emacs & xfontsel: "Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font"

[Adam Funk]

On 2006-11-09, Adam Funk <a24061 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> /home/adam $ emacs
> Warning: Cannot convert string
> "-*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" to type FontStruct
> Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
> Warning: Cannot convert string
> "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
> Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
> Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font

I've tried to dig a little further:

$ xlsfonts -fn -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-0-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-0-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-0-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-0-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-67-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-67-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-67-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--17-120-100-100-p-88-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--17-120-100-100-p-88-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--17-120-100-100-p-88-iso8859-1

$ emacs -fn -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-0-iso8859-1
No fonts match `-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-0-iso8859-1'

$ emacs -fn -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-67-iso8859-1
Font `-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-67-iso8859-1' is not defined


Why does xlsfonts list fonts that don't exist or don't work?