7 ms·

I wonder how many HN readers are too young to remember the original San Francisco font on the original Mac. It was the "ransom note" font. https://en.wikipedi

I wonder how many HN readers are too young to remember the original San Francisco font on the original Mac. It was the "ransom note" font. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%281984_typeface%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%281984_typeface...

jhugg 11y ago
Ransom note?
- function_seven 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_note_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_note_effect
  - robinson7d 11y ago
    Your parent likely knows what it means; the message is no longer clear but the post it was in reply to originally said "random note". Your parent was simply a suggested correction, which didn't hold up after the correction was made.
    - hrbrtglm 11y ago
      A diff button appearing for modified comments would be such a great feature ... :)
    - function_seven 11y ago
      Ah, thanks. I was confused by the confusion.
scelerat 11y ago
Not too young here; San Francisco was one of the original bitmapped 'city' fonts which shipped with the original Macintosh operating system, alongside Monaco, Chicago, Geneva, Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, Athens, Venice, London, and Cairo. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=World_Class_Cities.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=World_Class_Citie...
r0naa 11y ago
Damn, this font is glorious. I often wonder if what appears to me to be a very clear cut in aesthetic standards between the 1980s and the 2010s is the result of my own bias (I was born in the late 1990s) or actually a thing. In fact, I do not find the difference between common fonts used in the 1960s -> 1990s as shocking. What's your take on this? Do you think there has been a bigger and more drastic change in what people consider "aesthetically pleasant" between now and the 1980s compared to other time-periods.
- handojin 11y ago
  The 80s birthed the smiths. Their like has not been seen again.
- robinson7d 11y ago
  It doesn't feel, to me at least, as much that aesthetic standards have changed in general as much as that they've changed on computers. I'm not certain why, but I'd guess it has to do with various things ranging from screen resolution to font availability to marketing. On the other hand, the "fun" of fonts like San Francisco ('84) might have partially worn off as computers became more integrated into our lives. Many currently popular web typefaces have been around for decades. Helvetica, Avenir, Franklin Gothic, Futura, etc.
- cschmidt 11y ago
  There was a brief era when the Mac came out in 1984 when bitmap fonts were the thing. I had a lovely ImageWriter printer that could print them all out. Emigre was one of the early people to push design in that area. They still have a section on their "low res" fonts: http://www.emigre.com/EFfeature.php?di=101 http://www.emigre.com/EFfeature.php?di=101 Through their fonts, and in Emigre magazine, the did spend a lot of time discussing what was aesthetically pleasing. Then the LaserWriter took over, and postscript fonts became more of the norm.
  - cschmidt 11y ago
    Actually, while on nostalgia lane, does anyone else remember the font called Boston II? It was a shareware font that was the best ImageWriter bitmap font ever. It was a thing of beauty. I've looked for it occasionally, but I haven't found any web references for it.
ilovecomputers 11y ago
A testament to how the early days of Apple was more playful like Google's current culture.
- copperx 11y ago
  Now even Microsoft feels more playful than Apple, at least that's my impression. Designing beautiful products doesn't have to mean that you're stuck up and can't embrace experimentation every once in a while. I miss the times when Apple used to come up with goofy stuff.
- gdubs 11y ago
  The exception being the Apple Watch, which has lots of playful elements, from the drawing feature, to the heartbeat, to the activity achievement awards and the animated emoji.
  - elektromekatron 11y ago
    Drawing and emoji are just normal expectations of an interactive device with a screen, heartbeat stuff is just proximity of the device to biology, and whatever the fuck activity achievement awards are, if something named that is now considered play, then Huxley scores yet another point.
    - whoopdedo 11y ago
      Indeed. If this were the old Apple the devs would have snuck in an easter egg which changes the watch face to a mouse-like cartoon character that totally isn't a copyright violation, honest.
      - comex 11y ago
        Not sure if you're serious, but I don't think the fact that Apple is influential enough to be able to get the mouse as a legitimate face makes it not as playful. Also, if the parent hasn't seen it, Apple Watch's particular brand of animated emoji is rather unusual - I think it's somewhat garish, unusually for Apple, but it's certainly an attempt at... something. Drawing is certainly not a normal expectation for such a tiny screen; measuring heartbeats is one thing, but sharing them is another, and... yeah, I shouldn't bother responding to trollish comments.
jd3 11y ago
I recently converted all of the old font suitcase (FFIL) files that I salvaged from Mac OS 1-7 (other than the elusive Taliesin which I have the FFIl for but remains unreadable in FontForge) to working OS X bitmap datafork fonts (.dfont). [0] Missing a few random ones such as Fancy (1993), the Apple Newton font, Espy Sans (1993, Apple eWorld, Apple Newton and iPod Mini font, known as System on the Apple Newton platform), eWorld Tight (1993, Apple eWorld font based on Helvetica Compressed), Simple (1993), Apple Newton font, based on Geneva), and toronto. It seems Grant Hutchinson (splorp) seems to have some old converted Apple fonts from his Newton projects [1] and from Mark Simonson [2], which could be promising of finishing the collection of what I've been referring to as the "Lost Fonts" project. I will be e-mailing them when I get the chance... [0] http://i.imgur.com/Q1tZknV.png http://i.imgur.com/Q1tZknV.png [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/8289012748/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/8289012748/in/photostre... [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20030807223056/http://www.ms-studio.com/OldBitmaps/century.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030807223056/http://www.ms-stud...
- mietek 11y ago
  I should be able to help you locate some of the lost fonts, and I’d be interested in learning your conversion technique. Please do get in touch. My contact information is in my profile.
  - jd3 11y ago
    That'd be great. I'll e-mail you soon.
- whoopdedo 11y ago
  This prompted me to dig out my old Macintosh disks (then spend half an hour downloading software that could read them only to find out most of it doesn't work on 64-bit Windows) I found fewer bitmap fonts than I had thought I had saved. I came across a specimen printout with Espy Sans and Espy Serif (also BeBox) so I had it at one point. But I only found a file for "Espi Sans" that I think was an imitation. I also have the TTF conversion Epsy Sans. If you would like some help cracking Taliesin I spent most of high school reverse engineering resource forks. Some of what I learned must still be lodged in my brain somewhere. And yes, the first thing I thought of when I saw this article title was the old funky letter font.
cpeterso 11y ago
Why would Apple reuse their own San Francisco font name? There are plenty of other world class cities.
- petecooper 11y ago
  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBooks
  - cpeterso 11y ago
    Good point. When Apple announced the iPad, I thought they should reuse the iBook name.
- comex 11y ago
  Not other world class cities that happen to be the nearest to Apple HQ. shrug
- RexRollman 11y ago
  The Wikipedia article seems to imply that the previous San Francisco font hasn't shipped since System 7, which came out in 1991. I think it has been long enough that there shouldn't be any confusion.
shurcooL 11y ago
Does anyone know the name of the most common small font from Windows XP? For example, when you right click and a context menu appears, or the names of files in explorer.
- ygra 11y ago
  Yes. Tahoma. I very much prefer Segoe UI, though.
- userbinator 11y ago
  MS Sans Serif?

