3 ms·

That's a funny story, but i can't help but to feel that there's another problem to be solved: > It turns out he wasn't noticing the space between the 'o' and t

That's a funny story, but i can't help but to feel that there's another problem to be solved: > It turns out he wasn't noticing the space between the 'o' and the 'I' in 'Do It'; in the sans-serif system font we were using, a capital 'I' looked very much like a lower case 'l' Why couldn't most fonts be designed in a way as to not mix up o and O and 0, l and I and L as well as other symbols like that? Of course, there are often historical constraints to deal with but it surprises me that this isn't some rule of font design that would need to be followed in 99% of the cases.

jonny_eh 5y ago
The limited resolution of the time was a big constraint on the design space. The first Mac had a resolution of 512 × 342, and that was considered generous.
- Someone 5y ago
  The original font had the additional constraint that it had to be legible after “graying out” characters by AND-ing their pixels with a 50% gray grid (the screen was black and white, so that’s how you got gray) That’s why characters in Chicago 12 (http://kare.com/apple-icons/ http://kare.com/apple-icons/) have ‘fat’ stems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface_anatomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface_anatomy) I don’t think there was much room for making lowercase l different from both uppercase L and uppercase I while keeping the font look nice.
  - masswerk 5y ago
    I think, this must have been about the LISA System font. (Easily identified by the characteristic "v" and "w" glyphs. "I" and "l" actually look the same and both have a bit of a kerning problem, probably because of the requirement to match said 50% gray grid in a certain way.) Compare: https://www.applefritter.com/content/lisa-font-charts https://www.applefritter.com/content/lisa-font-charts (Mind that the LISA didn't have square pixels and that the font would have appeared more condensed on the screen than in the printed sample due to pixel aspect ratio.) Edit: For an on-screen sample with word spacing in button text as eventually released compare: http://toastytech.com/guis/lisaos1Clock_Close_Dialog_Large.jpg http://toastytech.com/guis/lisaos1Clock_Close_Dialog_Large.j...

jonny_eh 5y ago

The limited resolution of the time was a big constraint on the design space. The first Mac had a resolution of 512 × 342, and that was considered generous.

Someone 5y ago
The original font had the additional constraint that it had to be legible after “graying out” characters by AND-ing their pixels with a 50% gray grid (the screen was black and white, so that’s how you got gray) That’s why characters in Chicago 12 (http://kare.com/apple-icons/ http://kare.com/apple-icons/) have ‘fat’ stems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface_anatomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface_anatomy) I don’t think there was much room for making lowercase l different from both uppercase L and uppercase I while keeping the font look nice.
- masswerk 5y ago
  I think, this must have been about the LISA System font. (Easily identified by the characteristic "v" and "w" glyphs. "I" and "l" actually look the same and both have a bit of a kerning problem, probably because of the requirement to match said 50% gray grid in a certain way.) Compare: https://www.applefritter.com/content/lisa-font-charts https://www.applefritter.com/content/lisa-font-charts (Mind that the LISA didn't have square pixels and that the font would have appeared more condensed on the screen than in the printed sample due to pixel aspect ratio.) Edit: For an on-screen sample with word spacing in button text as eventually released compare: http://toastytech.com/guis/lisaos1Clock_Close_Dialog_Large.jpg http://toastytech.com/guis/lisaos1Clock_Close_Dialog_Large.j...