Astro Hacker News - The C64 Dead Test Font

dusted |next [-]

Nice writeup! Yeah, that font! :D I didn't have a deadtest cart back in ancient times, but I built one when I built my first C64 (from PCB and up), and the first thing I did with that machine, was to boot it with the dead test cart.. Which didn't work because the PCB I got didn't wire the pins it needed.. I thought on it until I figured that hey! chip select pin!! And then I jumpered that pin and saw for the very first time, a brand new C64 come up and vomit garbage all over the screen because I had gotten a wrong chip! :D

https://dusted.dk/pages/c64/MaxFake64/

rob74 |next |previous [-]

In Germany (maybe also Austria?), that font is probably best known from the logo of major computer magazine/site CHIP (https://www.chip.de/). Although, for some unfathomable reason, the C in the "dead test font" doesn't have the characteristic "thickening" in the lower vertical part, although the G has it...

ikari_pl |root |parent |next [-]

This is basically the MICR font: Magnetic Ink (!) Character Recognition. Amazing idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recogni...

daneel_w |root |parent |next |previous [-]

And so many variant typefaces of the same graphical language were seen in a million products during the home computer boom of the late 70s and early 80s. Iconic.

kevin_thibedeau |root |parent [-]

It's a copy of the Westminster font from the 60s which was an adaption of the visual style of MICR digits and symbols to a full symbology (without being machine readable). It was a meme for computerbilia of the era that now seems quaint.

scotty79 |root |parent |previous [-]

The other thing that caught my eye is that M has the thickening on the opposite side to N. I thought it was for easier recognition of similar letters (same with A and R, O and Q), but U and V have the thickening on the same side. Maybe C vs G is the reason why C doesn't have the thickening.

hankbond |next |previous [-]

I was recently exploring fonts of the next decade from old Mac system 6-9 era on my still in progress personal blog site https://hankdoes.ai/design-system/

Thank you author for the font and the lovely dive into computing and type history!

krige |next |previous [-]

Good ol' It's A Computer (tm) font. A good while back I've been using Westminster in every piece of UI I wrote for myself. Maybe I should start doing that again.

jansan |root |parent [-]

Here is an interesting first hand account about the history of Westminster. Interestingly the creator himself does not seem to know why the (IMO rather unfitting) name Westminster was chosen:

https://www.mercerdesign.com/true-story-westminster-font/

cousin_it |next |previous [-]

Reminds me of the font in Master of Orion: https://www.mobygames.com/game/212/master-of-orion/screensho...

bitwize |next |previous [-]

I love the "MICR line"-like appearance, fonts of which type were heavily used in the 1970s and 1980s to indicate "computer/technology stuff".

Chaosvex |next |previous [-]

Seeing typos like 'resulation' is now a nice hint that a human wrote the article.

Nice exploration, bit of quirky fun.

phrotoma |root |parent |next [-]

> Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of wherever.

masswerk |root |parent [-]

Every hand-knotted carpet has some error per design, since only Allah is perfect.

But, I guess, "resulation" may be a bit blotchy for a sign of humbleness. :-)

robocat |root |parent [-]

> some error per design

A single minimum error by design would obviously be perfection. And it appears to be a myth story anyways - in truth Islamic carpet weavers do aim for perfection.

I've always thought it would be a catch-22 gotcha rule. Dieties presumably choose to either (A) care about rules or (B) not care about rules. An ambiguous rule is dangerous - especially if intent was what mattered?

The Japanese wabi-sabi is the core behind an equivalent folklore story I heard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

masswerk |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Sorry, I had to fix this.

(You're welcome anyway. And yes, I think, it's the sort of quirky article, an LLM can't come up with.)

ikari_pl |root |parent |next |previous [-]

As a perfectionist, I twitched ;-)

benj111 |root |parent |previous [-]

Don't say that, or else Ai will start inserting typos.

Chaosvex |root |parent [-]

Oh, I'm sure there are people that already do it intentionally.

jansan |previous [-]

I am pretty sure that I saw that font on a C64 before. Paradroid used a very similar font for the logo, but the game itself uses a different font (Paradrew).

daneel_w |root |parent [-]

There are a hundred variants of it used in various software for the C64, the Amiga, the anything.