The Hershey Glyphs, more commonly called the "Hershey fonts," are the vector encodings of many alphanumeric, symbolic, and Japanese glyphs created by Dr. Allen Vincent Hershey (1910 - ?) in the 1960s while at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory at Dahlgren, Virginia. These data were published, with auxiliary material, by Norman M. Wolcott (Computer Services Division) and Joseph Hilsenrath (Office of Standard Reference Data) of the US National Bureau of Standards (NBS; now the National Institute of Science and Technology, NIST) in 1976 (Wolcott & Hilsenrath). This is the reference most often cited with respect to the Hershey data. At the time of writing (2003) this book was still available in paper format (printed on demand) from the US National Technical Information Service (NTIS); their Order Number for it is PB251845.
Wolcott & Hilsenrath in turn cite several papers by Hershey, which I have not yet had the opportunity to examine (including Calligraphy for Computers, FORTRAN IV Programming for Cartography and Typography, and Preparation of Reports with the FORTRAN Typographic System.)
A version of the data for these glyphs in a format originally created by James Hurt was distributed in a freely redistributable form (subject to some simple conditions) to the USENET former newsgroup mod.sources in December 1986 by Peter Holzmann.
The Hershey glyphs have been used in several notable packages, including Ghostscript® and the GNU plotutils. The documentation included with the GNU plotutils includes further information on the glyphs and cites passages from Hershey's Calligraphy for Computers concerning their origins.
In working with the Hershey glyphs, I was struck repeatedly by something suggested briefly in Wolcott & Hilsenrath (1-2): Dr. Hershey must have been an extraordinary man.
Every style of writing or printing type is commonly evaluated in the context of the technology used originally to produce it: the chisel of the Roman stonecutter, the brush of the Japanese calligrapher, the nibbed pen of the Renaissance scribe, the Bézier spline of the digital typographer. Hershey's glyphs were made initially for rendering with a pen on a plotter.
In the decades since his work, we have become dependent upon typesetting technologies that often rely upon brute force: significant computing power, and devices approaching the limits of visual acuity. I do not yet know what computer systems Dr. Hershey used, but to get a feeling of the technology one need only recall that when the NBS later imported Hershey's data they used a UNIVAC 1108 Wolcott & Hilsenrath (3). Hershey worked with 1960s computers and straight lines at workable resolutions on pen plotters. The "resolution" of the glyphs is at most 99 units per glyph (and often much less).
Instead of computationally intensive technologies, Hershey relied upon a sensitive appreciation of both letterforms and his medium (the 99 x 99 vector grid). His glyphs are remarkable creations from a purely aesthetic point of view. As a combination of aesthetics and technology ("calligraphy for computers," as Hershey said) this achievement is one that may not have been exceeded until Prof. Don Knuth's remarkable METAFONT® type creating system and Computer Modern® typeface nearly two decades later. 1
This present translation of the Hershey glyphs for VARKON® began quite simply: I needed to draw a diagram in the VARKON CAD system incorporating the Greek characters α, β, and θ. I continued it beyond this simple goal, however, because of the inherent interest and often elegance of Dr. Hershey's glyphs. Though I don't presume to claim that Lombardic or Blackletter typefaces, for example, are practical in CAD drawings, it has nonetheless been an intellectually and aesthetically rewarding study.
The USENET distribution of the Hershey glyph data was originally posted to the USENET former newsgroup "mod.sources" in December 1986 by Peter Holzmann. It is archived in the "comp.sources.unix" archive, Volume 4. The files of this distribution are redistributed here; when one's sources are freely available, it's only polite to redistribute them freely as well.
The original *.Z archives (from which the files above were extracted) are:
Note: The cover statement as it appears in the version of these data redistributed as a part of Ghostscript contains additional information on the encoding of the data.
1 Indeed the Hershey glyphs have been translated, by Ken Yap, into METAFONT format: ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/fonts/hershey/
Note: "[nc]" indicates that I have not had the opportunity actually to consult the text referenced.
