Calling all typographers

[steven at malikoff.com]

schoedel at kw.igs.net wrote
> 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've also had a go at the dec font for the purpose of those 'good enough' mastheads I
posted about here last year:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/entry.php?544-A-good-enough-replica-of-the-digital-PDP11-masthead-for-the-H960-rack

I too found the font to be mostly circles and tengential lines except for the 's' which
gave me a lot of trouble to draw nicely in my CAD program. I'm puzzled about the notion
of 'o' not being a perfect circle as I found it to be quite so, at least on the masthead.
As mentioned there are different 't's. I treat the whole masthead as an integral CAD drawing -
I'm not trying to replicate Paul's near-enough Corel-drawn font (which I examined) but
rather a correctly spaced and kerned piece of text, just as it is on the masthead.

I've made some test cuts in paper and vinyl on my CNC stencil cutter for both a positive
(stick-on decal) and negative (for silkscreening) and the results are fairly promising, but
I put it aside a while ago so I just need to find some time to get back into it.

Steve.