68kMLA Classic Interface

This is a version of the 68kMLA forums for viewing on your favorite old mac. Visitors on modern platforms may prefer the main site.

Click here to select a new forum.
WHAT FONT? "can't wait to get out of that bag"
Posted by: JDW on 2019-12-03 02:30:04 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.
Posted by: Dog Cow on 2019-12-03 06:01:30 Venice.
Posted by: Alex on 2019-12-03 10:24:44 Venice. 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
Posted by: Scott Baret on 2019-12-03 10:32:25 The font in question is Athens.
Posted by: jessenator on 2019-12-03 10:49:00 The font in question is Athens. 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:
Posted by: Dog Cow on 2019-12-03 12:24:32 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. 😛
Posted by: JDW on 2019-12-03 13:13:07 Thank you!
Posted by: JDW on 2019-12-03 16:11:41 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.
Posted by: Crutch on 2019-12-03 19:15:16 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.
Posted by: jessenator on 2019-12-03 19:18:52 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.
Posted by: Crutch on 2019-12-03 19:46:28 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?
Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2019-12-03 20:25:44 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!
Posted by: Mu0n on 2019-12-03 20:27:24 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).
Posted by: Dog Cow on 2019-12-04 08:47:41 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) 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. The speech synthesis is just MacinTalk, right? Right. And MacinTalk was written under contract by a 3rd party. Can't recall the name off hand.
Posted by: slomacuser on 2019-12-04 11:34:19 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
Posted by: Alex on 2019-12-09 00:35:36 thank you to all for digging this up. Athens is a nice font and along the way I learned about the Venice font.
Posted by: JDW on 2019-12-09 01:08:18 thank you to all for digging this up. Athens is a nice font and along the way I learned about the Venice font. 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...
Posted by: Alex on 2019-12-09 02:19:55 View attachment 30529 View attachment 30528 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.
Posted by: slomacuser on 2019-12-09 04:55:31 Athens it is. @JDW are you trying to do a replica?
1 >