I joined the Lisa group in late '83, and that was soon absorbed into the Mac group.
As I recall, the MacRoman character set was already done, based on the Lisa. This predated the laserwriter, so that wasn't the origin. The long 'f' was for use as a currency symbol (particularly for Gulden). I don't know where the lozenge came from, but the purpose was not for mathematical, logical, or accounting purpose (as Peter said). I believe the main purpose was as an alternate bullet shape. Mark <https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033> * * *— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —* ** On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Ken Whistler <k...@sybase.com> wrote: > On 8/13/2012 10:11 AM, Peter Edberg wrote: > >> 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. >> > > Adding on to Peter's information, in an attempt to be slightly more > definitive... > > People are missing the fact that the lozenge as encoded at D7 in MacRoman, > but *also* was E0 in the Symbol set for the Mac. And E0 in the Symbol set > was mapped to "lozenge" in PostScript. So the proximate reason why U+25CA > LOZENGE > appeared in the Macintosh character sets can be laid at the feet of > LaserWriter > PostScript support, I suspect. > > We did consider, back in 1990, whether the MacRoman D7 should be mapped > to U+25C7 WHITE DIAMOND, instead, but the decision, for whatever reason, > it was decided that MacRoman D7 and MacSymbol E0 were both lozenge. That > may account > for the shape change that Peter mentions in documentation from 1993. > > There is some early font information which suggests that the original > intent, > however, may have been to have an open diamond. If you look at high quality > font documentation, e.g., the HP Book of Characters from 1992, the "MC Text > Symbol Set (12J)" shows an open diamond shape at D7, instead of the > lozenge. > But the confusion regarding the identity of this character can be > illustrated by > comparing the "MS: PS Math Symbol Set (15M)", which shows an open diamond > at E0, versus the "AS: 'Symbol" Symbol Set (19M)", which shows a lozenge > shape > at the same position. Both of those fonts are clearly intended to cover the > same set, although the glyphs are all separately designed. Settling on the > lozenge > may have had more to do with Adobe designs winning out, rather than > anything > else. > > An open diamond is also rather common in various mathematical pi fonts from > the era, including Ventura Math, which was also closely related to the > Adobe > symbol encoding. > > Of course, it is a separate question as to why lozenge (or open diamond) > was added > to the MacRoman set in the first place, as well as the Symbol set -- that > may > have something to do with early notions > about user-interface elements, as Peter surmises, but the fact that it > wasn't carried > over into most of the early non-Roman character sets for the Mac would > indicate that > even if it had been intended as a user-interface character of some sort, > that was > dropped in international usage. > > I agree with Peter that the choice probably had nothing much to do with > accounting, logic, > or math per se, except insofar as one of those usages may have figured > into the choice > of elements for the original PostScript symbol set. > > I can trace it back to a 1985 edition of the PostScript Language Reference > Manual. > If people *really* want to know what it was "for", I would suggest > starting there and > digging back further into the documentation trail at Adobe Systems prior > to 1985. > John Warnock is still around -- somebody who knows him could presumably > just > ask him. ;-) > > > Regarding another stray comment in this thread, Michael Everson said: > > "The LOZENGE is also found in DOS code page 437." > > That is definitely not true. Michael may be misremembering the diamond > from the > set of 4 card suit symbols, which definitely are in DOS CP437. > > --Ken > > > >