APL character trivia
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This forum is for discussing APL-related issues. If you think that the subject is off-topic, then the Chat forum is probably a better place for your thoughts !
This forum is for discussing APL-related issues. If you think that the subject is off-topic, then the Chat forum is probably a better place for your thoughts !
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APL character trivia
APL pi: Designing an APL Font, by Joey Tuttle, APL81. (Free download from ACM until 2020-06-30.)
Did you know, in the original APL font,
- For ⎕, the ratio of the height to width is golden, 2÷⍨1+5*0.5, 1.61803.
- The geometries of all the other APL characters can be defined in terms of ⎕.
- Overstriking - or / or \ on ⎕ bisect the rectangle into two equal halves.
- + and × are the same graphic rotated by 45 degrees about the center of ⎕.
- L and F overstruck gives you an E.
- 3 and 8 overstruck gives you ... 8.
- etc.
In the early days of APL, in fact before APL was APL, understriking played a key role. From [Hui and Kromberg 2020]:
Did you know, in the original APL font,
- For ⎕, the ratio of the height to width is golden, 2÷⍨1+5*0.5, 1.61803.
- The geometries of all the other APL characters can be defined in terms of ⎕.
- Overstriking - or / or \ on ⎕ bisect the rectangle into two equal halves.
- + and × are the same graphic rotated by 45 degrees about the center of ⎕.
- L and F overstruck gives you an E.
- 3 and 8 overstruck gives you ... 8.
- etc.
In the early days of APL, in fact before APL was APL, understriking played a key role. From [Hui and Kromberg 2020]:
Overstriking echoes with an amusing counterpoint from the early days. When it came time to typeset A Programming Language [Iverson 1962], no sorts for ⌊ (floor) and ⌈ (ceiling) were available, and new sorts had to be created by filing away a “serif” of the sort for [ [Iverson 2004; Graham et al. 1989, p.67]. (These are probably not the “sort” and “file” you expect to see in this paper.)
- Roger|Dyalog
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- Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:53 am
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