World-class female singers
Mar. 29th, 2026 05:47 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
unsung_feedThe story about the original Macintosh’s built-in font set being named after “world-class cities” is well known and documented by Susan Kare on the Folklore site:
The first Macintosh font was designed to be a bold system font with no jagged diagonals, and was originally called “Elefont”. There were going to be lots of fonts, so we were looking for a set of attractive, related names. Andy Hertzfeld and I had met in high school in suburban Philadelphia, so we started naming the other fonts after stops on the Paoli Local commuter train: Overbrook, Merion, Ardmore, and Rosemont. (Ransom was the only one that broke that convention; it was a font of mismatched letters intended to evoke messages from kidnapers made from cut-out letters).
One day Steve Jobs stopped by the software group, as he often did at the end of the day. He frowned as he looked at the font names on a menu. “What are those names?”, he asked, and we explained about the Paoli Local.
“Well”, he said, “cities are OK, but not little cities that nobody’s ever heard of. They ought to be WORLD CLASS cities!”
So that is how Chicago (Elefont), New York, Geneva, London, San Francisco (Ransom), Toronto, and Venice […] got their names.
If you check out the actual Philly stops and witness all their provinciality, you can understand what Jobs was after:
Go to first Macintosh via Infinite Mac, open Infinite HD and MacWrite within, and you can examine the nine eventual fonts in their pixellated, cosmopolitan glory:
The list goes in this order: New York, Geneva, Toronto, Monaco, Chicago, Venice, London, Athens, San Francisco.
But: How about some hard evidence for the original anecdote? Turns out, the March 1984 issue of Popular Computing used pre-release Mac software and printed a screenshot of the names rejected by Jobs:
Since on the facing page we see the output in the same order, coming up with the correct mapping is not hard:
- Cursive → Venice
- Old English → London
- City → Athens
- Ransom → San Francisco
- Overbrook → Toronto
- System → Chicago
- Rosemont → New York
- Ardmore → Geneva
- Merion → Monaco
One has to admire the final order of the Mac fonts that went from dependable and utilitarian at the top, to progressively more weird; this earlier list is all over the place.
In later releases of Mac OS, three other world-city fonts – Boston, Los Angeles, and Cairo – joined the party, so let’s show them here for completeness’s sake:
(Cairo is the classic icon font and in a way a predecessor of modern emoji, with inside jokes like Clarus The Dogcow.)
But that’s not the end of the story of the original Mac fonts. Let’s get back to 1983. On yet another page of the magazine, we see this list from MacPaint:
You can tell this screenshot is even older than the previous one, because it is itself set in an earlier version of Chicago, with a two-storey lowercase “a,” and many letterforms being works in progress. (I talked about the history of Chicago in my 2024 talk about pixel fonts.)
And it is old enough that this isn’t just interim names for surviving fonts – it’s actually quite a few old fonts that didn’t make it to the release day.
Unfortunately, this particular version of Macintosh software remains unknown, but one similar pre-release version of the first Mac software leaked, and so we can take a look at some of these fonts, too:
(You can download a lot of these fonts thanks to the hard work of John Duncan. They are still bitmap fonts and might not work in all the places in modern macOS, but they seem to work in TextEdit at least.)
Here’s what I learned from looking at this list:
- You can definitely see how unpolished some of these fonts are in terms of spacing, letterforms, and available sizes – kudos to the team for holding a high quality bar even though there was little precedent for proportional fonts on home computers at that time.
- Even the fonts that shipped – London (née Old English), Venice (née Cursive), and Chicago (née System) – have had their letterforms tweaked and improved.
- Chicago is not named Elefont, but simply System. Had the System name persisted, this Medium snafu from 2015 would have been even more hilarious.
- The name of the monospaced Elite font is likely inspired by one of the two classic sizes of typewriter fonts: pica (larger) and elite (smaller).
- Cream came all the way from Xerox’s Smalltalk and was the original system font for Macintosh-in-progress, before Susan Kare created Elefont/Chicago.
- PaintFont was a symbol/icon font, but distinct from Cairo and emoji in that it seems it was meant to be used only by the app to draw its interface. (Today, SF Symbols serve a similar purpose.)
- Apple originally planned to use Times Roman and Helvetica, but this hasn’t happened presumably because of licensing issues. Only years later, the proper Times and Helvetica fonts were introduced. Here’s a comparison:
But the most interesting thing I haven’t noticed before are two fonts called “Marie Osmond” and “Patti.”