[nc] [unknown] Computer Science and Technology: FORTRAN IV Enhanced Character Graphics. US National Bureau of Standards, 1978. [May contain Hershey and/or further data]
[nc] Hershey, Allen V. Advanced Computer Typography. Technical Report NPS012-81-005. U. S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93940. December, 1981.
[nc] Hershey, A. V. Calligraphy for Computers. Technical Report No. 2101 (1 August 1967). U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, Dahlgren, Virginia. NTIS Stock Number: AD662398.
[nc] Hershey, A. V. Cartography and Typography in True BASIC. Technical Report NPS-09-95-003. U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. September 1995.
[nc] Hershey, Allen V. "A Computer System for Scientific Typography." Computer Graphics and Image Processing. [ISSN: -734-189X] Vol. 1 (1972): 373-385.
[nc] Hershey, A. V. FORTRAN IV Programming for Cartography and Typography. NWL Technical Report TR-2339 (September 1969). U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, Dahlgren, Virginia.
[nc] Hershey, A. V. Preparation of Reports with the FORTRAN Typographic System. NWL Technical Note TN-K/27-70 (September 1970). U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, Dahlgren, Virginia.
Knuth, Donald E.
Computers and Typesetting
Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1986.
Especially volumes
C: The METAFONT Book,
D: METAFONT: The Program,
and
E: Computer Modern Typefaces.
Wolcott, Norman M. and Joseph Hilsenrath. A Contribution to Computer Typesetting Techniques: Tables of Coordinates for Hershey's Repertory of Occidental Type Fonts and Graphic Symbols. Washington, D. C.: Office of Standard Reference Data, National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce, April 1976. NBS Special Publication 424. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) Order Number PB251845.
Sources for this bibliographic information included Nelson H. F. Beebe's extensive font bibliography, Version 1.52, 2003-04-09, at http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/font.html
Here's a GNU® zipped, GNU tarred "tarball" of this section: affv-hershey-0.0.tar.gz
The data, files, text, and programs of the Holzmann USENET Hershey Glyph Distribution may be redistributed and used freely under their original terms as specified in the Holzmann USENET Hershey Glyph Distribution Cover Statement. The distribution here complies with these terms. The data of the Hershey Glyphs as transformed for use with VARKON may be redistributed and used freely under these same terms. I assert no additional rights or conditions on the use of the transformed data. Some of the text and programs in the Holzmann USENET Hershey Font Distribution may be Copyright 1986 by Peter Holzmann and/or James Hurt. Their own terms either allow or require their redistribution with the Hershey data. The distribution of these texts, files, data, and programs here is subject to all of the disclaimers of warranty and liability noted herein.
The text of this document itself and of any linked program files insofar as their text is separable from any Hershey Glyph data they may contain are copyright © 2003 by David M. MacMillan.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify copyrighted portions of this document (other than the portions the copyright of which is owned by Peter Holzmann and/or James Hurt, which are freely redistributable under their own terms) under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License."
Note: Those portions of this document which are in the public domain, if any, may be copied freely. The distribution of these public domain portions is subject to all of the disclaimers of warranty and liability noted herein.
This work is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Free Documentation License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Free Documentation License along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
This work is distributed "as-is," without any warranty of any kind, expressed or implied; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
In no event will the author(s), editor(s), or publisher(s) of this work be liable to you or to any other party for damages, including but not limited to any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use of or inability to use this work or the information contained in it, even if you have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
In no event will the author(s), editor(s), or publisher(s) of this work be liable to you or to any other party for any injury, death, disfigurement, or other personal damage arising out of your use of or inability to use this work or the information contained in it, even if you have been advised of the possibility of such injury, death, disfigurement, or other personal damage.
Computer Modern is a registered trademark of
[check].
Ghostscript is a trademark of artofcode LLC.
GNU is a registered trademark of the Free Software Foundation.
METAFONT is a registered trademark of Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
VARKON is or was a trademark of Microform AB (Sweden).
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