Greek Character Set Fonts for VARKON

The Greeks, by peculiar good fortune and natural enlightenment of mind, had no classics but themselves.
- Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve

1 - For the Terminally Hasty

Technical (not literary) Greek fonts for the VARKON parametric CAD system, derived from the public domain glyphs of Dr. Allen V. Hershey and others:

To use one of these fonts, copy the font file into your $VARKON_ROOT/cnf/fnt directory and rename it to some valid but unused font number; e.g., "10.FNT". Then, in your MBS text statements, use the "tfont" attribute to specify this font; e.g.:

2 - Orientation

1. As a part of the Notebook "Exploring Dr. Hershey's Typography," on Dr. David M. MacMillan's CircuitousRoot website. If you're already reading it as a part of this Notebook, it needs no further introduction.

2. As a standalone document, together with a number of font data files in the same directory, at: http://www.lemur.com/vkf/hershey/greek/index.html. (It is at "lemur.com" rather than much longer "circuitousroot.com" because "lemur.com" is easier to spell.) This is the "canonical" location for this file and for the font data it references.

If you've just encountered it at this second location, you may have been looking either for information on the glyphs of Dr. Allen V. Hershey (often called, inaccurately, "the Hershey fonts") or for fonts for the VARKON parametric CAD system. If you're interested in Dr. Hershey's work, please consult the full Notebook. If you're just looking for more fonts for VARKON, well, what's here is here. If you have further questions as to why what's here is here, please consult the full Notebook.

This page and these font files may also appear in other places. Everything here is either in the public domain or is licensed under the terms of the Free Software Foundations's GNU® Free Documentation License, as indicated. They may be copied anywhere the nature of the public domain or the terms of the GNU FDL (as appropriate to each type of material) permit. Courtesy, at least to living readers, would indicate that copies ought to contain a reference to the "canonical" location.

3 - The Fonts

3.1 - Four Fonts

The Hershey Greek glyphs are mapped here into four fonts. Each tries to approximate to some degree the default VARKON font 0. Within this set of four fonts, there are fonts for the "Uniplex Cartographic," "Uniplex Normal," "Duplex Indexical," and "Duplex Normal" ranges of Hershey glyphs. (The Hershey "Triplex" ranges of glyphs contain no Greek, alas.)

The VARKON fonts 2 and 3 implement an ISO® 8859-1 (Latin 1) mapping, fonts 4 and 5 implement a "PC" mapping, and font 6 (undocumented) implements ISO 8859-2 (Latin 2) In content, these differ from fonts 0 and 1 mostly in the non-ASCII positions (character codes greater than 127). Since I'm not mapping these positions, in order to keep open the possibility of the use of a UTF-8 encoding with these fonts (even though at this time VARKON does not use UTF-8), I haven't created fonts which parallel them.

For common punctuation, the primary difference between VARKON fonts 0/1 and fonts 2/3/4/5/6 is that the in these latter fonts the character sequences "[\]" and "{|}" appear in their "normal ASCII" positions after the uppercase and lowercase letters, while in fonts 0/1 they appear in the first block of character codes (positions 1, 2, 3, and 8, 9, 8, which are control code positions in ASCII). Characters in the difficult-to-type ranges 0-31 & 127 may be specified in MBS using the chr() function.

The four fonts come in a total of three sizes: "cartographic," "indexical," and "normal." The "cartographic" size is quite small (it was intended for use on maps, I believe). The "indexical" size is of moderate height (for use in super- and sub- script indexes, I suppose). The "normal" size is, well, normal. The "uniplex" fonts are drawn for the most part with single lines, while the "duplex" fonts are drawn with doubled lines. All of this is explained in much greater detail in the Notebook.

