4 ms·

This was obviously satirical, with its tongue-and-cheek tone, name-bombing Ken, and the fact that seemingly escapes the blogger here it was typed on a typewrite

by mproud 1y ago

This was obviously satirical, with its tongue-and-cheek tone, name-bombing Ken, and the fact that seemingly escapes the blogger here it was typed on a typewriter! Apple was an upstart company in its day, the anti-IBM, creative, expressive, rebellious. The memo may have been driving a point, but it was mostly just going for a laugh.

KerrAvon 1y ago
How do you know it was typed on a typewriter?
- mceachen 1y ago
  There were really only teletypes and dot-matrix printers available at that point. Look at how "effective immediately" is underlined, and how inconsistent the letterforms are. Also, 1980 is 5 years before the Apple LaserWriter, 11 years before TrueType, and 15+ years before "grunge" fonts were a thing.
  - II2II 1y ago
    The article mentions daisy wheel printers directly, so they must have been available. Daisy wheel printers existed to produce higher quality (text) output than what you would get from a dot matrix printer. There were many other types of impact printers that produced full letters (or even full lines of text) in one go, though I don't know how often they were connected to microcomputers.
  - jsrfca8 1y ago
    To do letter Letter quality back then could also be done with a daisy wheel printer.
  - Hizonner 1y ago
    I was around "at that point", and there were a bewildering number of printer types, including daisy wheels and things that were basically converted typewriters, either of which could have produced output like that. Some daisy wheel drivers would vary the spacing to "kern" the letters, but some wouldn't. If they didn't, what you got looked basically exactly like what you'd get on a typewriter.
- MikeTheGreat 1y ago
  On the one hand, we don't (hello Photoshop!) On the other hand, it looks like the output of a typewriter (including individual variation amongst typed letters as the typewriter has small variations in the amount of ink that's used for each strike), and if the date on the letter is to be believed (1981) then using a typewriter would have been typical for the time.
TMWNN 1y ago
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by mproud 1y ago

KerrAvon 1y ago

How do you know it was typed on a typewriter?

mceachen 1y ago
There were really only teletypes and dot-matrix printers available at that point. Look at how "effective immediately" is underlined, and how inconsistent the letterforms are. Also, 1980 is 5 years before the Apple LaserWriter, 11 years before TrueType, and 15+ years before "grunge" fonts were a thing.
- II2II 1y ago
  The article mentions daisy wheel printers directly, so they must have been available. Daisy wheel printers existed to produce higher quality (text) output than what you would get from a dot matrix printer. There were many other types of impact printers that produced full letters (or even full lines of text) in one go, though I don't know how often they were connected to microcomputers.
- jsrfca8 1y ago
  To do letter Letter quality back then could also be done with a daisy wheel printer.
- Hizonner 1y ago
  I was around "at that point", and there were a bewildering number of printer types, including daisy wheels and things that were basically converted typewriters, either of which could have produced output like that. Some daisy wheel drivers would vary the spacing to "kern" the letters, but some wouldn't. If they didn't, what you got looked basically exactly like what you'd get on a typewriter.
MikeTheGreat 1y ago
On the one hand, we don't (hello Photoshop!) On the other hand, it looks like the output of a typewriter (including individual variation amongst typed letters as the typewriter has small variations in the amount of ink that's used for each strike), and if the date on the letter is to be believed (1981) then using a typewriter would have been typical for the time.

TMWNN 1y ago

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