Re: DEC Logo
On 30-06-15 15:10, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-30 4:44 AM, simon wrote: On 29-06-15 14:56, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-29 3:54 AM, simon wrote: the front of the internal bus options maintenance manual in front of me. But looking at the f in 8/f gives me the impression they mixed some fonts for the logo and taking a closer look at the line: digital equipment corporation . maynard. massachusetts is proving both of us wrong. the y in maynard is a rounded version, but both futura and avant garde hve a straight y. ...the search continues... Can you scan the page you're looking at? tada.wav: https://hack42.nl/mediawiki/images/a/a7/Dec_footer.png it is also used on the front of the pdp8/f here at our museum. Right. This isn't Futura or Avant Garde. It's the font Paul K. and I have been discussing - similar to Chalet but possibly a custom font. --Toby simon yes, that is what i stated in my mail from 20150629. -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl
Re: DEC Logo
On 29-06-15 14:56, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-29 3:54 AM, simon wrote: the front of the internal bus options maintenance manual in front of me. But looking at the f in 8/f gives me the impression they mixed some fonts for the logo and taking a closer look at the line: digital equipment corporation . maynard. massachusetts is proving both of us wrong. the y in maynard is a rounded version, but both futura and avant garde hve a straight y. ...the search continues... Can you scan the page you're looking at? tada.wav: https://hack42.nl/mediawiki/images/a/a7/Dec_footer.png it is also used on the front of the pdp8/f here at our museum. simon -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl
Re: DEC Logo
On 2015-06-30 4:44 AM, simon wrote: On 29-06-15 14:56, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-29 3:54 AM, simon wrote: the front of the internal bus options maintenance manual in front of me. But looking at the f in 8/f gives me the impression they mixed some fonts for the logo and taking a closer look at the line: digital equipment corporation . maynard. massachusetts is proving both of us wrong. the y in maynard is a rounded version, but both futura and avant garde hve a straight y. ...the search continues... Can you scan the page you're looking at? tada.wav: https://hack42.nl/mediawiki/images/a/a7/Dec_footer.png it is also used on the front of the pdp8/f here at our museum. Right. This isn't Futura or Avant Garde. It's the font Paul K. and I have been discussing - similar to Chalet but possibly a custom font. --Toby simon
Logos and typefaces and fonts (oh, my!) [was: RE: DEC Logo]
From: Dave G4UGM Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 8:43 AM From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Toby Thain Sent: 30 June 2015 14:10 On 2015-06-30 4:44 AM, simon wrote: On 29-06-15 14:56, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-29 3:54 AM, simon wrote: the front of the internal bus options maintenance manual in front of me. But looking at the f in 8/f gives me the impression they mixed some fonts for the logo and taking a closer look at the line: digital equipment corporation . maynard. massachusetts is proving both of us wrong. the y in maynard is a rounded version, but both futura and avant garde hve a straight y. ...the search continues... Can you scan the page you're looking at? tada.wav: https://hack42.nl/mediawiki/images/a/a7/Dec_footer.png it is also used on the front of the pdp8/f here at our museum. If it’s the oldest logo why do Straight Eights have a serifed font... http://dustyoldcomputers.com/pdp8/images-3C8F62C8/R3378-hp.jpg http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/pdp-1/DEC.pdp_1.1960.102652405.pdf This early brochure for the PDP-1 features the vertical d e c logo in a picture, as well as a serif face for titles and *on the machine*. Our PDP-7 likewise has a serif face for Digital Equipment Corporation on its name plate, with an outline block sans-serif PDP-7. A brief survey of the manuals for the 18-bit systems on Bitsavers shows that the change from a serif face for titles occurred during the development of the PDP-7 documentation: The preliminary edition of the User Handbook has the system name in a block serif typeface, while the release edition has the name in a block sans-serif. The PDP-6 (36-bit system) also uses the serif face; the PDP-8 is schizophrenic, and the PDP-9 et seq. use sans-serif. Note that I use the terms (type)face and logo, not font. Until Apple bastardized the term, a _font_ was a package of metal type in a particular _typeface_, and was the unit by which type was ordered from a foundry. A _logo_ was a special item, cast as a single unit for printing, not a collection of individual pieces of type. Someone in this thread mentioned having been in the graphics design trade, and can certainly back me up on this, as well as on the fact that advertising houses and departments generally designed their own lettering for lithographic reproduction rather than using commercially available typefaces; the latter were used for printed materials consisting of large stretches of text rather than one-offs. (A company might adopt a face, or commission one, as part of the house identity, in which case the lettering done by the graphics people would probably resemble the face, but it's unlikely that it would be cast at the large sizes needed for advertising, since each size requires a set of steel punches to be engraved and a set of matrices to be produced.) Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
