Calling all typographers

schoedel at kw.igs.net schoedel at kw.igs.net
Thu Apr 28 09:37:05 CDT 2016


On Thu, 28 Apr 2016 13:19:43 +0100, Rod Smallwood wrote
> But they built it out of circles and straight lines and that's what I do.

That's superficially, but not exactly, true. Even the 'o' is not a perfect 
circle, and you can't get close to replicating the 's' or the digits that way.

I took a stab at replicating the 'classic dec' font about a decade ago, following 
scanned DEC manuals wherever possible. I built up most of the basic ASCII set in 
the outline form before suspending the project. (I suspect the solid form can 
mostly be derived from paths through the middle of the outline strokes.) It did 
get used a few years ago by our Jason T for some VCF Midwest graphics - 
https://picasaweb.google.com/102190732096693814506/VCFMW50OfficialGraphics#551251
2730455260610

I'm unlikely to continue the project any time soon, since I no longer own any DEC 
gear of that era, so I will gather up my work in progress and make it available 
under a suitably liberal license (probably Apache, which is one of the 
'standards' in the font world) for anyone to continue.

-- 
Kevin Schoedel <schoedel at kw.igs.net> VA3TCS



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