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geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: Pylon on Tue, 21 December 2010, 18:48:22

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Pylon on Tue, 21 December 2010, 18:48:22

For me, I think it's Univers Italic:
(http://i.dell.com/images/global/products/latit/d630_keyboard_490x314.jpg)

I also like real Helvetica. Howeve, much of the rubber dome keyboards I've seen use a Helvetica-like clone, which appears to be more monolinear (the tail on the G is subtly different), and the downward stroke on the $ doesn't go through the "S".

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 21 December 2010, 18:57:22

The Model M does not use exact Helvetica. There are minor differences, such as the $ and a few others. I don't remember exactly, but I did make a thread or post with pictures about it a while ago.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Pylon on Tue, 21 December 2010, 19:00:15

MS Windows is right. The $ is off.

Real Helvetica (note how the vertical stroke goes through the S)
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14190&stc=1&d=1292981186)
Model M (vertical stroke does not go through the S)
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14191&stc=1&d=1292981186)
(taken from your shot, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ripster55/5225326320/sizes/o/in/set-72157624955556294/ )

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: ktkr on Wed, 22 December 2010, 05:41:48

Blank. Dohohoho.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Sam on Wed, 22 December 2010, 07:07:55

Quote from: Pylon;266946

MS Windows is right. The $ is off.

Real Helvetica (note how the vertical stroke goes through the S)

Show Image

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14190&stc=1&d=1292981186)

Model M (vertical stroke does not go through the S)

Show Image

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14191&stc=1&d=1292981186)

(taken from your shot, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ripster55/5225326320/sizes/o/in/set-72157624955556294/ )

On my IBM Model F the vertical stroke on the '$' is complete.  Just another of cost savings when going from the F to the M. :)

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: PikachuDX on Wed, 22 December 2010, 07:43:36

R4Xq'bF#ecSamnM,15~cacce@r_dW+o7Cl#W)5h,mUnG8i=4=}

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: keyb_gr on Wed, 22 December 2010, 10:09:38

Funny, Cherry boards appear to be using "real" Helvetica then.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Senor_Cartmenez on Wed, 22 December 2010, 10:12:27

Deck got the best font ever.
Period.

PERIOD I SAY.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: nmd on Wed, 22 December 2010, 10:24:36

The font Filco uses is nice to me.

Between that and the font used by Logitech Illuminated Keyboard.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Earth Worm Jim on Wed, 22 December 2010, 10:46:17

Comic Sans! :-D

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Pylon on Wed, 22 December 2010, 14:32:39

Quote from: PikachuDX;267213

Are there any keyboards with Tahoma? I'd love that.

Dell uses Frutiger Bold on their newer keyboards (e.g. KB-1421, SK-8175). It's sorta close to Tahoma Bold.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Wed, 22 December 2010, 15:55:57

I was looking for a picture of a blank HHKB when I realized how nice the font looked back when I had lettered keys.

So, this:

(http://elitekeyboards.com/proddata/images/pdkb400w_full.jpg)

It's really hard to not be a raving fan.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: quadibloc on Thu, 30 December 2010, 16:04:55

I see what has happened. 1234567890 and A-Z are in Helvetica. But not only $, but also !, @, #, % and all the other special characters are not in Helvetica, but instead are in my sentimental favorite of a keyboard font - they're still done with a Leroy, in the old-fashioned way.

However, the comma, period, colon, and semicolon are also in Helvetica.

Key legends like "Caps Lock", "Print Screen", and "Pause" are also done by Leroy rather than in Helvetica.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: msiegel on Thu, 30 December 2010, 18:17:40

0_o
who is Leroy, and what has he done with my fonts?

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: quadibloc on Thu, 30 December 2010, 19:09:47

Quote from: msiegel;270867

who is Leroy, and what has he done with my fonts?

A Leroy lettering guide (http://www.mccoys-kecatalogs.com/KELeroy/KELeroy_main.htm) is a product of Keufel and Esser, used largely by people who draw blueprints.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: jaynoon on Fri, 31 December 2010, 02:49:18

Quote from: Senor_Cartmenez;267270

Deck got the best font ever.
Period.

PERIOD I SAY.

CRAZY I SAY. It's like Lord of the Rings, the keyboard.

(http://www.deckkeyboards.com/userfiles/deck82_ice.jpg)

Anything Helvetica-like for me. I think my Topre keys look great.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: quadibloc on Sat, 05 February 2011, 06:33:08

I have now found an article (http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html) which explains how the capital R and G can reassure you that the face is real Helvetica, and not an imitation like Arial.

However, the other letters are indeed not done with the standard Leroy Lettering face, so I was wrong about that. For one thing, they're too wide. The obvious tip-off to me, however, was the H in "Home". The bar is noticeably above the centerline of the capital letter.

And from here (http://www.mccoys-kecatalogs.com/KELeroy/1970Brochure/1970KELeroyBroch-p15.htm) I can see that it isn't an alternate Leroy template, like the Europa one.

