These are absolutely beautiful! However, I think I often feel that when looking at fonts somebody has shared online, which makes me wonder how much I love the font, vs how much I just like the design aesthetic of people that craft fonts.
Also I understand why only the uppercase version is given, but it does pretty much preclude me from using the font, since 95% of the letters I type are lowercase
Wow, I like the idea and how this was used as a photography arts project.
Also, I think this idea could be transferred to other materials, such as iron, or ice.
It's quite hollow and plasticky on the inside. This is not a bad thing nor a mark of cheapness, but it sounds very roomy and echo-y for a keyboard, so if you like the sound of the clacking on a keyboard, it's quite amplified by the board.
I wasn't around to use an actual C64 to compare the sound against that, but I suspect it's an intentional choice as a retro keyboard to mark itself apart from the foamy modern keyboards that tend to dampen the keyboard.
The S is misproportioned. M should have the middle go all the way to the baseline. The middle stems on 3 and 4 are too long and too short. The punctuation is all different sizes. This is just me glancing at the normalized comparison image. It's really obvious.
Why would keys with full words like shift/return/etc be useful in creating a font. Basic comprehension skills are at a loss for this user. The issue comment should have ended with the first sentence. However, could the keys with full words have been used to provide clues on kerning or other spacing to use when building the font?
There was a band named PRESS PLAY ON TAPE (stylized in all caps, of course) playing SID covers and similar stuff that I saw performing a couple of times back in the 00s/10s. Actually, looks like they’re still active at least to some extent: https://pressplayontape.com/
thank you so much for this! love how this looks, it's such a clean typeface
EDIT: I kept getting problems downloading it--errors acting like nothing was there. After clicking around on the download links a few times, it eventually made it to my downloads and I got the file. Not sure what's going on there, but just a heads up for anyone else
Nice. It never really occurred to me how different these are from 64C keycaps. I guess through our affinity for retro look, the original typeface ended up feeling more modern/current than the newer one.
It’s a very pleasant looking humanist sans. Now I’m wondering about the story of the original typeface – were the glyphs specifically designed for the keyboard? Seems more likely that some existing font was used.
The G is different (look at the lower right corner), the 0 (zero) has a slash which looks custom, and the Q is very different (it looks like a letter O with a piece of another O added for the tail).
And yes, since it's the standard comment about fonts, this is a commercial font that costs an arm and a leg.
It's not faithful. The AI took the original image and assumed the ! was supposed to be elevated like that. This project is low-effort AI generated.
Edit to add: This GitHub user has a over a hundred repositories full of random slop. It's clearly being used to generate activity for a resume or something.
To be fair they are correct, there's a "Download TTF" which seems to be at least partially broken (cmd-click works fine, but just clicking it takes you to an error page), but you are right, the files are there in the repo and download fine.
The readme isn't the first place I'd look for a download link either, but it is there
Also I understand why only the uppercase version is given, but it does pretty much preclude me from using the font, since 95% of the letters I type are lowercase
https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201953
https://bjoernkarmann.dk/project/occlution_grotesque
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/1pjw7q6/t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgramma_(typeface)
There's an open source font QTEurotype that does an excellent approximation that I've been using in a recent project
How does it feel and sound?
I wasn't around to use an actual C64 to compare the sound against that, but I suspect it's an intentional choice as a retro keyboard to mark itself apart from the foamy modern keyboards that tend to dampen the keyboard.
There's nothing correct about a "WIN" key.
This saddens me, frankly.
I'm not disputing that -- the approach of the issue OP was what irked me.
Imagine being at work in a professional job and filing a bug like that to a coworker. Totally inappropriate.
Frankly, it's usually just gatekeeping (or just being threatened) hiding behind some moral system they just assume you should share with them.
"There is no RETURN, SHIFT...", "Too many F keys". They are confusing a typeface with trying to replicate the keyboard keys.
The arrows are not the cursor keys, but based on the ESC key.
They are right about the @ character though, it looks quite wonky.
(Yes, I copied the image from the page into Paint and drew a line)
I think peak keycaps font were the ones used in the Epson QX-10, Epson HX-20, Tandy 100, and the common C-64.
https://www.dafont.com/zx-spectrum.font
EDIT: I kept getting problems downloading it--errors acting like nothing was there. After clicking around on the download links a few times, it eventually made it to my downloads and I got the file. Not sure what's going on there, but just a heads up for anyone else
(Yes, I realize the € symbol didn't exist until 1996)
The G is different (look at the lower right corner), the 0 (zero) has a slash which looks custom, and the Q is very different (it looks like a letter O with a piece of another O added for the tail).
And yes, since it's the standard comment about fonts, this is a commercial font that costs an arm and a leg.
Edit to add: This GitHub user has a over a hundred repositories full of random slop. It's clearly being used to generate activity for a resume or something.
"How do I download the TTF". Well, use your brain.
The readme isn't the first place I'd look for a download link either, but it is there
(Actually, I think the Commodore had a better font)