Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The Xerox Alto had multiple high-quality proportionally spaced fonts, along with the first WYSIWYG document editor (developed by Simonyi, who later wrote Word at Microsoft). This was two years before the Apple I, let alone the Mac. The credit for good fonts in computers should go to Xerox PARC, not a calligraphy class at Reed.


The point is the class made him care about typography and he pushed so Apple computers would have good-looking text.

As opposed to Windows, which did not at the time.

He wasn't claiming he invented decent fonts on a computer.


> The point is the class made him care about typography and he pushed so Apple computers would have good-looking text.

> As opposed to Windows, which did not at the time.

And to a point, this is still true. It's surprisingly hard to get good text rendering in terminal emulators on Windows and Linux. I still have to settle for "good enough" rather than the "stellar" I can get on my OS X machine.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: