From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jim Choate To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu In-Reply-To: <0a0a01c102ee$135823e0$41734e81@oemcomputer> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [9fans] Re: Plan 9 (in)security Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 08:20:57 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: c2ad4816-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Mon, 2 Jul 2001, rob pike wrote: > Why stop at 64 bits per character? Why not go for 256, a 16x16 > dot matrix of the ISO image for the character. Perhaps with a > 16-byte header with special information such as case, dialect, > diacritical marks, etc. I'll assume you're being snide. That's easy, it would be incompatible with systems that didn't use a 16x16 representation, say a vector processor. In other words it's restrictive not enhancing. What one wants is a mechanism to code the desired character to the display, not restrict the individual system designer on how to impliment that display. Which brings up the point that the mechanism needs to have a inherent 'font change vector' attributed to the display as well. This would allow you to not only mix language char's but also fonts (without getting stuck in the mire of what fonts go on what system). It could be two 'runes' long. The first is a warning rune that says "Hey, new font coming up" and the second rune says "Look this far into the font table and start using that font". It's completely feasible that in the future some bright person might create a display that takes images of individual characters at some high resolution (say to imitate a true paper like look) and uses that. Clearly an array coding the specific char/font would inherently be incompatible. Whereas if it was only a vector into a table of some sort the only thing that would have to change would be the actual display driver mechanism and not the entire windowing system. Consider e-paper for example. I'm using a 64-bit processor, a 64 bit rune representation (especially when a 1GHz clock and half a Gig of RAM along with 120G of drive space isn't exception - what I have hooked to my home stereo to play CD's, DVD's, and video games) would not represent a significant system load. -- ____________________________________________________________________ Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------