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Mma Fonts: another bunch of new 8bit encodings


after having had a closer look at the new Mathematica virtual font
package, I've realized that the author has implemented his own 
set of 8bit math font encodings.

His encoding consists of four font tables:

  zwar[mb]	= OT1 + extra symbols + Script alphabet
  zwam[mb]	= OML + extra symbols + Fraktur alphabet
  zway[mb]	= OMS + extra symbols + Blackboard alphabet
  zwav[mb]	= OMX + extra symbols

In addition there's another encoding for Mma-specifc non-mathematical
glyphs (e.g. Keyboard symbols and such).

The lower half of each of these encodings is exactly the same as 
the old TeX encodings (with all their inherent problems).

The range 128-191 is used to store extra math symbols.

The range 192-255 is used to store one additional alphabet in the
roman, math italic, and math symbol fonts.  The Script alphabet
somehow appears twice (once in OMS and in the upper half of one of 
the other font).

In the extension font, most of the upper half is used for extra math
symbols including extra kinds of over/underbraces and the Mathematica
arrow extension kit (which is quite different from our arrow kit.)

Of course, the author didn't bother about the design principles of 
our new encodings, but his choices are probably not such a bad idea
after all if you want to achieve compatibility with the old encodings
and fit in the extra symbols taken from the Mma symbol complement
(which is neither a subset nor a superset of the AMS fonts).

Certainly something worth checking out, but nothing that should affect
our decisions, since the underlying design principles are different.

Cheers, Ulrik.