jhugg 11y ago

Ransom note?

function_seven 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_note_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_note_effect
- robinson7d 11y ago
  Your parent likely knows what it means; the message is no longer clear but the post it was in reply to originally said "random note". Your parent was simply a suggested correction, which didn't hold up after the correction was made.
  - hrbrtglm 11y ago
    A diff button appearing for modified comments would be such a great feature ... :)
  - function_seven 11y ago
    Ah, thanks. I was confused by the confusion.

scelerat 11y ago

Not too young here; San Francisco was one of the original bitmapped 'city' fonts which shipped with the original Macintosh operating system, alongside Monaco, Chicago, Geneva, Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, Athens, Venice, London, and Cairo. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=World_Class_Cities.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=World_Class_Citie...

r0naa 11y ago

Damn, this font is glorious. I often wonder if what appears to me to be a very clear cut in aesthetic standards between the 1980s and the 2010s is the result of my own bias (I was born in the late 1990s) or actually a thing. In fact, I do not find the difference between common fonts used in the 1960s -> 1990s as shocking. What's your take on this? Do you think there has been a bigger and more drastic change in what people consider "aesthetically pleasant" between now and the 1980s compared to other time-periods.

handojin 11y ago
The 80s birthed the smiths. Their like has not been seen again.
robinson7d 11y ago
It doesn't feel, to me at least, as much that aesthetic standards have changed in general as much as that they've changed on computers. I'm not certain why, but I'd guess it has to do with various things ranging from screen resolution to font availability to marketing. On the other hand, the "fun" of fonts like San Francisco ('84) might have partially worn off as computers became more integrated into our lives. Many currently popular web typefaces have been around for decades. Helvetica, Avenir, Franklin Gothic, Futura, etc.
cschmidt 11y ago
There was a brief era when the Mac came out in 1984 when bitmap fonts were the thing. I had a lovely ImageWriter printer that could print them all out. Emigre was one of the early people to push design in that area. They still have a section on their "low res" fonts: http://www.emigre.com/EFfeature.php?di=101 http://www.emigre.com/EFfeature.php?di=101 Through their fonts, and in Emigre magazine, the did spend a lot of time discussing what was aesthetically pleasing. Then the LaserWriter took over, and postscript fonts became more of the norm.
- cschmidt 11y ago
  Actually, while on nostalgia lane, does anyone else remember the font called Boston II? It was a shareware font that was the best ImageWriter bitmap font ever. It was a thing of beauty. I've looked for it occasionally, but I haven't found any web references for it.

