WHAT FONT? "can't wait to get out of that bag"

JDW

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #2

When Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh 128k on stage for the first time, there was a voice synthesizer scene where it said, "Hello, I'm Macintosh.  It sure is great to get out of that bag."  What font was used for that?  It isn't Chicago, and it's too thick to be New York.

 

Dog Cow

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #3

Venice.

 

Alex

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #4

Dog Cow said:

Venice.

Click to expand...

Are you sure? I searched a little to see what I could find but all that I came up with were stories relating to the Venice font being a Bill Atkinson font that didn't make it into the first Mac. The screenshot of the video shows a very blurry image (no one's fault of course), Venice was a script font looked like the screenshots.

Can you cite some sources to enhance your answer. It would be nice to have a little more details.

Thanks Dog Cow!

—Alex

 

Scott Baret

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #5

The font in question is Athens.

 

jessenator

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #6

Scott Baret said:

The font in question is Athens.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I can see the slab-serif look in that screen grab.

Isn't that unveiling demo available for download somewhere? only it requires a Fat Mac to run…

Edit: here's the text I mocked up real quick:

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 3, 2019

Dog Cow

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #7

Yep, Athens. I'd been looking at that font just a few days earlier in MacWrite. I recognized the face but got the name wrong.

Sosumi.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 3, 2019

JDW

Well-known member

• Dec 3, 2019

• #8

Thank you!

 

JDW

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #9

One related question for you gentlemen...

That Mac was either a 128k or 512k with the original 64k ROMs.  Was there a word processor or another application that could put text on the screen like that without any menu bar, filling the entire screen?  It probably was a custom piece of software specially made for that demo, but I'm just curious if there is an application program that could run that early System software and hide the menubar.

 

Crutch

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #10

I’m sure that was a custom app. It would have set the menu bar height to zero, created a single full-screen window (or just cleared the screen directly using the Window Manager grafPort), done SetFont(athens), then executed a call to TextBox to wordwrap the desired string. 

 

jessenator

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #11

Someone on here made a replica program, though it requires 2x 800k disks instead of a single 400k.

The thread speculated that the original is probably lost to time, and they're probably right.

 

Crutch

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #12

Interesting.  I’m trying to envision what part of that demo would have eaten up more than 400k of disk space.  The speech synthesis is just MacinTalk, right?

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER

• Dec 4, 2019

• #13

Don't think it was the disk? From what I recall, the extra RAM available in a 512K prototype stand-in was required to pull off that demo. Can't think of which article it was in?

edit: folklore.org - The Launch - It Sure Is Great To Get Out Of That Bag!

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 4, 2019

Mu0n

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #14

each full screen image of the apps is about 22 kb of space but I don't see that program even reaching close to the full 400 kb disk if it was written in assembly (which, let's face it, in 1983 when it was probably developped, it was) or even a lean & mean THINK C project (which was, of course, absolutely not possible back then).

 

Dog Cow

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #15

Mu0n said:

each full screen image of the apps is about 22 kb of space but I don't see that program even reaching close to the full 400 kb disk if it was written in assembly (which, let's face it, in 1983 when it was probably developped, it was)

Click to expand...

PackBits was used to compress screen images, so they might have used that. The demo was probably written mainly in Lisa Pascal with some assembly.

Crutch said:

 The speech synthesis is just MacinTalk, right?

Click to expand...

Right. And MacinTalk was written under contract by a 3rd party. Can't recall the name off hand.

 

slomacuser

Well-known member

• Dec 4, 2019

• #16

files by size:

-------------

Letters 43K

Finder 31K

Pictures 30K

System 23K

Screen1 22K

Screen2 22K

Screen3 22K

Screen4 22K

Screen5 22K

Screen6 22K

Screen7 22K

Screen8 22K

Screen9 22K

startup screen 22K

DeskScrap 4K

InsaneData 3K

-----------TOTAL 354K

 

Alex

Well-known member

• Dec 9, 2019

• #17

thank you to all for digging this up. Athens is a nice font and along the way I learned about the Venice font.

 

JDW

Well-known member

• Dec 9, 2019

• #18

Alex said:

thank you to all for digging this up. Athens is a nice font and along the way I learned about the Venice font.

Click to expand...

Alex, here's a still taken from the original intro video (left) compared to the version I made (first sentence only, at right) using Athens...

          

 

Alex

Well-known member

• Dec 9, 2019

• #19

JDW said:

View attachment 30529          View attachment 30528

Click to expand...

Even though the original video still of the Mac screen is blurry it's still clear enough to confirm that the original font must have been Athens. Venice appeared much too cursive to fit. Thanks for the side by side comparison James.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 9, 2019

slomacuser

Well-known member

• Dec 9, 2019

• #20

Athens it is. @JDW are you trying to do a replica?