On Aug 13, 2012, at 9:24 AM, Michael Everson wrote: > On 13 Aug 2012, at 14:04, Karl Pentzlin wrote: > >> Am Montag, 13. August 2012 um 14:24 schrieb Michael Everson: >> >> ME> On 13 Aug 2012, at 12:37, Karl Pentzlin wrote: >>>> Why is U+25CA ◊ LOZENGE in the "Mac OS Roman" character set (at 0xD7 = >>>> 215, and therefore contained in several common fonts like Arial or Times >>>> New Roman)? >> ME> Because they put it there in 1984. >> >> My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered that >> important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set with its >> limited space. > > Good luck?
I do not believe it was for accounting, logic, or mathematical use. It was included in the original "Macintosh" character set as shown in Figure 2 of the Font Manager chapter of Inside Macintosh, volume I (1985), but was not included in the shaded "mathematical" set in that figure. At that time it was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND. I think it may have been intended as an unfilled complement to the BLACK DIAMOND used as one of the Menu Manager user-interface elements at 0x11-0x14 in that figure. However, by the time of Inside Macintosh: Text in 1993, the character was shown with a shape more akin to that of U+25CA LOZENGE (see Figure 1-36, "The Standard Roman character set"). I do not have any definitive word on this since I was not involved in the creation of the original Macintosh character set. - Peter E