Re: Logos and typefaces and fonts (oh, my!) [was: RE: DEC Logo]
On 30/06/2015 20:21, Rich Alderson wrote: Note that I use the terms (type)face and logo, not font. Until Apple bastardized the term, a _font_ was a package of metal type in a particular _typeface_, and was the unit by which type was ordered from a foundry. A _logo_ was a special item, cast as a single unit for printing, not a collection of individual pieces of type. Someone in this thread mentioned having been in the graphics design trade, and can certainly back me up on this, as well as on the fact that advertising houses and departments generally designed their own lettering for lithographic reproduction rather than using commercially available typefaces That probably wasn't me - at least, not in this recent thread - but I can vouch for all of that having worked in the printing industry for some time, when metal type was common and phototypesetting was less common. And indeed, part of my early introduction to graphic art was about some of the elements of typeface design, as it was assumed graphic artists would need that. Hey, now we can talk about their abuse of kern, kerning, leading, and all the rest too ;-) -- Pete Pete Turnbull
Re: DEC Logo
On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: On 2015-06-29 10:59 AM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 28, 2015, at 6:34 PM, simon sim...@dds.nl wrote: It seems to me that pdp8 is written in futura bold Where? In the picture that Bill posted, you can see what I think is a dec custom font in labels like “industrial 11” and “power supply. That’s the same font that was used on the covers of pdp-11 handbooks, and as far as I know it’s something DEC made up. I traced it and turned it into a TrueType font some years ago. Here it is. Some of the letters are guesses because I have no samples. There's reason to believe it's Chalet. See my previous mail for a link to one revival of that family. I looked at that. There are plenty of variations, but none of them match at all. Take a look at the 11/45 processor handbook, or the peripherals handbook (for example the 1976 edition). The inside cover page is particularly helpful because it shows the company name for an additional bunch of characters. If you mix match letters from all the different variants of Chalet (like the a from Paris 1980 but the k from Paris 1970) you can get closer. But that’s not plausible, and in any case it’s still not the same. The k in Paris 1970 is somewhat like the one in the DEC font, but it is clearly not a match: the DEC k has arcs starting at the vertical line, while in Paris 1970 there’s a bit of a horizontal line first. And none of the variants have the r in “processor” or either of the two version of the t in “digital equipment corporation”. paul
Re: DEC Logo
On 2015-06-29 1:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: On 2015-06-29 10:59 AM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 28, 2015, at 6:34 PM, simon sim...@dds.nl wrote: It seems to me that pdp8 is written in futura bold Where? In the picture that Bill posted, you can see what I think is a dec custom font in labels like “industrial 11” and “power supply. That’s the same font that was used on the covers of pdp-11 handbooks, and as far as I know it’s something DEC made up. I traced it and turned it into a TrueType font some years ago. Here it is. Some of the letters are guesses because I have no samples. There's reason to believe it's Chalet. See my previous mail for a link to one revival of that family. I looked at that. There are plenty of variations, but none of them match at all. Take a look at the 11/45 processor handbook, or the peripherals handbook (for example the 1976 edition). The inside cover page is particularly helpful because it shows the company name for an additional bunch of characters. If you mix match letters from all the different variants of Chalet (like the a from Paris 1980 but the k from Paris 1970) you can get closer. But that’s not plausible, I worked in graphic design for a long time. Modifications and substitutions of any kind are not unusual in a logo. So yes, it's plausible, but just annoying when reverse engineering it later, of course. and in any case it’s still not the same. The k in Paris 1970 is somewhat like the one in the DEC font, but it is clearly not a match: the DEC k has arcs starting at the vertical line, while in Paris 1970 there’s a bit of a horizontal line first. And none of the variants have the r in “processor” or either of the two version of the t in “digital equipment corporation”. This *could* be due to differences betwen the House revival and the original Chalet font. The next research step could be to find specimens of the latter. Or perhaps it was indeed a custom font as you said earlier, based on Chalet or something like it, with variant letters cherry picked. That explanation might satisfy everyone. :) I think it's pretty unlikely that a font will be discovered that is a better match than Chalet out of the box, though. --Toby paul
Re: DEC Logo
