B612 Font Family

#1

Post by OliverGilan » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

Re: B612 Font Family

#2

Post by userbinator » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 4:44 AM UTC

Unfortunately the name has been collided into by several other, more popular and newer, things since its creation. However, 46610 is still available as a font name.

Re: B612 Font Family

#3

Post by nxobject » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 4:51 AM UTC

It looks like two of its design goals were to retain visual consistency at veyr low dot-pich screens, to maximize readability of long passages in uppercase, and to accomplish this all of a full complement of symbols as well.

(https://intactile.com/projets/ameliorer-la-lisibilite-et-la-...)

Re: B612 Font Family

#4

Post by brandonasuncion » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 4:54 AM UTC

I really like the font aesthetically, and I'd use it as a coding font. However, the brackets and parentheses look too similar at smaller sizes, and arrows (ie. -> and =>) don't quite line up properly.

Re: B612 Font Family

#5

Post by tangwwwei » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 5:40 AM UTC

previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18946601

Re: B612 Font Family

#6

Post by ohadron » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 5:40 AM UTC

I couldn't find any evidence for this font having particularly good legibility (such as a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) test), but my hunch is that it's not that great.

It was probably optimized for low-res screens and specifically for monospace usage.

Kerning looks quite off in the Google fonts specimen (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/B612?query=b612)

Re: B612 Font Family

#7

Post by tangwwwei » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 5:43 AM UTC

brandonasuncion wrote: post #4

I really like the font aesthetically, and I'd use it as a coding font. However, the brackets and parentheses look too similar at smaller sizes, and arrows (ie. -> and =>) don't quite line up properly.

i used it as a coding font for awhile then realized that i cant distinguish between comma and fullstop on my ide setup

Re: B612 Font Family

#8

Post by RomanPushkin » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 5:49 AM UTC

I'm wondering if the image is real. Because there are slashed zeros and non-slashed on the same picture for some reason. Font seems to have non-slashed version.

I would assume in cockpit it's better to always use slashed version to avoid confusion.

Re: B612 Font Family

#9

Post by ChrisArchitect » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 5:55 AM UTC

Posted every so often. A more descriptive post title including something about aircraft cockpits or something would be useful.

Bunch of previous discussion here from 2019:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18946601

Re: B612 Font Family

#10

Post by pavlov » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 5:56 AM UTC

The kerning looks distractingly bad. It’s easy to see in the word “complete”.

Short words like “in” and “all” end up looking like they’ve got completely different tracking, which in turn makes it harder to see word boundaries.

Probably a high-DPI screen in a well-lit room is simply the wrong environment to judge this font though, since it’s designed for low-DPI screens in a cockpit. But if you’re planning to use it outside of that environment, do test against other options.