{"id":164,"date":"2013-01-23T13:34:36","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T21:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slantedhall.wordpress.com\/?p=164"},"modified":"2025-08-12T22:46:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T05:46:53","slug":"an-ibm-1403-printer-inspired-typeface-in-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/23\/an-ibm-1403-printer-inspired-typeface-in-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"An IBM 1403 Printer Inspired Typeface (in progress)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Backstory<\/h3>\n

The other day, 18 January 2013,\u00a0Mark VandeWettering<\/a>\u00a0(@brainwagon<\/a>) wondered\u00a0aloud<\/a>\u00a0on twitter about the existence of a typeface reminiscent of the IBM 1403\u00a0line printer. \u00a0Mark wrote about<\/a> his path to this query. \u00a0Stan Paddock<\/a>\u00a0(his\u00a01401 blog<\/a>) had created a\u00a0scanned font<\/a>\u00a0(artifacts and all) from a 1403 test printout during an\u00a0IBM 1401 restoration<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Computer History Museum<\/a>\u00a0(@ComputerHistory<\/a>). \u00a0I decided I could probably throw something together that Mark might be able to use. \u00a0Plus, I’d be combining two long-time interests: my love of history with typeface design. I knew that Mark was playing with\u00a0simh<\/a>\u00a0on a\u00a0Raspberry Pi<\/a>\u00a0(@Raspberry_Pi<\/a>),\u00a0simulating a\u00a0DEC PDP-10<\/a>\u00a0and the IBM 1401<\/a>\u00a0(@IBM<\/a>) and probably wanted to see the typeface while working with the 1401 simulator. \u00a0So, that was the start of researching aspects of this printer and the various type chains produced for it. \u00a0I also happened to have worked for both\u00a0DEC and IBM<\/a>, a while back.<\/p>\n

Beginning of the IBM 1403 Printer Inspired Typeface<\/h3>\n

Here’s an in-progress sample of one of the typeface projects I’m working on, inspired by the\u00a0IBM 1403 printer<\/a>. \u00a0Work on this monospaced typeface has only just begun. \u00a0I started on the heavier side, perhaps slightly wider, and definitely tighter spacing. \u00a0Samples were minimal, so I was taking a guess at the shapes. \u00a0It’d be great to take a look at the various typeface printer chains (and subsequent printouts) produced for the 1403, especially the TN “Text” chain, used for producing books and such. \u00a0I started with the basic 48 glyphs (26 letters, 10 digits, and 12 symbols) used on the early 1403 A chain. \u00a0I started mixing between a couple of the chains (A and H) to add some additional characters. \u00a0The squareLozenge\u00a0\u2311 is included, of course. \u00a0There was some great technology in the 1403; it was a workhorse, one of the early high speed printers. \u00a0Perhaps I’ll write more about that when this typeface is released. \u00a0In the meanwhile, here’s the\u00a0IBM 1401 System 50th Anniversary panel<\/a>\u00a0(video: 2 hours) held at the Computer History Museum<\/a> (@ComputerHistory<\/a>), 10 November 2009.<\/p>\n

\"Sample<\/p>\n

The listing in the sample printout was copied from the 1403 printout photo<\/a> by Marcin Wichary<\/a>\u00a0(@mwichary<\/a>), found after the font was designed. Glyphs<\/a>\u00a0(@glyphsapp<\/a>) was used for designing the typeface.<\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>: The typeface has been expanded to 730+ glyphs<\/a> over two weights with an hopeful release in the first half of 2013.<\/p>\n

Update: 24 April 2013:<\/strong>\u00a0Initial support for Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew has been added. Here’s an early preview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update: 7 August 2013:<\/strong>\u00a0Initial support for Vietnamese has been added<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update: 21 November 2013:<\/strong>\u00a0The 1403 Vintage Mono Pro<\/em><\/a> typeface has been released and is now available for licensing, going from 52 glyphs to over 1,500, supporting 140+ languages across Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew scripts.<\/p>\n

Update: 16 February 2016: <\/strong>The 1403 Vintage Mono Pro<\/em><\/a> typeface has been updated, extensively, now over 2,300 glyphs supporting 160+ languages. Check out the 1403.slantedhall.com web specimen<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"1403<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014Jeff Kellem<\/a>\u00a0(@composerjk<\/a>\u00a0\/ @slantedhall<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Backstory The other day, 18 January 2013,\u00a0Mark VandeWettering\u00a0(@brainwagon) wondered\u00a0aloud\u00a0on twitter about the existence of a typeface reminiscent of the IBM 1403\u00a0line printer. \u00a0Mark wrote about his path to this query. \u00a0Stan Paddock\u00a0(his\u00a01401 blog) had created a\u00a0scanned font\u00a0(artifacts and all) from a 1403 test printout during an\u00a0IBM 1401 restoration\u00a0at the\u00a0Computer History Museum\u00a0(@ComputerHistory). \u00a0I decided I could probably throw something together that … <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34],"tags":[45,51,59,60,61,96],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1403-vintage-mono-pro","category-typography","tag-computer-history","tag-fonts","tag-ibm","tag-ibm-1401","tag-ibm-1403","tag-typeface"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/1403-print-samples.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slantedhall.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}