I am reaching outside of my well of knowledge here, but from context clues I’ll assume the latter means Patti LaBelle. And so, pulling on that thread, it’s kind of cool to imagine an alternate universe where the original Mac fonts are neither suburban Philly stations, nor well known cities, but something like this:
Version History: ‘The Macintosh’
Mar. 29th, 2026 08:48 pmdaringfireball_feedFor your weekend viewing enjoyment:
But in almost every way that mattered, the Macintosh was right. Right about how we’d use computers going forward. Right about the idea that computers needed to be less complicated. Right about the fact that caring this deeply about both hardware and software design would make a difference. Though Apple didn’t sell many of those original Macintoshes, there’s no question it changed computers forever.
On this episode of Version History, we tell the story of the original Macintosh. David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber explain the strange corporate infighting that led to the project in the first place, the ways in which the Macintosh changed over time, and how Jobs and his team drove such massive hype for the device some people didn’t even want to ship. Then they debate the device’s true legacy, and whether the computer or the commercial is the true icon.
The Minor Planet Johnscalzi in Motion
Mar. 29th, 2026 08:40 pmscalziwhatever_feed
See that tiny dot cruising across the night sky here? That’s my asteroid, imaged by a fellow JoCo Cruiser Geordan Rosario. He was excited to show it to me, but not nearly as excited as I was to see it in action. Look! That’s my space potato! In motion! How cool as that?
This is a good time to note that I have been given a few other commemorative items regarding my space potato this month, which I didn’t post about because I was traveling, but now that I’m at home for two whole weeks, I’ll catch up with them in a separate post.
Space Potato!
— JS
WorkOS
Mar. 29th, 2026 08:50 pmdaringfireball_feedMy thanks to WorkOS for once again sponsoring the week at DF. Their latest is a CLI that launches an AI agent, powered by Claude, that reads your project, detects your framework, and writes a complete auth integration into your codebase. No signup required. It creates an environment, populates your keys, and you claim your account later when you’re ready.
But the CLI goes way beyond installation. WorkOS Skills make your coding agent a WorkOS expert. workos seed defines your environment as code. workos doctor finds and fixes misconfigurations. And once you’re authenticated, your agent can manage users, orgs, and environments directly from the terminal. See how it works at WorkOS’s website.
See also: WorkOS just completed another Launch Week. This one, for Spring 2026, does not disappoint with its custom UI and theme. Even if you don’t have a need for WorkOS you should check out their Launch Week site just for fun.
The Verge: ‘Rank the Best Apple Products From the Last 50 Years’
Mar. 29th, 2026 08:11 pmdaringfireball_feedLook, I’m all for democracy, but a poll whose results currently have the Extended Keyboard II down at #47 is a poll that makes me angry.
The Talk Show: ‘You’re Going to Have the Niggles’
Mar. 29th, 2026 08:49 pmdaringfireball_feedFor your weekend listening enjoyment: Christina Warren returns to the show to discuss Apple big month of product announcements — in particular, the iPhone 17e and MacBook Neo. And we pour one out for the Mac Pro.
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- Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code TALKSHOW.
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“That’s because the metro cab is his right hand. Videogames!”
Mar. 29th, 2026 04:05 pmunsung_feedIn the Fallout 3: Broken Steel addition, the team wanted to introduce a moving subway train under Washington, D.C.:
However, the engine did not have any moving vehicles. Instead of adding a new kind of primitive into the game engine, the creators… made the player character itself become the subway car when in motion:
This was done by removing freedom of movement from the player, forcing the character to slide on the floor, and equipping him with… a “metro hat.”
The visuals of people hacking this to use it outside of the subway area are really funny:
Technically, it was not a hat, but a right-arm armor, as you can see from the right hand missing in the above picture.
The FPS genre is filled with all sorts of hacks for hand-held weapons, to compensate for the challenges of depicting things accurately not feeling as great…
…but I have never heard of someone “wearing a train.”
(The title comes from this post.)
A less complicated complication
Mar. 29th, 2026 03:42 pmdr_drang_feedBack in January, I complained about the Apple Watch’s Timer complication being too complicated. A couple of days ago, Dan Moren told me on Mastodon that my complaint had been addressed in watchOS 26.4, which was released earlier this week. After a surprisingly quick update of my watch (I had already updated every other device to 26.4 but somehow forgot to do the watch), I added a 3-minute timer as the bottom center complication and, miracle of miracles, it worked exactly as it should.
