Unicode character that matches the HP-41 APPEND symbol

[Jurgen Keller]

I recently stumbled across a Unicode character that matches the HP-41 APPEND symbol pretty good. It has the code 42772 and its name is MODIFIER LETTER MID LEFT-STEM TONE BAR. It's a modifier tone letter.

That might be useful if you want to list HP-41 program in HTML pages. Just insert "(Ampersand)(Hash)42772(semicolon)" into the HTML code (provided that you use UTF-8 as character encoding). There is another interesting one: 11049 (BLACK SMALL DIAMOND) that can be used to mark labels.

Example (nonsense, just to illustrate):

Code:


01⬩LBL 01
02 10
03 ARCL X
04 ꜔" OK"
05⬩LBL 02
06 GTO 01

[Dieter]

(05-24-2016 08:20 PM)Jurgen Keller Wrote:  I recently stumbled across a Unicode character that matches the HP-41 APPEND symbol pretty good.

I sometimes use one of the line graphics characters you may remember from the good old DOS days.
That's U+251Ch (#9500).

Example:

Code:

01 "V="
02 ARCL X
03 ├" M/S"
04 AVIEW

Dieter

[Garth Wilson]

Thanks. I just tried it. 8870 works too. I do a lot of my programming under DOS and enjoy that DOS/ANSI character set put putting lots of specials in the code, to use with assemblers and compilers that only handle 8-bit characters. So in Forth, I can have names like ±½° for example.

[Dieter]

(05-24-2016 09:34 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  Thanks. I just tried it. 8870 works too.

And 8866, and possibly others as well.
Question is: how many fonts support these characters ?-)

Dieter

[Garth Wilson]

I tried 8866 before 8870, and 8866 was extra wide, so I didn't include it. I tried it in courier which I use often for monospacing on my website.

[Martin Hepperle]

(05-24-2016 08:20 PM)Jurgen Keller Wrote:  ...
Example (nonsense, just to illustrate):

Code:


01⬩LBL 01
02 10
03 ARCL X
04 ꜔" OK"
05⬩LBL 02
06 GTO 01

The only problem is that Unicode is so vast that no "Unicode" font supports ALL Unicode characters. So one has to find a suitable font which contains these characters and then make sure that it is installed on the machine where the web page is to be displayed. See, e.g., the diamond symbol in front of the LBL, which did not show up on my Windows 7 machine in Internet Explorer.

I believe there are ways to embed a font in HTML pages so that it is downloaded, but I am not sure.

For PDF documents etc. I prefer to install and use a specific font, e.g. one of the Luiz Vierira Fonts. Or the attached modified DejaVu Monospaced font.

Martin

[Dieter]

(05-24-2016 08:20 PM)Jurgen Keller Wrote:  There is another interesting one: 11049 (BLACK SMALL DIAMOND) that can be used to mark labels.

Such a symbol is also available at U+2666 (#9830). I assume that, unlike the 11049 character, this is included in most Unicode-enabled fonts, so this may be the more universal option.

Example:

Code:

01♦LBL A
02 RCL 01
03 CF 01
04 GTO 01
05♦LBL B
06 RCL 01
07 3,6
08 x
09 SF 01
10♦LBL 01
11 "V="
12 ARCL X
13 FC? 01
14 ├" M/S"
15 FS? 01
16 ├" KM/H"
17 AVIEW
18 END

These symbols may also be easier to enter, at least on my Windows system it's simply Alt+195 resp. Alt+260: Hold down the Alt key while typing the number on the numeric keypad, and the symbol appears as the keys are released.

Dieter

[Joe Horn]

(05-25-2016 06:50 AM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  I believe there are ways to embed a font in HTML pages so that it is downloaded, but I am not sure.

It's pretty easy, using CSS. You can see it in action on the HHC 2016 website, which uses a font that you probably don't have on your computer (Core Sans M), but you'll see the font correctly when you view the website (if you use a modern browser). You can even see the font's designers' faces, rendered by the font itself, here: http://hhuc.us/2016/committee.htm

The HHC 2014 website used the same custom font that HP uses on its website. I did that strictly for fun, to see how many people would notice. Nobody did.