Upon closer examination, the face reminds me of sans-serif faces used on some older items from Japan. This site (http://togoshi-font.sourceforge.jp/index_en.html) with some Japanese free faces shows, with Togoshi Gothic, what I mean, but it may not be the exact typeface.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: mr_a500 on Sat, 05 February 2011, 08:54:21

My favourite keyboard fonts are the ones in the Kaypro II (later Kaypros use different font) and the black TI-99/4A.

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=15306&stc=1&d=1296917441)

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=9713&d=1273100233)

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: quadibloc on Sat, 05 February 2011, 11:57:22

Quote from: mr_a500;290238

My favourite keyboard fonts are the ones in the Kaypro II (later Kaypros use different font) and the black TI-99/4A.

And that's Leroy lettering, as typically used on many keyboards. My sentimental favorite as well.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: microsoft windows on Sat, 05 February 2011, 12:22:04

I like Wingdings for  my keyboards.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: itlnstln on Mon, 07 February 2011, 07:50:32

Futura like the Filcos.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: instantkamera on Mon, 07 February 2011, 08:04:12

anything but what's on the Razer BlackWidow... ANYTHING.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Senor_Cartmenez on Tue, 08 February 2011, 08:52:20

Quote from: instantkamera;291177

anything but what's on the Razer BlackWidow... ANYTHING.

lol I second that...

I mean upper AND lower case characters .... For realz?

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: quadibloc on Tue, 08 February 2011, 12:14:49

It's bad enough that the Razer Blackwidow uses a silly-looking squarish typeface on its keys, using lowercase for the letters, but with some of the lower-case letters having an upper-case form.

But they also decided that on the keys with two characters, only one character would be illuminated. And that should be the "main" character on the key.

And, so, they put that character at the top of the key to be more visible. But since it was the unshifted character, that meant that the legends on the keys were backwards compared to the usual convention.

At least, if they had used Peignot Bold (remember the titles for the Mary Tyler Moore show, for you non-typographers out there?), it would have looked pretty, even if it still looked silly...

On the other hand, if they wanted squarish for a high-tech look, they could have used (it's upper-case only, eliminating one bit of silliness) Bank Gothic.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Pylon on Tue, 08 February 2011, 14:25:28

Well, Das already uses Bank Gothic.

Now, who's in for some OCR A? Though OCR B would look pretty nice on a KB.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Tue, 08 February 2011, 16:33:42

I really have no preference.  Any font works as long as it is readable.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: quadibloc on Fri, 11 February 2011, 23:26:56

Quote from: Pylon;291892

Now, who's in for some OCR A?

OCR A would be evil. However, Data '70 (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/agfa/data-seventy/) would be worse. (That's one of those infamous imitation MICR typefaces used to make things look computer-y.) Countdown (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/countdown-lt/), Amelia (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/amelia/) and Computer (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/agfa/computer/) are other typefaces of this kind.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: EverythingIBM on Sat, 12 February 2011, 00:36:54

My favourite font on a keyboard would have to either be my T60p's keyboard, or model M.

I love the arrow keys on the model M...

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Findecanor on Wed, 29 June 2011, 16:27:08

Eurostile Bold. Large, centered and upper-case.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Wed, 29 June 2011, 18:17:51

Quote from: Senor_Cartmenez;267270

Deck got the best font ever.
Period.

PERIOD I SAY.

TtttroOolllllllz Alert :-)

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Wed, 29 June 2011, 18:21:15

Otaku - Power of the mind!

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: The Solutor on Wed, 29 June 2011, 18:54:51

Quote from: Findecanor;370225

Eurostile Bold. Large, centered and upper-case.

 

After a Swedish guy who like Italian design, an Italian guy who like Swedish design.
Fonts on Qpad-mk80 are really nice, i don't know how exactly are called.

(http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/QPAD/MK-80/images/keyboard.jpg)

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: Pylon on Wed, 29 June 2011, 20:35:15

That's Eurostile for you.

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: The Solutor on Wed, 29 June 2011, 20:44:55

Quote from: Pylon;370338

That's Eurostile for you.

I wait to have the real keyboard in my hand, from the photo, not so definite, looked as similar font to me. But likely I'm wrong

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: The Solutor on Thu, 30 June 2011, 06:50:58

Ok Qpad was delivered right now.

You were right.

It's just an unmodified eurostyle font

(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4255/imag0364m.jpg)

(http://www.identifont.com/samples/urw/EurostileTHea.gif)

Title: What's your favorite keyboard font?
Post by: keyb_gr on Thu, 30 June 2011, 11:24:41

Quote from: keyb_gr;267268

Funny, Cherry boards appear to be using "real" Helvetica then.

Seems I was wrong there. (http://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=873)

In any case, whatever Cherry boards and IBMs use is absolutely fine by me. Should be high contrast (dye sub / doubleshot) on light-colored keys though.