bfollowell Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 Does anyone know where I might be able to locate the font used for the Atari XL system numbers, or one closely similar to it? I am working on a design for an XL style case for my AtariMax SIO2PC-USB Dual-Port board and I want to put my own model number on it. I have a good font for the ATARI, but the model numbers are a different, thinner font.Thanks. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 (edited) I could use this too. I'm doing similar cases for some devices. I saved the image posted for the 1088XLD to use it, but I need some more numbers and letters than it provides for my stuff. Edited February 20, 2019 by Gunstar 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 Not sure if this is really the perfect match, but "Humanist 777 Light" is the one I use after some research and estimation. It's also in a way fitting in regard that Atari used "Optima"/"Zapf Humanist" for many manuals... 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 20, 2019 Author Share Posted February 20, 2019 I'd have to look a little closer and compare to some examples, but to my old eyes, it looks like a pretty darned close match to me. Probably close enough for my purposes anyway. Thanks.! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 I'd have to look a little closer and compare to some examples, but to my old eyes, it looks like a pretty darned close match to me. Probably close enough for my purposes anyway. Thanks.! You're welcome. BTW: "Frutiger 45 Light" is the alternative name for the font - in case you have this in reach (seems to have a more Atari-like spacing too): 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 (edited) Yes, thank you from me also, I think either font is good enough. Except "A" and "R" of ATARI which have the curves going on, but I can cut and paste that from the 1088XLD image I have. Edited February 20, 2019 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 The font I have for the ATARI letters has that weird R where the loop doesn't quite join up with the line. I look at my 1050 drive, and that's how it is. My 800XL isn't like that. It's more of a solid R. What do your guys' machines have, those of you that have XL machines. Is it just the peripherals that have the broken R? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 Does anyone know the name of the original font? Also, what about the numbers on the 400/800? The outlined numbers are not in Harry or Optima. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) Does anyone know the name of the original font? Also, what about the numbers on the 400/800? The outlined numbers are not in Harry or Optima. I have wondered that too. Atari, Inc. had some great artists and industrial designers either on staff or essentially on retainer. They may have designed unique fonts of their own. Tim Lapatino's ART OF ATARI may have some info on this - I'd look but my copy is now downstairs and I'm upstairs with my Atari stuff. And I have beer up here, so ... someone else can go check. Edited February 21, 2019 by DrVenkman 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) The font I have for the ATARI letters has that weird R where the loop doesn't quite join up with the line. I look at my 1050 drive, and that's how it is. My 800XL isn't like that. It's more of a solid R. What do your guys' machines have, those of you that have XL machines. Is it just the peripherals that have the broken R? The 1200XL's have the "broken" R as do all of my XL peripherals. But then 1200XL's have the full-size badges and not the tiny little ones of 600/800XL's. Edited February 21, 2019 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) Guys... sigh. You have to manually kern your text. The default kerning algorithms used in most programs can not adequately calculate an ideal spacing between glyphs. Not only that, but you'll find that often individual characters have substitutions from other fonts. Since font layouts in the old days were literally with physical blocks, this was easy enough to manage, with proper kerning. <--someone who has spent more than his share of time laying out professional print work. Edited February 21, 2019 by tschak909 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 You have to manually kern your text. The default kerning algorithms used in most programs can not adequately calculate an ideal spacing between glyphs. Not only that, but you'll find that often individual characters have substitutions from other fonts. Since font layouts in the old days were literally with physical blocks, this was easy enough to manage, with proper kerning. Yes that is exactly what I had to do in order to create this. More info here. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 Does anyone know the name of the original font? "Hammer Fat", you can find it here: https://atariage.com/2600/archives/AtariFonts/index.html?SystemID=2600 Also, what about the numbers on the 400/800? The outlined numbers are not in Harry or Optima. Good question. You can outline "Hammer Fat" to get a somewhat matching look if you use the uppercase "O" instead of zero, but it's far from being perfect: ...so any proposal is welcome! BTW: Maybe a good idea to have something like the 2600-font page also "more in reach" for the 8 bits and add the fonts or due to legal issues at least the information for the badge numbers and manuals? