Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dsevil 408 days ago
Based on Reproducing Typewriter, a letterpress typeface from c. 1906 used to create fake typewritten letters for promotional material. Where other monospace typefaces replicated actual typewriters, Reproducing Typewriter had improvements for better readability at smaller point sizes and/or where poor quality reproduction was an issue.

I thought its features would make it the basis of a good coding font, too. Old Timey Mono is much closer to the original while Old Timey Code makes it an even better typeface for writing source code.

It was the coding font used in the Turbo Pascal 3.0 user manual. I've not seen it elsewhere except old patents' cover pages.

Enjoy and if you have any comments or questions, comment or enquire away.

https://github.com/dse/old-timey-mono-font

https://webonastick.com/fonts/old-timey-mono/

6 comments

Thanks so much for making it! Usually fonts like this are a non-starter for me since they lack Cyrillic letters. Your inclusion of those symbols is much appreciated.
Thank you so much for making and sharing this. I'm especially grateful that you included the code variant. I'm not a programmer but love monospace fonts but the lack of a slashed zero in so many otherwise lovely fonts has been a deal breaker for me!
Spotted my kin!

What is it that makes slashed zeroes so nuch more appealing than the other kinds of "zeroes"? Slashed zeroes are definitely much better than those nasty dotted inverse donut zeroes

How does a dot in a zero even make any kinda logical sense? It's like a piece of dough floating in midair in the center of a donut

Dotted zeroes [insert copypasta] bad

I don't even know why I'm so obsessed with the slash in zeroes

I will defend the honor of dotted zeros! I really like the zero in Space Mono, I think that nailed the retro future aesthetic.

IMH(and no design school)O when the character is oblong and the dot is a circle, it creates a similar contrast to the straight slash through an ellipse, but with less visual weight.

Dotted zeros remind me of the BIOS screen on an old monochrome Compaq luggable. Good times.
Yeah the dot is mostly a manner of preference. It looks less crowded than slashed zero maybe? The dotted zero does disambiguate from U+00D8 [LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH STROKE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98).
Looking at the examples, they look good, though one thing stands out, the "w" seems to be bolder than the other letters. The "m" seems fine, as do the other letters and symbols, just the "w".
It appears to look that way in the Turbo Pascal manual as well. I'll check ATF specimens and whatnot.
Based on the first link, it seems as though zero and upper-case "O" are very similar. (My eyes cannot discern a difference, but I admit that my eyes are not top-notch.)
In Old Timey Mono, lowercase "L" and the number "1" are also very similar.

Old Timey Code fixes both of these-- it has a slashed zero and redraws the number 1 to be distinct (angles the top serif).

The original typewriter had no "0" or "1" you were expected to use "I" or "O" in place. I suspect an authentic typeface should have trouble distinguishing them.

and having said that, forget authenticity, I really appreciate typefaces that make an effort to distinguish all characters.

I was taught to use lowercase letter L for the digit 1 though I did see typewriter samples using the capital I.
It's gorgeous. Thanks for making and sharing it!
You wouldn't consider changing license to Apache-2.0, or dual license under that?