Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!tandem!netcom!rodent
From: rodent@netcom.COM (Ben Discoe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Help: Japanese font ????
Keywords: Japanese, Kanji
Message-ID: <1991Apr19.235515.21922@netcom.COM>
Date: 19 Apr 91 23:55:15 GMT
References: <1991Apr17.060136.12818@kcbbs.gen.nz> <5672@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 40

masaru@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Masaru Sugai) writes:

>In article <1991Apr17.060136.12818@kcbbs.gen.nz> Clarke_Anderson@kcbbs.gen.nz (Clarke Anderson) writes:
>>the japanese character set consists of over 2000 characters. i'd hate 
>                                             ---- 8000 and much more!
>>to be the one to creatre a font for it.

> It is a famous story among Japanese UNIX people that k14 font (14x14 bitmap
>Japanese font for X11)

14x14 seems a bit small for kanji!  I've seen the displays that Japanese
use, 16x16 font on a 640x400 screen giving 25 lines, 40 columns.  At this
size, the hirigana were very nice and the kanji just barely adaquate.
Also, 16x16 didn't allow for any decent spacing between characters, which
makes things confusing when you've got lines of complex kanji next to
each other.

>I wrote a conversion program which takes on .bnf font file and outputs 
>over 80 assembly programs each of which complies with a font source
>format found in Amiga Reference Manual.

Will this work with ANY .bnf files?  I've got an RS/6000 (AIX) with a
zillion fonts available to me.  With a bnf-to-Amiga or snf-to-Amiga
converted, we could grab a LOT of nice fonts.
Don't anybody tell me AIX fonts are proprietary.  I refuse to recognize
a "copyright" on something as basic as a font.  In fact, I find the idea
of copyrighted fonts hilarious.

>I just played with them to read Japanese
>mails home, and it is quite usable if you have hi-res screen and an extra
>1 MEG CHIP RAM. 

I (and undoubtably others) would love to get this font.  Could you make
it available somehow?

>-- Masaru Sugai:Use disclaimer. CIS 72050,2141:NeXT + A3000 = money-eater
>NEC Corporation:sugai@ccs.mt.nec.co.jp DORMANT:hardwired logic,machine language

----------
Ben in San Jose, programmer, ecologist, net radical, loony at large.