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The C64 Dead Test Font

masswerk.at

150 pointsmasswerk30 comments

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...

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

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

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.

Regarding the shape of the letter "C", mind that of the 10 digits of the MICR E-18B font, the digits 2, 5, 6, 7, 0 don't have any "thickenings" at all, all thin, even strokes. That's 5 out of 10 or half of the traditional part of the set. So just "C" being similar may be actually an underrepresentation. (Maybe, a "true" MICR inspired font should have actually somewhat more modulation between characters.)

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.

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.

> computerbilia

Google finds 2 uses of this word - yours, and a ~1985 newsletter. However, its AI was able to guess it’s a combination of computer and memorabilia.

...it's been burned into my brain via the KC85 manuals (sroll down for the covers of various manuals): https://www.mpm-kc85.de/html/d001_kc85_3.htm

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/

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

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.

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/

For those unfamiliar, the mentioned Berthold is a type foundry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Type_Foundry

> Interestingly the creator himself does not seem to know why the (IMO rather unfitting) name Westminster was chosen

Although it does say maybe it was named for Westminster bank? But yes nothing definite. (Unless it's a joke I don't understand.)

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).

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

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!

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

>soldered it into a socket

You... what?

Why would you ever solder a chip into a socket, rather than just insert?

(they clipped the original chip, instead of desoldering it. The socket is then inserted into another socket on the board. Workable trick but... why, just why.)

– ? –

Definitely before my time working on computers... but I remember seeing this font in old computer magazines I came across when I was young and always thought it was really cool.

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

Nice exploration, bit of quirky fun.

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

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. :-)

> 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

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.)

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

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

As a perfectionist, I twitched ;-)

Another secret solved of the C64 mystery. Nice job.

My first association fired up the many letter makers that existed at the time.

Future Project build some great makers. They were common around 1986-87.

They featured a whole bunch of character fonts along with highly popular sounds from Rob Hubbard on their disk, usually 10 to 15.

I used the fonts and muziks as as starting point for my first endeavors into C64 assembly programming.

I played around with one that, I think, was a type-in from Compute! Gazette. Since this was also the time of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, I remember devising a medieval handwriting font (so quite the opposite, but fun!)…

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