4 ms·

Yes, my recollection was that Apple was the first to market with vector fonts, hinting, and sub-pixel-rendering, and not by a small margin. I had to interact wi

Yes, my recollection was that Apple was the first to market with vector fonts, hinting, and sub-pixel-rendering, and not by a small margin. I had to interact with their lowish-level C API that drew this stuff in the early 2000s -- it was definitely doing sub pixel rendering at a time when the competition was, uh, Windows XP. Retina officially happened in 2013, not 2015, and I distinctly remember playing with scale factors in 2008 and being frustrated by a search for competitive panels on non-Apple laptops in 2009, so they've been pushing high resolution panels far earlier than 2015, which is exactly what you would expect from a company in the premium niche. So yeah, OP is doing some sketchy revisionist history to dunk on Apple, but if Apple thought it was OK to release dark themes without updating SPR, hinting, etc to work on non-white backgrounds (which I suspect is the real issue here) then they do need a wakeup call.

nradov 8y ago
Windows XP supported ClearType for sub-pixel rendering. It was off by default, I think because there was a slight performance impact and it didn't give good results on some older displays available at the time.
- jjoonathan 8y ago
  Then I'm guilty of the same thing as OP: I saw in one particular instance that XP wasn't doing SPR and assumed it wasn't capable of it. OSX was definitely doing it at the time, though, because I had to deal with a visual issue that revolved around it, and it was everywhere by default. EDIT: Did some googling. This is a bigger, older, juicier drama than I knew. It even looks like Nathan Mhyrvold and Woz were involved! https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/12/biztech/articles/07microsoft-flat.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/... > Cleartype was suspiciously similar to approaches developed many years earlier by researchers at Apple Computer, IBM, Xerox Corp. and elsewhere. > Gibson decided to stake his own claim to history by creating a Web page to document what he calls the original pioneering work in sub-pixel technology by Steven Wozniak, designer of the Apple II computer. I believe this is the site: https://www.grc.com/ctwho.htm https://www.grc.com/ctwho.htm
  - mistrial9 8y ago
    too strange to believe combinations of ultra-aggressive management plus occasional engineering brilliance plus team sports engineering efforts; before the Internet, paper print was one side of mass consumer applications aka the big money. People here know that super-smart father figure founder John Warnock literally burst into tears on stage as bitter rivals (MSFT AAPL) turned buddy-buddy behind closed doors to knock Adobe off of their type perch, right ?
    - jjoonathan 8y ago
      I believe it. I haven't heard the story told from that angle yet, though.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    There's a blast from the past. I remember downloading that GRC demo to prove to a friend it should work on any laptop, not just the Mac. I have a vague memory that SPR on Windows XP was very oddly integrated when it did arrive. You didn't download an update or utility, you went to some Microsoft page that turned it on, and tuned it for your monitor. So for most people it may as well have not existed.
bluedino 8y ago
>> Retina officially happened in 2013, not 2015, 2012, actually.

nradov 8y ago

Windows XP supported ClearType for sub-pixel rendering. It was off by default, I think because there was a slight performance impact and it didn't give good results on some older displays available at the time.

jjoonathan 8y ago
Then I'm guilty of the same thing as OP: I saw in one particular instance that XP wasn't doing SPR and assumed it wasn't capable of it. OSX was definitely doing it at the time, though, because I had to deal with a visual issue that revolved around it, and it was everywhere by default. EDIT: Did some googling. This is a bigger, older, juicier drama than I knew. It even looks like Nathan Mhyrvold and Woz were involved! https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/12/biztech/articles/07microsoft-flat.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/... > Cleartype was suspiciously similar to approaches developed many years earlier by researchers at Apple Computer, IBM, Xerox Corp. and elsewhere. > Gibson decided to stake his own claim to history by creating a Web page to document what he calls the original pioneering work in sub-pixel technology by Steven Wozniak, designer of the Apple II computer. I believe this is the site: https://www.grc.com/ctwho.htm https://www.grc.com/ctwho.htm
- mistrial9 8y ago
  too strange to believe combinations of ultra-aggressive management plus occasional engineering brilliance plus team sports engineering efforts; before the Internet, paper print was one side of mass consumer applications aka the big money. People here know that super-smart father figure founder John Warnock literally burst into tears on stage as bitter rivals (MSFT AAPL) turned buddy-buddy behind closed doors to knock Adobe off of their type perch, right ?
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    I believe it. I haven't heard the story told from that angle yet, though.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  There's a blast from the past. I remember downloading that GRC demo to prove to a friend it should work on any laptop, not just the Mac. I have a vague memory that SPR on Windows XP was very oddly integrated when it did arrive. You didn't download an update or utility, you went to some Microsoft page that turned it on, and tuned it for your monitor. So for most people it may as well have not existed.

bluedino 8y ago

>> Retina officially happened in 2013, not 2015, 2012, actually.