System 1.0 Fonts

[ibook99]

When I use the System 1.0 disk in my 128K, the font comes up weirdly. It also does this in Mini vMac when I use the 128k version. The odd thing is when I use the Macintosh Plus version of Mini vMac it looks fine. Is there something wrong with the image?

 

[Chopsticks]

it looks a bit like the old Xerox smalltalk script font.. im not sure when apple changed over to Chicago but early prototype macs used that smalltalk font and im pretty sure it was when then switched to a 128kb ROM in the mac 512 (or maybe the 512ke ??) and rewrote the font manger and updated quickdraw etc that the changed over to using chicago as the default font.
someone might know better the specifics about all this as im going from memory here.. I'd probably recommend searching www.folklore.org and seeing if any of the early mac development stories there touch on the subject.

 

[Crutch]

Not quite - early System versions did use Chicago even on the 128K Mac. However the Mac Plus (and 512K enhanced) ROMs were the first to include Chicago in the ROM, which is why the Mac Plus version of Mini vMac shows you Chicago no matter what font is on your System disk.

It looks like the System 1.0 disk you were using has a system font other than Chicago) on the actual disk for some reason. This was certainly possible — there was nothing stopping you from putting any font you want in your System file and giving it resource ID 0. I at least wasn’t aware that anything other than Chicago was ever the standard system font, however, even in the earliest released versions of the OS.

 

[cheesestraws]

Agreed: pretty sure no released versions of the System used anything other than Chicago. Looks like that boot disc might have been customised.

 

[slomacuser]

It is Steve Capps font used in Alice game

The game shipped with other Steve Capps projects as bonuses, such as the Amazing maze generator and a font named Cartoon. (If the disk is used to boot a 128K or 512K Mac, the OS will use Cartoon in place of Chicago.) Unknown to its creator, this font would go on to become ubiquitous in the games industry, appearing everywhere from Star Control II to Mortal Kombat.

 

[Chopsticks]

Not quite - early System versions did use Chicago even on the 128K Mac. However the Mac Plus (and 512K enhanced) ROMs were the first to include Chicago in the ROM, which is why the Mac Plus version of Mini vMac shows you Chicago no matter what font is on your System disk.

It looks like the System 1.0 disk you were using has a system font other than Chicago) on the actual disk for some reason. This was certainly possible — there was nothing stopping you from putting any font you want in your System file and giving it resource ID 0. I at least wasn’t aware that anything other than Chicago was ever the standard system font, however, even in the earliest released versions of the OS.

It is Steve Capps font used in Alice game

i guess my memory is a fair bit off here, thanks for clarifying though, as its had me quite interested since i saw this question posted..

i do wonder whats going on with the system disk though, specifically how it loads that 'Cartoon' font on the mac 128k but loads chicago on the mac plus.
@Crutch would this mean that if ID 0 refers to chicago in the system file it loads it from the new font manager and pulls it from ROM but on the older 64k ROMs it looks in the system file instead and perhaps the system disk was modified to used the 'Cartoon' font?
Ive probably explained/asked that question badly, im just curious how this is occurring under the hood.

@ibook99 is there any way you could upload a disk image of your system 1.0 disk?

 

[Phipli]

i do wonder whats going on with the system disk though, specifically how it loads that 'Cartoon' font on the mac 128k but loads chicago on the mac plus.

Someone replaced chicargo in the System File with cartoon. But unlike the older ROMs, the Plus has Chicago in ROM, so it doesn’t bother looking in the System File. At least thats what it sounds like from what everyone has said.

 

[Chopsticks]

so im guessing then that if the new font manger isnt detected by whatever the pre system 6 gestalt equivelant is, it falls back to the old version and loads ID0 font from the system file?

 

[Crutch]

It’s not a question of new a Font Manager exactly.

The Chicago font has FONT resource ID = 0. The 128K ROMs added the Chicago font to ROM (and also tweaked the various toolbox calls including QuickDraw text drawing routines to check the ROM for needed resources “first”, using a low memory global flag called RomMapInsert). So if you’re running the 128K ROM, your QuickDraw calls (which run in the ROM) know they are supposed to look in that same ROM for any font you ask for before checking the disk, and if you ask for FONT ID = 0 they happily find Chicago right there in the ROM and hand it back to you, and you’re done.

If you’re running on 64K ROMs and you call TextFont(), the ROM instead just looks on your System disk and gives you whatever FONT ID = 0 is sitting there, for example, Cartoon.

 

[Chopsticks]

It’s not a question of new a Font Manager exactly.

The Chicago font has FONT resource ID = 0. The 128K ROMs added the Chicago font to ROM (and also tweaked the various toolbox calls including QuickDraw text drawing routines to check the ROM for needed resources “first”, using a low memory global flag called RomMapInsert). So if you’re running the 128K ROM, your QuickDraw calls (which run in the ROM) know they are supposed to look in that same ROM for any font you ask for before checking the disk, and if you ask for FONT ID = 0 they happily find Chicago right there in the ROM and hand it back to you, and you’re done.

If you’re running on 64K ROMs and you call TextFont(), the ROM instead just looks on your System disk and gives you whatever FONT ID = 0 is sitting there, for example, Cartoon.

Thank you.
it makes much more sense to me now whats going on, I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me