3 ms·

It is a little more niche but the inclusion of braille in Unicode and it’s impact on ascii art is comparable to IE’s XmlHTTPRequest, in terms of unexpectedly tr

It is a little more niche but the inclusion of braille in Unicode and it’s impact on ascii art is comparable to IE’s XmlHTTPRequest, in terms of unexpectedly transformative moments in software history.

globular-toast 5y ago
It's funny because displaying bitmaps in a terminal-like interface has been possible for many years. Even TempleOS[0] can do it! But somehow it's just never caught on. But the unicode thing works because it gets shoehorned into existing standards and functionality. Legacy is a bitch. "The things you own end up owning you". Makes me wonder, though, is there enough space in unicode to just encode every possibly 16x16 bitmap? 256 bits? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS
- demetrius 5y ago
  > Makes me wonder, though, is there enough space in unicode to just encode every possibly 16x16 bitmap? Space is not an issue here. You can do with very few characters, just make them combine with each other, like ˩˥ is encoded as ˩+˥, flags are encoded as combinations of two letters, etc. So, you can just have 256 characters for each bitmap dot and make them combine with each other. Or have 16 characters and make them combine (maybe using zero-width joiner). I think the biggest problem is actually getting this thing into Unicode. Emoji got codified because some Japanese phone encodings included them. But it would be harder to justify arbitrary bitmaps.
  - jl6 5y ago
    Or you could just have two new code points representing 1 and 0, which are only valid in sequences of length 256. Really stretches the meaning and purpose of a character encoding though…
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > flags are encoded as combinations of two letters, etc. Up to four (or more?) in some cases. Example: The flag of Scotland, that's a four-character combo IIRC.

3 ms·

It is a little more niche but the inclusion of braille in Unicode and it’s impact on ascii art is comparable to IE’s XmlHTTPRequest, in terms of unexpectedly tr

by gorgoiler 5y ago

globular-toast 5y ago
It's funny because displaying bitmaps in a terminal-like interface has been possible for many years. Even TempleOS[0] can do it! But somehow it's just never caught on. But the unicode thing works because it gets shoehorned into existing standards and functionality. Legacy is a bitch. "The things you own end up owning you". Makes me wonder, though, is there enough space in unicode to just encode every possibly 16x16 bitmap? 256 bits? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS
- demetrius 5y ago
  > Makes me wonder, though, is there enough space in unicode to just encode every possibly 16x16 bitmap? Space is not an issue here. You can do with very few characters, just make them combine with each other, like ˩˥ is encoded as ˩+˥, flags are encoded as combinations of two letters, etc. So, you can just have 256 characters for each bitmap dot and make them combine with each other. Or have 16 characters and make them combine (maybe using zero-width joiner). I think the biggest problem is actually getting this thing into Unicode. Emoji got codified because some Japanese phone encodings included them. But it would be harder to justify arbitrary bitmaps.
  - jl6 5y ago
    Or you could just have two new code points representing 1 and 0, which are only valid in sequences of length 256. Really stretches the meaning and purpose of a character encoding though…
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > flags are encoded as combinations of two letters, etc. Up to four (or more?) in some cases. Example: The flag of Scotland, that's a four-character combo IIRC.