To recap, my January complaint was that although I could create a complication that looked like it would start a 30-second timer when tapped, that complication actually required a second tap on a smaller button to start it—a stupid way to implement the feature. As of 26.4, the stupidity has been removed. Now the timer starts immediately when you tap the complication.
If you’d like a quick way to set a specific timer on your watch, press and hold on your watch’s home screen, tap the Edit button, and then swipe (if necessary) to get to the complications screen. Tap the complication you want to change to a Timer, scroll through the list, and choose Timers. At this point, you will be given the option to choose either a generic timer complication—one that just opens the Timers app—or one set to one of the specific times you’ve created in the Timers app.
Choose the one you want and go back to your home screen. Now you have a specific timer complication that works the way it should.
(Aside: I wanted a 30-second timer in January because I was doing physical therapy stretching exercises then that were supposed to be held for 30 seconds. I’m not doing those exercises anymore, so I made a 3-minute timer for tea.)
Thanks to Dan for telling me about this. I had given up on this type of complication and wouldn’t have thought to look for the improvement.
Another improvement in 26.4—one that’s sort of mentioned in the release notes—is that you no longer have to tap the small arrow button to start a workout. You can also tap anywhere in the big area around the exercise icon above the three bottom buttons on the Workouts screen. And you don’t have to wait for the arrow button to slowly animate into view.
I bitched about the previous behavior—prompted by a Greg Pierce complaint—in December. It’s almost as if Apple is listening now.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Water
Mar. 29th, 2026 11:20 amsmbc_comics_feed
Click here to go see the bonus panel!
Hovertext:
Later, it puts him in a corner and forgets about him for six months.
Today's News:
Dale Yu: Review of 1906 San Francisco
Mar. 29th, 2026 11:50 amopinionatedgamers_feed 1906 San Francisco Designer: Perepau Llistosella Publisher: Looping Games Players: 1-4 Age: 12+ Time: 45 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Early morning, 18th April 1906, the city of San Francisco awakes shaken by a massive earthquake … Continue reading
Episode 2758: Miss Connix Regrets She’s Unable to Launch Today
Mar. 29th, 2026 09:11 amdarths_and_droids_feed
Volunteering is always a fun thing. If you need a hook to get your players into a planned adventure, you can do the classic version where the king or whoever is in authority calls for volunteers to slay the fearsome dragon that is terrorising the kingdom, and everyone but the PCs takes a step backwards. Or any of the other variants on the linked TV Tropes page. It's a very useful toolbox for getting adventures started.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Well, Poe certainly has the voluntelling skill down pat. And Pete shows the best way to not be included when something like this is going on as well: be silent and be unseen. Not that Artoo is going to stay behind anyway. What better way to show off mastery of the time juice or whatever it is than to head out as well and use it for something spectacular?
Hmmm. Chewie and and Lando are already paired up. Threepio can't exactly fly a ship on their own, so they'll be on the Falcon as well as Artoo, who can handle small repairs there. Poe is probably going to be paired up with BB again in an X-wing. Connix, Finn, and Rose are the odd ones here. I suppose they could each have their own space fighter with a nondescript droid, but that doesn't feel quite right. Finn and Rose each taking one of the turrets in the Falcon could work while Connix gets left somewhere else, but that only showed up once in the very first movie. I'm not sure if there's cool enough scenes that could happen with that versus individual ships. Too many possible combinations!
Transcript
3D-printed, handpainted Sarah figurine
Mar. 29th, 2026 12:18 amdumbing_of_age_feed
Hey! A week or so ago I sold an obsolete 3D-printed Jennifer figurine I handpainted! Well, here I am again with a 3D-printed hand-painted Sarah figurine! Why am I getting rid of it? Well, I thought mine should be a little tiny bit taller, so I reprinted her at a slightly larger scale and repainted her, but now I have this 5% smaller Sarah that’s surplus to requirements. So she’s getting auctioned.
Like Jennifer, this Sarah is about 6 inches tall, printed out of PLA plastic, and handpainted by me! You can go bid on her. Auction ends in 4 days.