:-) ze web to ze rescue: grabbing a png from the pdf of the maintanance manual and uploading it to myfonts.com points me to the font rescue regular. but it is not perfect as the verticals have rounded ends on rescue and straight on the dec font. another is insignia but having the wrong letter t On 29-06-15 04:50, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-28 10:12 PM, Toby Thain wrote: On 2015-06-28 6:34 PM, simon wrote: It seems to me that pdp8 is written in futura bold ITC Avant Garde would probably be closer. (released circa 1970) Oops, I was looking at the vertical d e c when I said that. The font used in the industrial11 logo and across the PDP-8 range, has been pinned down to the New York style of Chalet; here's a revival: http://www.houseind.com/fonts/chalet/viewfonts But I can't find a pdp8 image in the thread. Simon, what image are you referring to that leads you to say Futura Bold? --Toby Avant Garde was used in a LOT of DEC's marketing -- it was the signature face for VAX-11, for example (even the machine badges use Avant Garde). --Toby On 28-06-15 18:52, Chris Osborn wrote: On Jun 18, 2015, at 7:20 AM, Chris Osborn fozzt...@fozztexx.com wrote: The logo up to then had been the letters DEC in blocks the shape of the plug-in cards that DEC had been producing. Does anyone have a picture of that? My Google-fu is failing me. I love cutting vinyl stickers of old logos and I think an original DEC logo would make a great prize in the contests I run on RetroBattlestations. I did my best to recreate the plug-in card DEC logo, you can download it as an SVG here: http://www.retrobattlestations.com/DEC/DEC-1957-3.7x4.5.svg Proportions probably aren’t perfect since all I had to work from was very low resolution pictures of the original. I’m happy to send out vinyl cut decals to anyone that wants one if you send me a SASE. Email me privately for my address. http://i.imgur.com/HJki7WI.jpg (Atari 2600 cartridge for scale) -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com -- Met vriendelijke Groet, Simon Claessen drukknop.nl
Re: DEC Logo
On Jun 29, 2015, at 3:19 PM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: On 2015-06-29 1:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote: On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Toby Thain t...@telegraphics.com.au wrote: ... There's reason to believe it's Chalet. See my previous mail for a link to one revival of that family. I looked at that. There are plenty of variations, but none of them match at all. Take a look at the 11/45 processor handbook, or the peripherals handbook (for example the 1976 edition). The inside cover page is particularly helpful because it shows the company name for an additional bunch of characters. If you mix match letters from all the different variants of Chalet (like the a from Paris 1980 but the k from Paris 1970) you can get closer. But that’s not plausible, I worked in graphic design for a long time. Modifications and substitutions of any kind are not unusual in a logo. So yes, it's plausible, but just annoying when reverse engineering it later, of course. For a logo, absolutely. For a house style typeface used as display text in manuals and for panel labels, not quite so likely. ... This *could* be due to differences betwen the House revival and the original Chalet font. The next research step could be to find specimens of the latter. Or perhaps it was indeed a custom font as you said earlier, based on Chalet or something like it, with variant letters cherry picked. That explanation might satisfy everyone. :) I think it's pretty unlikely that a font will be discovered that is a better match than Chalet out of the box, though. Perhaps. I think the similarities are faint enough that I would not point to Chalet any more than I would point to Avant Garde. Designed from scratch by a guy with a set of drafting tools seems more likely to me. But unless someone with first hand knowledge comes along, as was done for the 7-block digital logo, all this will likely remain speculation. Meanwhile, if you want a font file that’s a better match than Chalet, try the “handbook” font I created some years ago from the DEC document samples I have on hand. paul
Re: DEC Logo
On Jun 18, 2015, at 7:20 AM, Chris Osborn fozzt...@fozztexx.com wrote: The logo up to then had been the letters DEC in blocks the shape of the plug-in cards that DEC had been producing. Does anyone have a picture of that? My Google-fu is failing me. I love cutting vinyl stickers of old logos and I think an original DEC logo would make a great prize in the contests I run on RetroBattlestations. I did my best to recreate the plug-in card DEC logo, you can download it as an SVG here: http://www.retrobattlestations.com/DEC/DEC-1957-3.7x4.5.svg Proportions probably aren’t perfect since all I had to work from was very low resolution pictures of the original. I’m happy to send out vinyl cut decals to anyone that wants one if you send me a SASE. Email me privately for my address. http://i.imgur.com/HJki7WI.jpg (Atari 2600 cartridge for scale) -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
Re: DEC Logo
(newest Digital logo) http://vintagecomputer.net/digital/Digital_Logo.jpg (from my Alpha Server 2100 4/275) But I think the original poster said he was looking for the ... d e c ...logo (stacked upright letters)? There might be a cheat...Digital printed a dec logo that is very much like the original PDP 1 logo except that the letters are 90 degrees turned couterclockwise on power supplies through the pdp 11 (h742a). Maybe you can work with that. Scan/photo and then use software to turn into the correct position. Here is what I am talking about- http://vintagecomputer.net/digital/PDP11-40_industrial11/pre-cleaning/pre-cleaning_bottom-742a.jpg Billl
