From: Eric Schiller <schiller@tira.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Font standard (Proposed)
Organization: Chessnews list (chessnews-request@tssi.com)
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 20:37:09 GMT


Proposal for the encoding of Chess Information

USCF Committee on Computer Chess

Version 2.0

Revision date 8/21/92



What follows is a drastically revised proposal based on factors brought 

to my attention subsequent to our meeting of August 7, 1992. These 

factors include:



1) It is more desirable to group symbols with similar functions 

together, regardless of the effect it will have on Macintosh or PC 

keyboard access. As a slight compromise, I have sometimes placed a 

symbol in a location within a group that makes for easier key access.



2) The Windows 3.1 operating system reserves certain high-ascii 

assignements (128, 129, 141, 142, 143, 144, 157 and 158), but this 

number is fewer than in 3.0. Some applications also reserve assignemnts. 

I have tried to place optional digraphs, phonetic and foreign language 

symbols in these slots.



3) There is an Adobe standard translation between Macintosh and PC 

platforms, and this means that we could maintain standard key 

assignments. However, if we adopted this route we would eliminate the 

standard pairing between the symbol and the numeric equivalent. This 

approach will mean that macros for smart quotes and other typographic 

substitutions will have to be changed, because some of these elements 

will not be where the program expects them to be. 



4) Some programs, like ChessBase, already have encoded some of the 

symbols. This should not affect our work, because ChessBase output can 

be converted by filters such as CB2ASCII or CONVERT, and these filters 

are in general use.



5) It is not possible to implement every useful symbol into a single 

set. Font developers can create "Expert" sets to handle the overflow. 

These sets can include: small caps, old style numerals, punctuation 

variants, and rarely used items such as black figurine pieces. I have 

therefore eliminated the alternate check and checkmate (dagger and 

double-dagger) symbols and replaced them with castles kingside and 

queenside, but these are only in the Macintosh version.



6) Windows does not support zero-width (non-advancing) characters. Some 

applications get around this by using an overstrike function (for 

example Word Perfect). It is reasonable to implement accents and other 

diacritics using zero-width characters. PC users with applications that 

do not support them will have to resort to an additional "Expert" set or 

upgrade to programs that have an overstrike capability. One solution 

which can be adopted by font developers is to make the zero-width 

characters in the PC version of the font normal width, and then the 

overstrike function can properly construct European accented characters. 

As a temporary convenience, however, the standard does include a few 

very common digraphs, including umlauted a, o, and u; e-acute and e-

circumflex.



The new standard divides chess symbols into several groups:



1. Figurine Pieces (6) [185-90]

pawn = 185

bishop = 186

knight = 187

rook = 188

queen = 189

king = 190



The order of bishop and knight is based on the fact that good key 

assignments (option-b, option-9) can be preserved on the Macintosh at no 

cost.



2. Diagram components (26)[220-245]

light square = 220

dark square = 221

For each piece, the order below is:

White piece on light sqare, White piece on dark square, Black piece on 

light square, Black piece on dark square.



pawns222, 223, 224, 225

knights 226, 227, 228, 229

bishops 230, 231, 232, 233

rooks 234, 235, 236, 237

queens 238, 239, 240, 241

kings 242, 243, 244, 245



3. Symbols used to evaluate the position (10) [171-181]

+- 171

-+ 172

+/- 177

-/+ 173

+= 179

=+ 178

= 61

unclear 176

compensation 175

counterplay 174

roughly level 180

forced move 181



4. Symbols used to explain the evaluation [191-207]



Center 191

Pin 192

Fork 193

Doubled Pawns 194

Attack 195

Initiative 196

Development 197

Space 198

Queenside 199

Kingside 200

Diagonal 201

File 202

Rank 203

Zugzwang 204

trap 205

weak square 206

Endgame 207





5. Symbols used to comment on a move or variation 

[145-156, except 150, 154]



Transposes to... 145

Not... 146

Deserves consideration... 147

Intending... 148

Better is... 149

!? 155

?! 156

Desperate Position 151

Good idea 152

Surprise 153



6. Symbols used to comment on the game situation (6) [215-219,134]



Draw 218

1-0 216

0-1 217

Sealed move 215

Lost on time 219

Time Control 134 (also used in game header)



7. Symbols used in game headers (7) [130-136]

These are all innovations which are not yet in widespread use, but there 

seems to be a consensus that thay are very useful.



Correspondence 130

Championship 131

Match 132

Computer 133

Time Control 134

White 135

Black 136



8. Standard Typographic symbols [208-214]



n-dash 208

m-dash 209

open double quotes 210

close double quotes 211

open single quote 212

close single quote 213

ellipsis 214



9. Other typographic symbols [164-169]



sterling 163

section 164

bullet 165

paragraph 166



trademark 168

copyright 169



10. Phonetic and foreign language symbols



dotless i 137

a-umlaut 138

hungarian umlaut 139

e-acute 140

n-tilde 150

o-umlaut 154

u-umlaut 159

barred-D 160

Upper Thorn 161

Lower Thorn 162

Lower slashed o 167

Upper slashed O 168

eth 182

Polish slashed l 183

Polish slashed L 184

circumflex 246

tilde 247

acute 248

breve 249

grave 250

ring 251

cedilla 252

umlaut 253

right hook 254

hachek 255



11. Symbols which will not be availble in Windows:



128 high ring

129 high tilde

141 high acute

142 high grave

143 high circumflex

144 high umlaut

157 castles kingside

158 castles queenside



Comments welcome: schiller@sapir.uchicago.edu

Eric Schiller
Chair
USCF Computer Chess Committee
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess