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Creating Your Own Characters
115
when it prints, Radix will leave out the overlapping dots, so that it
would print like Figure 11-5.)
Add up each column of dots
Now it's time to give our creative side a break and get down to
some basic arithmetic. That's where the numbers down the left
side of the grid come in. Notice that there is a number for each
row of dots and that each number is twice the previous number.
By making these numbers powers of two we can take any combi-
nation of dots in a vertical column and assign them a unique
value. Some examples will make this clearer. As shown in Figure
11-7, if we add the numbers for the dots that print in a column, the
sum will be a number in the range of 0 to
127.
Each number from
O-127
represents a unique combination of dots.
So add up the values of the dots in each column using this
system. This way it takes one number to describe each column of
dots. In Figure
11-8
we've shown our grid with the sums of the
columns filled in across the bottom (see if these agree with your
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
Sum
o-1
l
-
1
o-2
o-2
.-
2
e-4
l -
4
O-8
.-
8
0 -
16
0 -
32
0 -
32
0 -
64
0 -
64
42
71
127
1
J
Figure 11-7. By adding the values of each dot in a column, you'JJ get a unique
description for any combination of dots.
answers!). Across the top of the grid you've probably noticed the
cryptic labeling of each column: ml, m2, m3, etc. These labels
correspond to the labels in the command syntax statement, which
we'll get to shortly.
Assigning a value to your chamcter
We've done a pretty thorough job of designing and describing
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