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> So, the popular web fonts (Arial, Verdana, Georgia, and Times New Roman) are such not only because of their wide availability, but because they are drawn with
by SeanLuke 5y ago
> So, the popular web fonts (Arial, Verdana, Georgia, and Times New Roman) are such not only because of their wide availability, but because they are drawn with the screen’s limitations in mind.
Um. Times New Roman was commissioned in 1931. Arial was developed in 1982.
- carlmr 5y agoAnd I always thought Times New Roman sucks on screen before Full HD.
- SeanLuke 5y agoI find Times New Roman very bad in general. It was designed for one purpose: extreme horizontal compactness for narrow columns in newspapers. That function is almost obsolete at this point, and Times has poor legibility compared to wider fonts.
- skhr0680 5y agoBack when screens were low DPI fonts needed to be hinted and adjusted to look good. Times New Roman went through that process. In the case of Arial, yes, computers existed in 1982
- dredmorbius 5y agoBitmapped displays were rare in 1982. The Apple Macintosh was 2 years away, as was X11 (the X Windowing System) for Unix. Even the Macintosh predecessor Lisa was released in 1983. The Andrew Project dates to 1982. The Xerox Star and Apollo systems date to 1981, the year prior to Ariel's release. Only the Xerox Alto significantly preceded Ariel (1973), but it was not widely used.