RE: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
-Original Message- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chris Osborn Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 9:21 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update) On Jun 18, 2015, at 4:42 AM, Jonathan Katz j...@jonworld.com wrote: There is a Postscript doc out there with the DEC D I G I T A L logo in blocks. That may be a start. http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200712/ancient_history_the_digital_logo. html The logo up to then had been the letters DEC in blocks the shape of the plug-in cards that DEC had been producing. Does anyone have a picture of that? My Google-fu is failing me. I love cutting vinyl stickers of old logos and I think an original DEC logo would make a great prize in the contests I run on RetroBattlestations. -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com Have you seen the pics of old DEC machines at the bottom of this page? http://www.commodorecomputerclub.com/road-trip-living-computer-museum-june-2 5-2011/ - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4800 / Virus Database: 4365/10045 - Release Date: 06/18/15
Re: DEC Logo
On Jun 18, 2015, at 10:55 AM, Rod Smallwood rodsmallwoo...@btinternet.com wrote: ... My favorite story was one I know to be true. The story was that Ken Olsen drove a Pinto (cheap amercian car) and parked with everyone else. Sure enough there was this tatty Pinto parked in the main car park. To a depth of two cars the parking spaces around it were empty!! Not only that, but he he had a clear policy forbidding reserved parking spaces (other than handicapped spaces). His answer was that if you wanted a space near the door, all you had to do was come to work early. paul
Re: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 07:20:51AM -0700, Chris Osborn wrote: On Jun 18, 2015, at 4:42 AM, Jonathan Katz j...@jonworld.com wrote: There is a Postscript doc out there with the DEC D I G I T A L logo in blocks. That may be a start. http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200712/ancient_history_the_digital_logo.html The logo up to then had been the letters DEC in blocks the shape of the plug-in cards that DEC had been producing. Does anyone have a picture of that? My Google-fu is failing me. I love cutting vinyl stickers of old logos and I think an original DEC logo would make a great prize in the contests I run on RetroBattlestations. I suppose it's this one: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/still-image/dec/pdp-1_online/dec.flip_flop_201.102633142.lg.jpg I recall seing a better version of the logo in some manual on bitsavers or similar. Can't find it now. /P
Re: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
On Thu, 18 Jun 2015, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: I suppose it's this one: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/still-image/dec/pdp-1_online/dec.flip_flop_201.102633142.lg.jpg I recall seing a better version of the logo in some manual on bitsavers or similar. Can't find it now. I have a copy laying around as PostScript. /P -- Cory Smelosky http://gewt.net Personal stuff http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
Re: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
On Jun 18, 2015, at 7:25 AM, Pontus Pihlgren pon...@update.uu.se wrote: I suppose it's this one: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/still-image/dec/pdp-1_online/dec.flip_flop_201.102633142.lg.jpg I found that one a couple of times but it just looked like a rectangle to me, not “plug-in cards”, so I didn’t think that was it. I guess I was expecting too much. :-) -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
Re: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
On Thu, 18 Jun 2015, Chris Osborn wrote: I have a copy laying around as PostScript. I?d love to get a copy! Let me find it. -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com -- Cory Smelosky http://gewt.net Personal stuff http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
Re: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
On Thu, 18 Jun 2015, Chris Osborn wrote: I have a copy laying around as PostScript. I?d love to get a copy! http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200712/ancient_history_the_digital_logo.html -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com -- Cory Smelosky http://gewt.net Personal stuff http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
RE: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
From: Chris Osborn Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 9:03 AM That’s the modern Digital logo, not the DEC logo that looks like the plug-in cards. I thought you had a ps of the original pre-1957 DEC logo. Pre-1957??? That would be a good trick... Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
Re: DEC Logo (was: Front Panels Personal Update)
On Jun 18, 2015, at 11:15 AM, Rich Alderson ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org wrote: That’s the modern Digital logo, not the DEC logo that looks like the plug-in cards. I thought you had a ps of the original pre-1957 DEC logo. Pre-1957??? That would be a good trick… I’m just going along with what that web site said that they had a different logo and then in 1957 they got their current logo. -- Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
