Have Characters that Depict Electronic Components been Discussed?

[Doug Ewell]

Harriet Riddle wrote:

> Novel pseudographic characters don't generally get added to Unicode,
> but pseudographic characters from pre-Unicode code pages often do.

Our group, which was led by Rebecca Bettencourt and included several other contributors, was responsible for 214 legacy computing symbols added to Unicode 13.0 and another 736 to be added to Unicode 16.0.

That’s a lot of characters, but I don’t think I would use the term “often” to describe two proposals across three years.

Furthermore, we are done; the group will not be proposing any additional sets of legacy computing symbols in the future. Not only do the two approved sets already cover every identifiable legacy platform that achieved non-trivial market share, but the group made a commitment to SEW and UTC not to come back with more, to allay fears that the set of such characters might be “never-ending.”

That’s not to say other legacy symbols might not turn up in the future, nor that they might present a legitimate case for encoding; but they will have to be proposed separately, by different individuals or groups, and not considered as any sort of follow-on to L2/19-025 and L2/21-235.

--
Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org