Re: Face header

[Antoine Leca]

Bertrand Petit wrote:
> 
> On Thu, May 11, 2000 at 10:59:22AM -0700, Angus Duggan wrote:
> > Historically, the point has taken different values in different times and
> > places. What you are describing is Don Knuth's view of the point.
> 
> Here is a brief summary of the point in chronological order:
> 
>         1 didot point:          0.3759 mm
>         1 metric point:         0.4 mm

Never been used. But dated 1795 ± 5 years.

>         1 anglo-saxon point:    0.35135 mm

I cannot understand this order: you are in fact saying that
the Anglo-Saxons (for example, Baskerville) were using the didot
point before 1790?

My take on this is that there were points in use in England
that predates the "official" didot point. I doubt there were
only *one* "anglo-saxon" point, though.


That's said, nowadays and in the specific field of computer typography,
an inch is 25.4 mm and there are 72 points in an inch. TeX is outside
the field, since I am not aware that David is developing a plug-in
for Metafont ;-).


Antoine