I think he’s saying that it will be usable, but not very pretty.
Recall Mac OS 7, without Adobe Type Manager? Ever do any desktop
publishing in the mid-90s? Without ATM (to render on the fly font
previews from the PostScript outlines) you relied on nearest-neighbor
interpolation to “scale” a font at a given size from the nearest size
bitmap preview. The result looked like a satellite TV picture in a
hailstorm, or one of those “faces disguised to protect the innocent”
bits on the evening news. Edges of characters were blocky stair-step
approximations of curves. Spacing between characters was sketchy at
best.
Now if you’re using a PC (strike 1) and XP (strike 2) with ClearType
turned off (strike 3), then you’re seeing this sort of awful
everywhere you look. Microsoft Word, the various interface controls on
your computer, anything with text in it is similarly handicapped. As I
pointed out yesterday, in context, you can’t tell that anything is
wrong because it’s all equally awful.
Walter
On Aug 12, 2011, at 5:24 AM, Mark wrote:
---- I don’t think this answer clarifies the situation. Will a
system font (web safe font) be more legible than a similar web font?
I learned typography and typesetting on a Typositor (photo headline
typesetting tool – basically a specialized photo enlarger) and later
on a CompuGraphic. The fall from optical type to computer type was
particularly painful, and set that memory pretty firmly. I remember
getting early computer type from the service bureau, and looking at it
through a loupe. Even at whatever breathless ppi they were using, I
could still see the jaggies if I looked closely. It’s only now, with
direct-to-plate imaging, that we’ve gotten to the point where digital
type can compete with that creaky/smelly/old Typositor.
Walter
On Aug 12, 2011, at 11:58 AM, chuckamuck wrote:
Recall Mac OS 7, without Adobe Type Manager?
Walt, your recall is excellent. That is so far in the past for me I
completely forgot about how essential it was.
Walt, your recall is excellent. That is so far in the past for me I completely forgot about how essential it was.
Do you remember with, I think, System 8.5 or so that you had to start up with Extensions off in order to update ATM because if you didn’t, the System crashed?
I should post a picture of my keyboard. The S key is completely blank,
worn off, from force of habit learned in the bad old days! If I hadn’t
crashed three times by lunch, I must have been in a meeting or
something.
Walter
On Aug 12, 2011, at 12:16 PM, Paul Bradforth wrote:
On 12 Aug 2011, at 16:58, chuckamuck wrote:
Walt, your recall is excellent. That is so far in the past for me I
completely forgot about how essential it was.
Do you remember with, I think, System 8.5 or so that you had to
start up with Extensions off in order to update ATM because if you
didn’t, the System crashed?