Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!micor!taob
From: taob@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Brian Tao)
Subject: Re: How to generate all characters in a font?
Organization: M.B. Cormier INC.
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 91 04:26:15 EDT
Message-ID: <gyNa53w162w@micor.ocunix.on.ca>
References: <1991Jun25.083605.5712@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Sender: view@micor.ocunix.on.ca (View)

q4kx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Joel Sumner) writes:

> In article <15678@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>,
> mcgovern@handel.cs.colostate.edu (Mike McGovern) writes: 
> > I can't figure out how to generate all the characters a font may have.
> > A font can have 256 characters defined minus the first 32 (which are 
> > control characters or something) leaving 224 viewable characters.  There
> > are 47 keys that generate characters, and each of these can be used with
> > either the shift, option, or shift and option keys; giving 47x4= 188 charac
> > plus one for the space bar.  224-189 = 35 characters that can be defined 
> > but not generated.  How do you generate those 35 characters?  Thanks.  Late
> 
> You forgot something.  Remember that 00-31 can be created through control 
> characters right?  Now try OPTION Control.  That will give you another 32
> characters.  I don't know where the other 3 got lost.  Probably 1 more for
> Option-Space.

    From Mike's post, it sounds like he's been using the Standard 
translation table for extended ASCII.  Does option-control even work?  I 
thought only the Shift key worked in conjunction with the Option key (for 
printable characters, that is).  The characters he couldn't find are 
probably the accented lowercase letters.  Like `a which is option-` and then 
'a'.  In fact, there are probably exactly 35 such 'dual-key' combinations.
> 
> 
> There is one other little thing that Apple did to make our life a little more
> interesting.  They put in something called 'key translation' into System 5.0.
> This remaps keys to more 'logical' equivalents.  For example, Option-Shift-8
> is converted from the ASCII number of * plus 128 to some other ASCII value 
> (I forget precisely which one) which results in a 'bullet' [dot] rather than
> whatever character has ASCII value of * plus 128.  Sometimes it is much more
> of a pain than it is worth, but hey, I didn't make it up.
> 

    I don't know about you, but the Standard translation makes a hell of a 
lot more sense than simply setting the hi-bit of an ASCII character (unless 
you're using Zapf Dingbats, but that's another story...)  It's easy to 
remember that option-= produces a 'not equals' sign, and that option-_ gives 
you an em dash.  What would the key combination be without the re-mapping?  
I'd rather not look things up in an ASCII chart while blazing away trying to 
finish a term paper...