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  • Hacker News
  • I love this.

    As nerdy as it is, it is also an interesting historical look on how certain things in society/culture have a life that is hidden in plain view and quietly goes on. It is an interesting reflection on many things in life.

    by Nemi
  • It's a pretty font and gives that instant retro look on keyboards for example.

    I've tried it on the computer with "Gorton Digital" and that's just terrible, I can't recommend it. The spacing/kerning is all wrong.

    Hoping someone takes on the project of making a nice digital font, potentially a mono-spaced one too.

    by keyle
  • Some past comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43053419
    by brudgers
  • More like "The hardest website your browser will work on" ... will come back once it loads
    by ucyo
  • I love this article, it's been posted here several times before. The first time I read it I had been in New York and was waiting in JFK to fly home, so naturally it resonated.

    In some ways it's THE perfect hacker news article. It's about design sensibilities and typography, and as we know all HN readers have great taste, so it tickles that part of the brain.

    It's mechanical and analogue, so it harkens back to a time when engineers built things with their hands and their work had a physical manifestation in the real world. So for the former 'physical' engineers who turned to tech for better career prospect (like me) it tickles that part of the brain too!

    It has an air of Americana in that New York is its most iconic city and this article is drenched in 'look how good we used to make things', and then it delightfully leads us back to old blighty for the Anglophiles.

    For an article romantic about a font, it's perfection. Catnip for nerds.

    by kingkongjaffa
  • The site is killing my brave browser. Maybe long thin transoceanic paths, or phase of the moon.

    So many partially loaded images.

    But definitely worth the wait. A great read. I liked the almost mimetic quality of "which slightly broken font plate is being reused to make the broken "3" I keep seeing" which is a classic detective novel trope, e.g. Lord Peter Whimsey in "strong poison" and a typewriter glitch he recognises.

    by ggm
  • > Carve something into plastic, on the other hand, and it can survive decades. Substitute plastic for metal, and you just turned decades into centuries.

    "I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted."

    by ReactiveJelly
  • I started reading the article with a feeling of "I don't recognize this at all" from the first few images that slowly loaded.

    Then we got to the metal plates in elevators and the other uses, and my brain immediately turned around and said "Of course you know this; you've seen this a hundred thousand times.. you absolutely know it even if you don't consciously think about it."

    A font forked at least a dozen times over the decades, with forks upon forks upon forks, full of nostalgia for times past.

    by Firehawke

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