ilovecomputers 11y ago

A testament to how the early days of Apple was more playful like Google's current culture.

copperx 11y ago
Now even Microsoft feels more playful than Apple, at least that's my impression. Designing beautiful products doesn't have to mean that you're stuck up and can't embrace experimentation every once in a while. I miss the times when Apple used to come up with goofy stuff.
gdubs 11y ago
The exception being the Apple Watch, which has lots of playful elements, from the drawing feature, to the heartbeat, to the activity achievement awards and the animated emoji.
- elektromekatron 11y ago
  Drawing and emoji are just normal expectations of an interactive device with a screen, heartbeat stuff is just proximity of the device to biology, and whatever the fuck activity achievement awards are, if something named that is now considered play, then Huxley scores yet another point.
  - whoopdedo 11y ago
    Indeed. If this were the old Apple the devs would have snuck in an easter egg which changes the watch face to a mouse-like cartoon character that totally isn't a copyright violation, honest.
    - comex 11y ago
      Not sure if you're serious, but I don't think the fact that Apple is influential enough to be able to get the mouse as a legitimate face makes it not as playful. Also, if the parent hasn't seen it, Apple Watch's particular brand of animated emoji is rather unusual - I think it's somewhat garish, unusually for Apple, but it's certainly an attempt at... something. Drawing is certainly not a normal expectation for such a tiny screen; measuring heartbeats is one thing, but sharing them is another, and... yeah, I shouldn't bother responding to trollish comments.

jd3 11y ago

I recently converted all of the old font suitcase (FFIL) files that I salvaged from Mac OS 1-7 (other than the elusive Taliesin which I have the FFIl for but remains unreadable in FontForge) to working OS X bitmap datafork fonts (.dfont). [0] Missing a few random ones such as Fancy (1993), the Apple Newton font, Espy Sans (1993, Apple eWorld, Apple Newton and iPod Mini font, known as System on the Apple Newton platform), eWorld Tight (1993, Apple eWorld font based on Helvetica Compressed), Simple (1993), Apple Newton font, based on Geneva), and toronto. It seems Grant Hutchinson (splorp) seems to have some old converted Apple fonts from his Newton projects [1] and from Mark Simonson [2], which could be promising of finishing the collection of what I've been referring to as the "Lost Fonts" project. I will be e-mailing them when I get the chance... [0] http://i.imgur.com/Q1tZknV.png http://i.imgur.com/Q1tZknV.png [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/8289012748/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/8289012748/in/photostre... [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20030807223056/http://www.ms-studio.com/OldBitmaps/century.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030807223056/http://www.ms-stud...

mietek 11y ago
I should be able to help you locate some of the lost fonts, and I’d be interested in learning your conversion technique. Please do get in touch. My contact information is in my profile.
- jd3 11y ago
  That'd be great. I'll e-mail you soon.
whoopdedo 11y ago
This prompted me to dig out my old Macintosh disks (then spend half an hour downloading software that could read them only to find out most of it doesn't work on 64-bit Windows) I found fewer bitmap fonts than I had thought I had saved. I came across a specimen printout with Espy Sans and Espy Serif (also BeBox) so I had it at one point. But I only found a file for "Espi Sans" that I think was an imitation. I also have the TTF conversion Epsy Sans. If you would like some help cracking Taliesin I spent most of high school reverse engineering resource forks. Some of what I learned must still be lodged in my brain somewhere. And yes, the first thing I thought of when I saw this article title was the old funky letter font.

cpeterso 11y ago

Why would Apple reuse their own San Francisco font name? There are plenty of other world class cities.

petecooper 11y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBooks
- cpeterso 11y ago
  Good point. When Apple announced the iPad, I thought they should reuse the iBook name.
comex 11y ago
Not other world class cities that happen to be the nearest to Apple HQ. shrug
RexRollman 11y ago
The Wikipedia article seems to imply that the previous San Francisco font hasn't shipped since System 7, which came out in 1991. I think it has been long enough that there shouldn't be any confusion.

shurcooL 11y ago

Does anyone know the name of the most common small font from Windows XP? For example, when you right click and a context menu appears, or the names of files in explorer.

ygra 11y ago
Yes. Tahoma. I very much prefer Segoe UI, though.
userbinator 11y ago
MS Sans Serif?