3.2 - Font Naming Convention

The fonts are named in a cumbersome but descriptive style modelled after that used in the Java® programming language. In this scheme, the name begins with our domain name (lemur.com) in reverse (thus, "com.lemur"; this is another reason to make the canonical location of these fonts lemur.com rather than circuitousroot.com), followed by the directory path to the font description file. The font description file itself is named with a subset of the full set of descriptive components for the Hershey glyphs out of which it is built and the VARKON font which it roughly mirrors.

Reading from left to right, the name starts out with our domain name, reversed: "com-lemur". As dots may be misinterpreted as implying filename suffixes, I've used the hyphen character instead. Then comes the fully qualified pathname to the font description file: "vkf-hershey", again using hyphens (rather than forward slashes, in this case). "vkf" stands for "VARKON Fonts," of course, and the "Hershey" is an optimistic indication that I might in the future do non-Hershey VARKON fonts. The font itself is taken from glyphs in ranges which are Uniplex, Cartographic, Taper0, and Lineface (see the section entitled "Organizing Principles within the Occidental Glyphs" in the Notebook "Exploring Dr. Hershey's Typography," for an explanation of these terms). This may be specified more concisely here by using just two of these: Uniplex (which is actually redundant for this particular font; there are no non-Uniplex Cartographic glyphs) and Cartographic. The font contains Greek characters, but otherwise is intended roughly to mirror VARKON font 0. Putting all of this together: "uniplex_cartographic_greek_vkf0". To distinguish spaces between words in this filename from directory levels and DNS separators as used earlier in the font name, I use an underscore rather than a hyphen here.

3.3 - Font Revision Level

Each font further has a revision level. This is simply noted in a comment in the font description file. There is no place in the VARKON font data file format for a revision field, so the only way to check on a revision number is to compare the .FNT file against those of known revision levels. To assist in this, I'll note the sha1sums of the .FNT files here. (I'm not using sha1sum (the Secure Hash Algorithm) out of any security considerations; it is simply a convenient checksum program.)

3.4 - Font Numbering in VARKON

Note: The font number for nonstandard VARKON fonts such as these is, itself, nonstandard. The suggestion from the VARKON developers is to start numbering them at 10. All of the images below were generated with the font set to be font number 10.

3.5 - Greek Fonts Parallel to VARKON Font 0

4 - Greek Encoding Issues

Encoding Greek can be complex and subtle, as the language employs several auxiliary marks, has characters which vary in form depending upon their position, and includes in its most general form several now archaic characters. The ordinary range of unadorned Greek characters employed in scientific and technical work, however, is much easier.

The most modern standard way to encode Greek characters is Unicode®/ISO-10646. However, the Unicode handling of Greek is not without difficulties. Initially it had only one range of Greek, suitable for modern "monotonic" Greek but not for the "polytonic" Greek of tradition. Its handling of monotonic Greek is based in turn on ISO-8859-7 (equivalent to Greek National Standard ELOT 928) (Unicode 1.0, Vol. 1, p. 42; RFC 1947). However, Unicode monotonic Greek puts the main alphabetic sequences starting at U+0391 (ALPHA) and U+03B1 (alpha). Since the Greek coding range starts at U+0370, this is equivalent to 0x21 (0d33) and 0x41 (0d65) (Unicode 1.0, Vol. 1, p. 200). This is out of sequence with the equivalent ASCII, which starts alphabetic characters with 0d65 (A) and 0d97 (a) Actually, Unicode maps lowercase Greek into the same relative position as uppercase Latin. Writing a VARKON string at an ASCII keyboard for the first four Greek letters (capital Α Β Γ Δ) starting at 0d33 would mean writing: !"#$ Writing the first four Greek letters in lowercase (α β γ δ) would require writing, in uppercase: ABCD

Instead, I'll employ a mapping which aligns the main alphabetic ASCII and Greek characters as much as possible. For example, the first four characters would be entered as "ABGD" or "abgd". This must necessarily involve some compromise.