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) Yes that is exactly what I had to do in order to create this. 1088XLD_Trim_Label.png More info here. Not bad, but IMHO looks like a 60Hz vertically stretched NTSC version of especially the numbers. Also the usage of "SF Atarian System" is a not so good idea, as this is only a wannabe font of "Hammer Fat" - have a look for example at the "E" and "G" and then inspect the badge from the "MEGA ST"... Edited February 21, 2019 by Irgendwer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) It's not "Hammer Fat" (That was created in 1992) it's "Harry Fat". The 0 is really the O and they used the 4 from "Horatio". There is a free "Horatio D" font that is almost exactly the same. As everyone else is saying, kerning/spacing is all manual and would have been done in the 70's using rub down transfers on a sheet of acetate, there was a lot of custom glyph making going on as well. I still cant find a correct 8 for the 800, it looks like they used two O characters in different sizes. The "Atari" is not quite right, that R should have a small gap in it. I made a custom one for the cart labels I did. The logos above were quickly done and the sizing of numbers is a little small compared to the Atari EDIT: What is really needed is someone to make SVG versions of the logos for all the devices so they are correct, custom doodling and all. Then use the correct fonts as-is and forgive the small differences. It looks like Atari did the same, they didn't use the custom 8 in any of their other body text, just the logo. They did use the Horatio 4 in all the cart labels though!. Edited February 21, 2019 by Mr Robot 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) As everyone else is saying, kerning/spacing is all manual and would have been done in the 70's using rub down transfers on a sheet of acetate, there was a lot of custom glyph making going on as well. Yes, I think so, too. And neither "Hammer Fat" or "Harry Fat" is able to reproduce the ATARI-logo perfectly. I still cant find a correct 8 for the 800, it looks like they used two O characters in different sizes. The best I found was "ITC Ronda" for the "8" and "0". A riddle to me is still the "5" from the 850 interface... Next tasks: Find the fonts for boxes and manuals for e.g. the XL line: Hot candidate for the headline is "Function-Poster-Xbold": Edited February 21, 2019 by Irgendwer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) The font on XL boxes is Futura Extra Black and Futura Book... but... Modern fonts use a system called hinting to improve the look of fonts on screen, this actually changes the fonts, consequently the font you can download now is not the same font as the font we used to use with rub down transfers back in the day. This manifests itself in the letter A (and probably other places) in Futura Extra Black. In small font sizes it looks correct, thus.. but get large or zoomed in and you get this... Those curves are the font hinting system using the hints in the font to make it look "better", it _should_ look like this... Which matches the original box art Which when zoomed back out looks like this (first A vs second A)... So you can see why they do it but it does mean the font doesn't match history. The Optima font used on brown cart labels does the same thing, there are subtle curves in the strokes that get exaggerated for screen clarity. I remember when the mac and quark/pagemaker first came out and we tried to switch from traditional typesetting to digital and there were so many problems back then, none of which were ever fixed, people just got used to the "new thing" and stopped fretting that their letterhead looked subtly different or whatever. The benefits of digital typesetting were just too great to stick to the old ways. And another skill was lost to history. EDIT: That 850 "5" is a mystery indeed! Nothing like any of the fonts used in any of the examples so far. Edited February 21, 2019 by Mr Robot 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 After we discover all of the perfect original fonts, I'd like to collect all of them into a convenient zip file. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 After we discover all of the perfect original fonts, I'd like to collect all of them into a convenient zip file. Not all yet. I think the slanted font on the left of the box is "Geometric Slabserif 712 Light Italic": Regarding one convenient zip file: Most of the fonts are not free. But you may have luck and find them in a font collection where they don't cost ~30$ each... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaibitgfx Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 On 2/21/2019 at 10:21 AM, Mr Robot said: The font on XL boxes is Futura Extra Black and Futura Book... but... Modern fonts use a system called hinting to improve the look of fonts on screen, this actually changes the fonts, consequently the font you can download now is not the same font as the font we used to use with rub down transfers back in the day. This manifests itself in the letter A (and probably other places) in Futura Extra Black. In small font sizes it looks correct, thus.. but get large or zoomed in and you get this... Those curves are the font hinting system using the hints in the font to make it look "better", it _should_ look like this... Which matches the original box art Which when zoomed back out looks like this (first A vs second A)... So you can see why they do it but it does mean the font doesn't match history. The Optima font used on brown cart labels does the same thing, there are subtle curves in the strokes that get exaggerated for screen clarity. I remember when the mac and quark/pagemaker first came out and we tried to switch from traditional typesetting to digital and there were so many problems back then, none of which were ever fixed, people just got used to the "new thing" and stopped fretting that their letterhead looked subtly different or whatever. The benefits of digital typesetting were just too great to stick to the old ways. And another skill was lost to history. EDIT: That 850 "5" is a mystery indeed! Nothing like any of the fonts used in any of the examples so far. Modernday foundries also modify old typefaces to be more accurate according to the norms on which they are used, modern video devices, some foundries however kept the look of the original typefaces very faithfully, Elsner+Flake being one such foundry, other foundries that kept close to the original typefaces when converted to digital are BQ and ICG. When matching old documents to modern day fonts, comparing fonts from these lesser know foundries can make a big difference when compared to fonts from Adobe and Monotype. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaibitgfx Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 This was created with Adobe CC and Fontlab 8, it's about 98% accurate give or take. The PDF is Illustrator editable. The Atari 800XL Home Computer.pdf 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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