[Martin Hepperle]

(05-25-2016 07:52 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  It's pretty easy, using CSS. You can see it in action on the HHC 2016 website, which uses a font that you probably don't have on your computer (Core Sans M), but you'll see the font correctly when you view the website (if you use a modern browser). You can even see the font's designers' faces, rendered by the font itself, here: http://hhuc.us/2016/committee.htm

The HHC 2014 website used the same custom font that HP uses on its website. I did that strictly for fun, to see how many people would notice. Nobody did.

Joe,

thank you - I was just too lazy to search the HTML documentation for this detail.
So for an internet forum like this one, a suitable font should be made available on the web site (to avoid dependency on external sites) and people should be told how to use it via CSS "font-face" style command. Maybe something for a future enhancement of the web site?
But then one would like to have font for HP-41, HP-48, HP-Prime, HP... to present sections of program code.

PS: If nobody noticed your love to detail by using the "HP-Font" this is a good sign. The HP-Fans may be so much used to that font that they took it for granted to see related documents in that font. Good typography should be "invisible" to the user - just render the text nicely and pleasant to read without eye-strain.

Martin

[StephenG1CMZ]

(05-25-2016 09:13 AM)Dieter Wrote:  

(05-24-2016 08:20 PM)Jurgen Keller Wrote:  There is another interesting one: 11049 (BLACK SMALL DIAMOND) that can be used to mark labels.

Such a symbol is also available at U+2666 (#9830). I assume that, unlike the 11049 character, this is included in most Unicode-enabled fonts, so this may be the more universal option.

Example:

Code:

01♦LBL A
02 RCL 01
03 CF 01
04 GTO 01
05♦LBL B
06 RCL 01
07 3,6
08 x
09 SF 01
10♦LBL 01
11 "V="
12 ARCL X
13 FC? 01
14 ├" M/S"
15 FS? 01
16 ├" KM/H"
17 AVIEW
18 END

These symbols may also be easier to enter, at least on my Windows system it's simply Alt+195 resp. Alt+260: Hold down the Alt key while typing the number on the numeric keypad, and the symbol appears as the keys are released.

Dieter

I see the diamond now (the previous one was no-symbol-rectangle).
But here on the default Android browser, thats a red diamond, not black.

[Dieter]

(05-29-2016 07:29 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I see the diamond now (the previous one was no-symbol-rectangle).

That's what I supposed - this seems to be a more common symbol that's included in many fonts.

(05-29-2016 07:29 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  But here on the default Android browser, thats a red diamond, not black.

Well, it's actually the diamond as you find it in a deck of playing cards, so red can be considered an appropriate color. ;-) But anyway, I do not think that a browser should change the text color without explicit instruction.

Test: ♠♣♥♦ - do you see two black and two red symbols here ?-)

Dieter

[Garth Wilson]

(05-29-2016 07:55 PM)Dieter Wrote:  Test: ♠♣♥♦ - do you see two black and two red symbols here ?-)

Firefox here, with regular updates, and they're all black.

[rprosperi]

(05-29-2016 07:55 PM)Dieter Wrote:  Test: ♠♣♥♦ - do you see two black and two red symbols here ?

IE11 - all black, as it should be.

[Sylvain Cote]

(05-29-2016 10:42 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(05-29-2016 07:55 PM)Dieter Wrote:  Test: ♠♣♥♦ - do you see two black and two red symbols here ?

IE11 - all black, as it should be.

Mac OS/X 10.11.5 64bits / Safari v9.1.1 : all black / Firefox v46.0.1 : all black / Chrome v51.0.2704.63 : all black

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(05-29-2016 07:55 PM)Dieter Wrote:  Test: ♠♣♥♦ - do you see two black and two red symbols here ?-)

Dieter

I also tried this on my Android mobile: under default, Dolphin and Chrome browsers. Dolphin rendered it with a flat, black shape. The other two in a shaded black type.