The mapping of Latin to Greek characters here for α to ω is based in part on the "Beta Code" developed by David W. Packard and used by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG®) (I am assuming that the Beta Code for γ is "G" rather than "C" as is published in The 2003 TLG Beta Code Manual.) Note that this mapping is not itself Beta Code, which is really quite a different thing.

Regrettably, the key mapping used in the "greek_utf-8" keymap for the vim text editor (I am a longtime user of vi/vim) differs from Beta Code. I chose to stick with a Beta Code like pattern here, though, because it is more generally known.

The Hershey glyph ranges contain several alternative Greek glyphs. I've mapped four of these into positions 27, 28, 29, and 30 of the character code space. These positions are unused in VARKON fonts 0 and 1. (Positions j, J, v, and V are also unused in the present mapping, but using these raises compatibility issues with the (non-Beta Code) "greek_utf-8" keyboard mapping for the vim(1) text editor as well as other keyboard mappings on which it is based.)

The first of these glyphs, present only in the Cartographic and Uniplex Normal ranges, is a delta without the "tail," perhaps as might more easily be written on a blackboard. I don't use this glyph, although as the Greek fonts here are really suited only for technical rather than literary use, perhaps I should.

The second alternative glyph appears to be an alternative epsilon which more closely resembles the mathematical sign for "element of." I've mapped this to position 27. This might be the "straight" or "lunate" epsilon identified by Unicode as U+03F5.

The third of these is a non-script lowercase theta. I've mapped it to position 28. This is the Unicode (version 2.0 and later) U+03B8 character, which in current Unicode is part of the normal alphabetic run. In current Unicode, the script theta is now outside of the normal alphabetic run, at U+03D1, and is identified as a technical symbol. (These two were in switched positions in the original Unicode version 1.0.)

The fourth of these is a non-script lowercase phi. I've mapped it to position 29. This is the Unicode (version 2.0 and later) U+03C6 character, which in current Unicode is part of the normal alphabetic run. In current Unicode, the script theta is now outside of the normal alphabetic run, at U+03D5, and is identified as a technical symbol. (These two were in switched positions in the original Unicode version 1.0.)

The fifth of these is a conventional final sigma (Unicode U+03C2). I've mapped it to position 30.

Finally, the Duplex Indexical Taper1 Roman & Italic Ligatures and Extra Greek range (Range No. 71) contains a symbol at Hershey glyph number 2190 (in the GNU Plotutils distribution) or 2197 (in Hershey's "Calligraphy for Computers") which might be an alternative and more script-like rho. Or not. I've not mapped it.

In these Greek fonts, the non-ASCII positions from 128 to 255 (decimal) are unused. The use of characters in this space makes Unicode/UTF-8 migration difficult. Even though VARKON does not support Unicode/UTF-8, I'm omitting them in the hope that in the future it will.

Since Greek characters often are used for mathematics, a good argument could be made for mapping Hershey mathematical symbols into unused space in the character maps. Were this done, it might be useful to consult the character mapping used by Prof. Don Knuth in his TeX^TM typesetting system, as that system is used by many mathematicians. I have not done this mapping, though.

The font mappings described herein are in the public domain.

The quotation from Saint-Beuve is from his essay "What is a Classic?" as it appears, translated by E. Lee, in Volume 32 of "The Harvard Classics," Literary and Philosophical Essays. Ed. Charles W. Eliot. NY: P. F. Collier & Son Company, 1910. pp. 121-122. It is in the public domain.

