wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (08/05/88)
(I am cross-posting this to "comp.protocols.iso" because the people who read that newsgroup seem most likely to know how/where to get copies of ISO recommendations and standards. Followups, if any, should go only to "comp.fonts", as indicated.) I am looking for the latest official specification for the type style known as OCR-A. OCR-A is specially designed for easy readability by optical character reading equipment. I want this information because I am trying to port OCR-A to a 24-pin dot-matrix printer (using its downloadable font capability instead of a plug-in "font cartridge" ROM for the sake of economy) and wish to make sure that my ported version will in fact be close enough to the offi- cial specifications to be reliably readable by OCR equipment. I have succeeded already in making a version of OCR-A on my printer which (to my eye, at least) appears indistinguishable from the output of an old OCR-A typewriter I have access to; but I realize this may or may not be good enough in actual use. (I already have a copy of Tor Lillqvist's METAFONT version of OCR-A, so there is no need for anyone to send me this or refer me to it.) Lillqvist mentions the following in the introductory comments to his METAFONT coding of OCR-A: Based on ISO Recommendation R1073, 1st ed., May 1969 (probably obsolete by now). Is ISO Recommendation R1073 still current? How can I find a copy of it or its successor document (if any)? I am particularly interested in finding out whether the OCR-A official definition has been augmented by the addition of any special characters not included in Lillqvist's METAFONT version. For example, I have seen the ">" character in some OCR-A material -- yet neither Lillqvist's work nor any of several sources showing samples of OCR-A show a ">". Please reply by e-mail, since I will be going on vacation in about a week (meaning that a followup news article might expire before I get back to see it). -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales "Spiff's hyper-freem drive malfunctions! The aliens close in!"