4 ms·
The authors criticisms of the kerning in Chicago fail to realize one of its other amazing achievements. The original Mac had no color or gray scale; only one b
by wanderingstan 8y ago
The authors criticisms of the kerning in Chicago fail to realize one of its other amazing achievements.
The original Mac had no color or gray scale; only one bit per pixel. Disabled items in menus were indicated by a dithered gray, a simple on-off alternating pattern.
Thus, Chicago had to be designed to be legible even when every other pixel was removed. It really was a 12pt masterpiece.
- taejo 8y agoMy memory is that when grayed out Chicago was right on the border of legibility, but I found this image [0] in another HN post, and it's slightly better than I remembered. [0]: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm//wp-content/uploads/2013/01/screen_image_filters.jpg