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			ASCII Encoding Used Here			Hershey Glyph Number
Character (rendered by your browser; not a Hershey glyph)	Character Name	Unicode	ASCII decicmal	ASCII hexadecimal	ASCII character	Uniplex Cartographic	Uniplex Normal	Duplex Indexical	Duplex Normal
Α α	alpha	U+0391, U+03B1	65, 97	41, 61	A, a	27	527, 627	1027, 1127	2027, 2127
Β β	beta	U+0392, U+03B2	66, 98	42, 62	B, b	28	528, 628	1028, 1128	2028, 2128
Γ γ	gamma	U+0393, U+03B3	71, 103	47, 67	G, g	29	529, 629	1029, 1129	2029, 2129
Δ δ	delta	U+0394, U+03B4	68, 100	44, 64	D, d	30	530, 630	1030, 1130	2030, 2130
Ε ε	epsilon	U+0395, U+03B5	69, 101	45, 65	E, e	31	531, 631	1031, 1131	2031, 2131
Ζ ζ	zeta	U+0396, U+03B6	90, 122	5A, 7A	Z, z	32	532, 632	1032, 1132	2032, 2132
Η η	eta	U+0397, U+03B7	72, 104	48, 68	H, h	33	533, 633	1033, 1133	2033, 2133
Θ n/a	THETA, script theta	U+0398, U+03D1	81, 113	51, 71	Q, q	34	534, 634	1034, 1134	2034, 2134
Ι ι	iota	U+0399, U+03B9	73, 105	49, 69	I, i	35	535, 635	1035, 1135	2035, 2135
Κ κ	kappa	U+039A, U+03BA	75, 107	4B, 6B	K, k	36	536, 636	1036, 1136	2036, 2136
Λ λ	lambda	U+039B, U+03BB	76, 108	4C, 6C	L, l	37	537, 637	1037, 1137	2037, 2137
Μ μ	mu	U+039C, U+03BC	77, 109	4D, 6D	M, m	38	538, 638	1038, 1138	2038, 2138
Ν ν	nu	U+039D, U+03BD	78, 110	4E, 6E	N, n	39	539, 639	1039, 1139	2039, 2139
Ξ ξ	xi	U+039E, U+03BE	67, 99	43, 63	C, c	40	540, 640	1040, 1140	2040, 2140
Ο ο	omikron	U+039F, U+03BF	79, 111	4F, 6F	O, o	41	541, 641	1041, 1141	2041, 2141
Π π	pi	U+03A0, U+03C0	80, 112	50, 70	P, p	42	542, 642	1042, 1142	2042, 2142
Ρ ρ	rho	U+03A1, U+03C1	82, 114	52, 72	R, r	43	543, 643	1043, 1143	2043, 2143
Σ σ	sigma	U+03A3, U+03C3	83, 115	53, 73	S, s	44	544, 644	1044, 1144	2044, 2144
Τ τ	tau	U+03A4, U+03C4	84, 116	54, 74	T, r	45	545, 645	1045, 1145	2045, 2145
Υ υ	upsilon	U+03A5, U+03C5	85, 117	55, 75	U, u	46	546, 646	1046, 1146	2046, 2146
Φ [n/a]	PHI, script phi	U+03A6, U+03C6	70, 102	46, 66	F, f	47	547, 647	1047, 1147	2047, 2147
Χ χ	chi	U+03A7, U+03C7	88, 120	58, 78	X, x	48	548, 648	1048, 1148	2048, 2148
Ψ ψ	psi	U+03A8, U+03C8	89, 121	59, 79	Y, y	49	549, 649	1049, 1149	2049, 2149
Ω ω	omega	U+03A9, U+03C9	87, 119	57, 77	W, w	50	550, 650	1050, 1150	2050, 2150
[n/a]	non-tailed delta	none			not used	183	683
[n/a]	lunate or straight epsilon	U+03F5	27	1B	ESC	184	684	1184	2184
θ	non-script lowercase theta	U+03B8	28	1C	FS	185	685	1185	2185
φ	non-script lowercase phi	U+03D5	29	1D	RS	186	686	1186	2186
[n/a]	final sigma	U+03C2	30	1E	US	187	687	1187	2187
[n/a]	not sure	none			not used			2190 or 2197

Greek Character Set Fonts for VARKON

Contents

NOTICE OF DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY AND LIABILITY:

Greek Character Set Fonts
for VARKON