Computer Quiz Show #10

[hard candy]

Folks, welcome back to our new episode of the Computer Quiz Show. Where intellectual prowness and fast searching combine to bring you sometimes the right answer and sometimes the wrong answer, but never a dull answer! Since Linux has so many characters associated with it, we decided to take a look at some of these characters....
A, #, 8, / , q, %, and so on. A good definition of a character is "In computer and machine-based telecommunications terminology, a character is a unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme, or symbol, in the written form of a natural language". If we didn't have characters, why we would have talking computers! I would hate to be on Slashdot if all those people who post were talking all at once! It would sound like a nail salon on a Friday afternoon.
So, back to characters.
ASCII was the first standard of character encoding for telecommunications. It was published as a standard back in 1966. It was based on the English language and as computing has spread, new character encoding was developed.
1. ASCII encoding is comprised of how many bits?
a. 8
b. 7
c. 16
2. A limitation of ASCII character encoding and it's variants was that it was based on the English language and had no means to encode non-Latin characters. What newer character encoding was developed to enable a wider array of characters to be used in computing?
a. UTEP
b. ASU
c. Unicode
d. Hex64
3. We computer users see the result of this charcter encoding as fonts. Fonts are defined as " A design for a set of characters". On computers, fonts are represented using two methods. One is the vector graphics system in which
the shape or outline of each character is defined geometrically. The other method is called ____________________.
4. Using the vector graphics system has a big advantage, the fonts are "scalable". When your computer uses vector graphics fonts, are the fonts generated as needed or are they stored in a file?
5. Were Truetype fonts developed by:
a. Microsoft
b. Apple
c. Bell labs
And finally for those who live in a certain country in the middle of Europe and do not like to use Google, one final question:
Is Gruyere a Swiss cheese exclusively or is there a French Gruyere cheese as well using an alias?
Remember folks, we only have reruns on the weekends, so tune back Monday for some more excitement and challenges.

[mrBen]

1. a
2. c
3. Bitmap
4. As needed
5. c

There is a French Gruyere.....
Guesses

[Parcival]

1. 8
2. Unicode
3. Bitmapping
4. Every character is generated as it's being needed which is the major disadvantage. This is the reason why bitmapped fonts are still in use in certain areas.
5. By Apple, of course. What a silly question.
6. Le Gruyère est un frommage uniquement Suisse. Si quelqu' un a l' impertinence de nous copier, nous allons shooter ses couilles.

[Parcival]

Awww, he beat me by 4 minutes.

[banzaikai]

Okay, I'll give this one a shot...

(You guys got 2, 3, and 5 already...)

1. ASCII encoding is comprised of how many bits?

That'd be 7. This is due to the teletypewriters (TTYs) sending data using 7-E-1 at 150/300 baud. Ah, the good ol' days. If you guessed 8 bits, then you're thinking ANSI, not ASCII!

2. What newer character encoding was developed to enable a wider array of characters to be used in computing?

c. Unicode. In fact, I'm using UTF right now. りぱゞ な!

4. are the fonts generated as needed or are they stored in a file?

Err. Both. Was this a trick question? What happens (usually) is the program requests a particular typeface, with a particular font, in a given font size (usually "points"). If the bitmap for that fontsize doesn't exist, it then looks at the vector (.afm) description, generates the requested bitmaps (.pfb) for faster access, and goes on it's merry way. This is why there is a slowdown when first loading a typeface - the system is generating the bitmap from the vector info. Afterward, it just does the standard lookup. Typically, just the default bitmaps (/usr/share/fonts/default) are saved to disk, the rest may be thrown in a temp file or RAM.

banzai "PageStream Punk" kai

[hard candy]

1. 7 bits. There is an ASCII extension for using 8 bits but it is not widely used.
2. Unicode
3. Bitmap.
4. Vector graphic fonts are created on the fly, they may be stored while the same computer session is used but as soon as you reboot, they are gone. Bitmap fonts are the ones stored in your font folder.
5. Truetype fonts were developed by Apple Computer, but like a lot of things, they are more closely associated with Microsoft in the average users' mind.
Congrats to our winners, and they are also of a "true type".
Bob, what will our winners recieve?
They will each get a string of Perls, starting with Perl Poetry from the Perl Monks:
The Monastery and as many Perls as they like from CPAN . Why, they can string together Perl modules and present them to their significant other. And with Mothers Day coming up, why not give your Mom as nice string of PERL to use on her computer!