Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!apollo!oj
From: oj@apollo.HP.COM (Ellis Oliver Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Hershey fonts and X11
Keywords: X11 font
Message-ID: <47258461.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 30 Nov 89 14:18:00 GMT
References: <1888@onion.reading.ac.uk>
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Reply-To: oj@apollo.hp.com (Ollie Jones
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 26

In article <1888@onion.reading.ac.uk> isg@reading.ac.uk (Intelligent Systems Group) writes:
>Does anybody know about the availability of Hershey fonts under X11,
>OpenLook, Motif, etc?

Hershey pioneered computerized type by laboriously digitizing
letterforms in the form of short line segments or strokes.  To
render Hershey's fonts you need a pen-plotter, or you need to emulate
a pen-plotter on a screen by drawing line segments.

On the other hand, X11's fonts are all prerecorded rasters (except for
some emerging technology, similar to Royal fonts or Adobe Fontware
which turns outlines into rasters on the fly.)  So, if Hershey's fonts
are available for use with X11, they're probably not packaged as 
"fonts" in the X11 meaning of the word.  

A couple of vendors have implemented GKS packages layered on X11, and 
it is possible that they used Hershey's stroke fonts to draw scalable
type, but I don't know for sure.

People have told me that the X11R2 font complement (X11 fonts with names such
as vg-31 and vxms-37) appear to be rasterized versions of the Hershey
fonts.  I'm told that many of the XV11R2 font bitmaps came from Lisp Machines,
Inc., prior to the demise of that company.

Does anyone know the truth of these rumors?
/Ollie Jones


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