):   [email protected]  wrote:     The response to this 
proposal in L2/25-010 is fundamentally logically  incorrect and does not 
provide any feedback whatsoever.     Here is the Script Encoding Working 
Group’s response to Piotr’s proposal, in its entirety:     “We received a 
proposal requesting a disunification of some of the legacy computing box 
drawing characters. The proposal seeks encoding a character that is one pixel 
different from U+1CE2B LARGE TYPE PIECE DIAGONAL UPPER RIGHT, and encoding
 26 characters of box drawing lines for PETSCII and Apple II whose glyphs 
differ in thickness from the characters already encoded in the Symbols For 
Legacy Computing and Box Drawing blocks.     “We deem the differences 
demonstrated in the proposal to not constitute differences in plain text. No 
evidence of a document that would make a distinction between the corresponding 
characters in the different code pages was provided.     “The request appears 
to come from a misunderstanding of the standard. The document is making glyph 
distinctions, while the Unicode standard is based on character identities. It 
is not a goal of the standard to harmonize PETSCII and Apple
 II code pages. The issues raised in the proposals can be solved by using 
appropriate fonts and as such no action is recommended to be taken.”     If 
there is no “feedback,” it is because SEW essentially rejected the proposal on 
its premise.     In that response, terms like 'differences in plain 
text', 'glyph  distinctions', 'character identities' or 
'appropriate fonts' are  thrown around as buzzwords, completely defying 
all logic.     Uh, OK.     SEW is the body responsible for evaluating all 
non-Han encoding proposals. They probably know a thing or two about plain text 
and glyph distinctions and such.     My take is that Piotr did indeed receive a 
“proper explanation,” just not the one he wanted.     The assumption that the 
SEW 'probably know a thing or two about plain text and glyph distinctions 
and such' is an appeal to authority fallacy. I'm not the kind of type 
designer that worships authorities. I'm more of an independently thinking
 type designer, so I need the arguments to be more specific. I would rather get 
reasonable logical arguments as to why specifically light box drawings are 
supposedly equivalent to 1÷8 blocks, or why 1÷4 block thickness in C64 is 
equivalent to 1÷8 blocks in
 Unicode, etc. not some vague claims that they do 'not constitute 
differences in plain text'. Otherwise, what's stopping the SEW from 
claiming that any non-Han proposed character is no different from some random 
encoded character and rejecting any proposals
 on their premise?     --  Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org

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