NOTES ON HOW TO WRITE StarTrek(tm) CARDASSIAN, AND ABOUT THE FONT.
                      by tommy of escondido
  Cardassian, in the examples i have seen, seems to be written in many 
different ways.  letters seems to be usable as: upside down, backwards,
run together, and distorted into wide low "fat" shapes.  however, they are
always the same set of letters.   i did *not* font all of these forms,
i only fonted the two basic forms.
  i *did* font the two! variants of cardassian into this one font - the 
capitals [A-Z and {}[]/<>.-!@] are the most common letters, and the minor 
letters [a-s] are less common.  there are also a few wingdings [#$%&] here.
both letterings do seem to be related vaguely in shape, so neither probably
is the numbers, but with aliens who can tell?  since they might be capitals 
and minors like english, i decided to put them into the same font for ease 
of use.  yet, note: i have *never* seen the minors and the capital forms 
used together at all. [btw - the capital form is more often "mashed" and 
flipped around than the less common minor form - maybe just because it is 
more common, i don't know.]  i call the major letters the "computer" style
and the minors the "gothic" style, because that is what they remind me of.
  the punctuation i have seen is a dot [for which i used the period], 
a dash and some filled circles [used .-!@], their significance is unknown.
i have not seen them used with the "gothic" minor style, only the "ibm" 
major style.  the wingdings [#$%&] are seen with both.
  i don't claim that these fonts are complete or accurate - Paramount is 
always changing things.  however i only used "canon" sources - the books 
"THE MAKING OF STARTREK DEEP SPACE NINE", "THE ART OF STARTREK", and 
"STARTREK, WHERE NONE HAS GONE BEFORE, A HISTORY" primarily in this case.
i used their sample pictures from the shows as the source.
  if you should come across any missing/new letters, punctuation, or the
numbering system from canon sources, please post several notices on the
internet usegroups ALT.BINARIES.STARTREK and ALT.STARTREK.  [it may take
several times to get my attention!]
  this is distributed as charityware.  if you find it worthwhile, please
give a little more than usual to charities such as the Salvation Army or
United Way - or others the next time you have a chance.

cardassian seems to be very flexible in how it is written, i have seen  
it written around in a circle - and in each of these forms as well:
   
  
1.  in parallel lines         2.  u  d  t  w
    like english is               p  o  h  r
                                     w  i  i
                                  a  n  s  t
                                  n        t
                                  d  l  i  e
                                     i  s  n
                                     k      
                  u                  e      
                  s              s          
              i   e              o
 3.       crossword              m
             t            the    e
             y            v p    t
            also            i    i
             e n            s    m
                           computer
                            d    s
                            e
                            screens