Or, if you have a 3D printer of your own, you can go grab the file for yourself on Cults. I won’t paint it, though!
Ludic Narrans
Mar. 28th, 2026 11:23 pmzarfhome_blog_feedHey, remember I was in a game studies essay collection that just came out? I'm in a new game studies interview collection that just came out!
This one isn't about game design, though. It's not lectures at all -- I promise you are in no danger of learning to do anything in particular. The book is about play as a general concept. A bunch of people from different walks of life, talking about play. How we play; how we create play; where we play; how we learned to play; why we play. And on.
The project sprouted from a series of interviews and questions organized by Drew Davidson. I agreed to talk to Drew, and so did a lot of other people, and this book is the result. "A playful thematic oral history of the stories shared," as the blurb page says.
Like the Kaleidoscope, Ludic Narrans messes with the idea of linearity. Two editions are available: Playing it Straight is organized by topic, whereas Playing Around interleaves topical sections in a playful fugue. Same content, variable structure.
Names you might recognize: Jenova Chen, Naomi Clark, Mia Consalvo, James Ernest, Rami Ismail, Jim Munroe, and no doubt others. And me of course.
Both editions are available as free PDFs. (See the "Download" links on the book pages.) The text is under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND).
Or you can pay for either print or ebook editions at Lulu. Note that each print edition is itself available in two forms. The only difference is the interior illustrations, printed in color or monochrome. (They're nice illustrations but I wouldn't call them central to the book's presentation.)
Once again, I'll quote a single line from one of my bits:
never been designed for. This is why tool programming starts out easy and then turns into a
Grab the book to read the rest!
The 2019 Intel Mac Pro’s Unfortunate Timing
Mar. 28th, 2026 11:47 pmdaringfireball_feedStephen Hackett, at 512 Pixels:
I’ve thought a lot about the bad timing Jones mentions. Had Apple stuck to the original timeline, and killed off the 2013 Mac Pro in favor of an iMac “specifically targeted at large segments of the pro market,” back in 2017, Apple could have avoided putting out the best Intel Mac ever, less than a year before the transition to Apple silicon.
Did Apple know in 2017 that 2020 was the year the M1 would make it out of the lab? Probably not, but it doesn’t make the timing any less painful.
Apple might not have had 2020 set in stone for the Apple Silicon transition, but in 2017, they definitely knew that Apple Silicon was the future. I think they knew that years before 2017, and in broad strokes, that’s why 2015–2020 was such a bad period for Mac hardware. They didn’t ship a retina MacBook Air until 2018. The 12-inch MacBook was beautiful but expensive and seriously underpowered. And nothing suffered more than the Mac Pro in that stretch. I think Apple knew that the future was on their own silicon, but in the meantime, they just couldn’t get it up for the last five years of the Intel era.
Apple Should Set and Enforce Some Basic Standards for Custom Video Players on tvOS
Mar. 28th, 2026 11:25 pmdaringfireball_feedWhile I’m bitching about Netflix’s craptacular new video player on Apple TV, let me quote from a piece I wrote two years ago (also complaining about Netflix’s tvOS app):
Turns out there are two better ways:
If you use the Control Center Apple TV remote control on your iPhone, there’s a dedicated “CC” button.
In tvOS, go to Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut, and set it to “Closed Captions”. Now you can just triple-click the Menu/Back button on the remote to toggle captions. (On older Apple TV remotes, the button is labelled “Menu”; on the new remote, it’s labelled with a “<”.)
But here’s the hitch: Netflix’s tvOS app doesn’t support either of these ways to toggle captions. Netflix only supports the on-screen caption toggle in their custom video player. I get why Netflix and other streaming apps want to use their own custom video players, but it ought to be mandated by App Store review that they support accessibility features like this one.
What Apple should have done right from the start with the tvOS-based Apple TV a decade ago is require all apps to use the system video player. No custom video players. It’s too late for that, alas. But the tvOS App Store review process ought to insist on compliance with these accessibility and platform compliance features.
You want to use your own custom video player? Fine. But apps with custom video players must support the “CC” button in the iOS Control Center remote control, must support the triple-click accessibility shortcut, must support the platform conventions for fast-forwarding and rewinding using the Apple TV remote control, etc. If your video player doesn’t comply, your app update doesn’t get approved.
Apple should use the App Store approval process for the benefit of users. Isn’t that supposed to be the point?