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by bhangi 5547 days ago
Whenever I see these kind of articles, two words run through my mind: survivor bias.

I'm also unconvinced by the John Galt argument that if Steve Jobs had not taken calligraphy courses, we would not have nice typefaces on computers today. After all, typography predates the Mac and it would have been only a matter of time before someone else figured it out. If you don't believe this, look at practically every major discovery / invention in the past few centuries -- in almost every case more than one researcher / scientist / dilletante was working on something similar. The lucky one was the one who got there first.
4 comments
jcl 5547 days ago
The Xerox Star had desktop publishing with multiple proportional typefaces in 1981. It seems likely that this feature would have been imitated by someone regardless of calligraphic experience.

http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8...

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metageek 5547 days ago
In fact, I'm certain the Mac would've had multiple fonts, because it was based on () the Xerox Star, and the Star had fonts:

http://toastytech.com/guis/star2.html

() "Based on" might be too strong...or too weak...but we all know the Mac engineers saw a demo of the Star.

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aridiculous 5547 days ago
I think you're missing the point. Steve Jobs had a choice of 1000 things to focus on when making a computer and OS. You can't focus on everything, due to time and (brain) memory restraints.

So, because he took those classes, he was convinced to focus on typography as an important element to the OS. If he hadn't, it isn't as likely he'd have been illuminated to the benefits of good typography.

That is, unless you believe in some sort of determinism, where he was bound to fall in love with typography at some point.

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stretchwithme 5547 days ago
Its only a matter of time before everything is figured out.

There have been major discoveries and inventions where more than one person or team were trying to solve a known problem. But is there proof that it is the case "practically every" time?

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nitrogen 5547 days ago
The book What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly (I've got about 40 pages left in it) makes a compelling argument that it is (though it falls short of "proof," which may be impossible in this case).
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stretchwithme 5546 days ago
Yeah, I think you'd have to track every innovation there ever was. And that could take a whole weekend.
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