U+237C ⍼ ⍼ · Jonathan Chan
This publish is a continuation of the investigation into
U+237C ⍼ RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW.
Many due to Barbara Beeton, James David Mason, Anders Berglund, David Bolton, and the Uncommon Books employees on the Cambridge College Library.
The place had been we?
I’ve summarized a chronological timeline within the earlier publish,
however listed here are the highlights in reverse chronological,
corresponding roughly to the order wherein I’ve found the data:
- ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2191 (Proposal for Encoding Extra Mathematical Symbols)
provides U+237C ⍼ to the Unicode normal, which took characters from - The STIX undertaking, whose character tables had been compiled by Barbara Beeton,
taking characters from, amongst many different sources, - ISO/IEC TR 9573-13 (Public entity units for arithmetic and science), a technical report for SGML, the place the path ends.
Additional investigation into numerous glyph registries and entity tables yielded no further data.
A few yr later, I went over every little thing I knew once more and began on the lookout for new leads.
The remainder of this publish collects collectively the live Twitter updates
I had been posting throughout this course of.
Who wrote TR 9573-13?
The ISO requirements web site tells us that TR 9573-13 was the accountability of subcommittee 34 (SC 34)
beneath Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) of ISO/IEC.
A fortuitous search led to a historic account of JTC 1/SC34,
initially compiled by James David Mason, who was vice-chairman of SC 34.
Given the age of the doc, I doubted the e-mail handle listed for him was updated,
however finally I discovered him on Linkedin, which indicated that he’s a co-chair for the Belisage Conference.
I contacted the convention chair, who put me in touch with Mason.
From the historic account and Mason himself,
I’ve discovered that working group 1 (WG 1) of SC 34 was answerable for ISO 8879, the SGML normal, in addition to TR 9573-13.
The primary folks engaged on these had been Charles Goldfarb, the inventor of SGML,
and Anders Berglund, who was answerable for TR 9573-13.
Your complete SC 34 committee records
at the moment are on the Charles Babbage Institute Archives on the College of Minnesota,
and consists of 9.5 cubic toes of fabric in 10 bins (!).
Fortunately, I wouldn’t need to fly to Minneapolis to sift by way of all of those information,
as a result of finally Mason managed to seek out me a present e mail handle for Berglund.
The place is TR 9573-13 from?
Berglund tells me that the entity units for TR 9573-13 come from three sources:
- ISO/IEC 8859, a precursor of ISO/IEC 10646 and Unicode;
- MathSci, an enlargement of mathfile, Appendix D from the AMS; and
- numerous typeface catalogues, notably Monotype.
Our glyph comes from Monotype beneath the matrix serial quantity S16139.
Sadly (however fairly, as all of that is from three many years in the past),
Berglund doesn’t have any notes on which Monotype catalogues had been referenced.
Nevertheless, I’ve individually confirmed that the image is certainly from Monotype from their archives.
Though the Type Archive,
which held the Monotype Assortment, is now shutting down, the Science Museum Group has taken
photographs of the collection.
There are over 5000 punches and matrices
within the assortment, however I used to be extraordinarily fortunate with my search key phrases and occurred upon a set of punches,
Extraneous sorts (L231)…
… which accommodates that very type.
Which Monotype catalogue is it in?
The SMG holds one catalogue, the Specimen Guide of ‘Monotype’ Printing Kind.
Its index
does record L231 as an “Extraneous types” collection,
however these specimen sheets aren’t included on this ebook.
Whereas on the lookout for different catalogues that Monotype have revealed,
I got here throughout Alembic Press’ collection
of Monotype publications.
I contacted David Bolton on the press for assist with the catalogues,
who bought again to me with an inventory of publications of lists of indicators that do not comprise S16139.
For the reason that serial quantity begins with S, it ought to be listed as a mathematical particular signal,
nevertheless it was not present in any of:
- Monotype Particular Types (1931, 1947) — as much as S1153, S6844;
- Monotype Particular Indicators (1954 – 1963) — as much as S11819;
- Monotype Mathematical Types Listing (1956) — as much as S10477;
- 4-Line Arithmetic Labeled Listing of Characters (1967, 1970) — as much as S19717, S20620.
Though the serial numbers in 4-Line Arithmetic do go previous S16139,
it excludes a number of ranges similar to S16137 – S16237 and S18325 – S18347,
possible characters not concerned in 4-line mathematical typesetting
or had been specialised commissioned characters.
Many indicators had been for particular person clients, so won’t advantage being revealed in an inventory,
though for instance I occur to have indicators S2120 to S2125,
which had been just for Jesus Faculty Cambridge Boat Membership so far as I do know,
however which do function within the 1947 record.
Alembic Press lists, however doesn’t possess, one remaining doc, Listing of Mathematical Characters.
Nevertheless, it may be discovered within the Morison Collection
on the Cambridge College Library.
In line with their catalogue, they’ve three paperwork beneath this identify:
- [1970.11.585] Listing of mathematical characters. London, 1970. 72p; ring bdg. [For
Monotype and Monophoto.] - [Morison.MC.D25] Listing of mathematical characters. [London], nd. ca50 leaves
- [1972.12.177] Listing of mathematical characters. np, 1972. 21 unfastened sheets. [Sheets for
insertion in List (1970) .]
I contacted the Uncommon Books division, who’ve discovered two paperwork with this identify.
The primary is Listing of mathematical characters: ‘Monotype’ 4-line Arithmetic Collection 569, ‘Monophoto’ Occasions Arithmetic Collection 569B (1970).
The second is L231 and L231B (July 1972), a set of 21 sheets meant to be inserted on the finish of the Listing.
Since S16139 was discovered within the set of punches of Extraneous Types in collection L231,
I imagine it should seem inside these 21 sheets.
Sadly, as neither school nor a pupil on the College of Cambridge,
in response to the quote they’ve given me,
requesting a digital copy of this doc would value 174£ (29 scans × 6£ every).
I’ve tried to request it as an interlibrary mortgage,
however as archival materials it could’t be requested this manner.