5 ms·

This is certainly a well researched one. And seeing so many versions throughout the history, does make me think, if some is going to change it again :). Well S

This is certainly a well researched one. And seeing so many versions throughout the history, does make me think, if some is going to change it again :). Well Steve Jobs introduced fonts to computer. Something that he stole from the hands of specialized calligraphers and enabled everyone to produce great content.

Curmudgel 12y ago
> Well Steve Jobs introduced fonts to computer. What? First of all, I think that you're confusing typefaces and fonts. A computer font is computer code that describes how the size and shape, orientation, etc. of a collection of glyphs should be output onto the screen. Computers had successfully output text to a screen for decades before the Macintosh. The Xerox Star, which came out in 1981, three years before the Apple Macintosh, had sans-serif and serif typefaces: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8010/xerox-star-8010-07.jpg http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8... The Macintosh might have been the first popular commercially available machine that offered several computer fonts, but Jobs certainly did not come up with the idea.
- rjsw 12y ago
  The MIT Lisp Machine source tree contains Times Roman and Helvetica fonts dating from 1977.
  - Curmudgel 12y ago
    I didn't mean to suggest that the Star was the first commercial computer that offered multiple fonts. I picked the Star because it came before the Macintosh there were good pictures of it available. I believe that the Alto also had a font that set a typeface in cursive, and even came with its own font editor, but I'd have to look harder to find videos or pictures of that.
    - rjsw 12y ago
      I think you were correct to identify the Star (or at least the prototype of it), The article on the history of Smalltalk that was posted yesterday gives a date of 1972 for the first Xerox PARC font editor.
MaysonL 12y ago
There were computerized type-setters well before the Mac. Back in the 70's, I wrote a fair amount of page-layout software, as well as a program to convert scanned logos into fonts. (Bask in the day when there were three USA manufacterers of airliners [each airline had to get its own version, and sometimes more than one version] we did publication of maintenance manuals for Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnel-Douglas) Full screen editor with variable font size, even all the way down to birds-eye view, but using vector graphics rather than pixels.

Curmudgel 12y ago

> Well Steve Jobs introduced fonts to computer. What? First of all, I think that you're confusing typefaces and fonts. A computer font is computer code that describes how the size and shape, orientation, etc. of a collection of glyphs should be output onto the screen. Computers had successfully output text to a screen for decades before the Macintosh. The Xerox Star, which came out in 1981, three years before the Apple Macintosh, had sans-serif and serif typefaces: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8010/xerox-star-8010-07.jpg http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8... The Macintosh might have been the first popular commercially available machine that offered several computer fonts, but Jobs certainly did not come up with the idea.

rjsw 12y ago
The MIT Lisp Machine source tree contains Times Roman and Helvetica fonts dating from 1977.
- Curmudgel 12y ago
  I didn't mean to suggest that the Star was the first commercial computer that offered multiple fonts. I picked the Star because it came before the Macintosh there were good pictures of it available. I believe that the Alto also had a font that set a typeface in cursive, and even came with its own font editor, but I'd have to look harder to find videos or pictures of that.
  - rjsw 12y ago
    I think you were correct to identify the Star (or at least the prototype of it), The article on the history of Smalltalk that was posted yesterday gives a date of 1972 for the first Xerox PARC font editor.

MaysonL 12y ago

There were computerized type-setters well before the Mac. Back in the 70's, I wrote a fair amount of page-layout software, as well as a program to convert scanned logos into fonts. (Bask in the day when there were three USA manufacterers of airliners [each airline had to get its own version, and sometimes more than one version] we did publication of maintenance manuals for Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnel-Douglas) Full screen editor with variable font size, even all the way down to birds-eye view, but using vector graphics rather than pixels.