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Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

vistaserv.net

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Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#11

Post by heelix »

plerpin wrote: post #8

LOL! Funny how doing something in 2020 takes ten times the resources for doing the same thing in 1995. Every pixel on these fonts is now a complex vector path.

I could format my table layout with the font to make it pixel perfect, assuming a white on white color scheme. /s

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#12

Post by amiga-workbench »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #2

Anti-aliasing isn't enough, because of hinting. So they had to use FontForge to recreate old-looking fonts! I really like the retro scrollbar as well.

The scrollbars are done properly using CSS pseudo selectors too. I was half expecting to find some javascript sludge but there's none to be found.

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#13

Post by sp332 »

kick wrote: post #3

You can still use bitmap fonts on the WWW. That said, most of the 90s webpages didn't look like that. Images were used instead. For example: http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/paulgraham_2202_166608

Lots more examples https://twitter.com/wayback_exe

Edit: for contrast with more personal sites, try https://twitter.com/gifmodel/status/456761420319686656

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#14

Post by seba_dos1 »

kick wrote: post #6
saagarjha wrote: post #4

Ha, this website seems to trip up the WebKit layout code ( https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211679 ) and cause large spaces to appear randomly in the middle of paragraphs that go away when you select the text…

On Firefox the layout renders fine, but seems to anti-alias the font anyway, which I find funny.

They both seem to do some kind of anti-aliasing on a hidpi screen for me, and Firefox is actually slightly sharper here. The screenshot is nicely pixelated and somewhat easier to read, but the font itself on the page is a bit blurry.

Kerning seems to be very browser dependent as well, seems like Blink does better job there.

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#15

Post by toothbrush »

Hello! Co-founder here – wow, front page, that's flattering!

We have indeed still got a bunch of visual glitches we couldn't iron out, including the one ~saagarjha has reported to WebKit! We had assumed it was our font being broken, but i'm keen to follow that one.

Otherwise getting hinting right on all browsers in high-DPI has basically been impossible. Maybe we should simply recommend everyone use a Windows 98 User Agent ;)

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#17

Post by toothbrush »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

Ha, this website seems to trip up the WebKit layout code ( https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211679 ) and cause large spaces to appear randomly in the middle of paragraphs that go away when you select the text…

We had noticed this early on indeed, but no idea what's going on. Thank you for reporting it — we didn't think of raising it against WebKit since we assumed they'd be Doing The Right Thing™.

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#19

Post by andai »

heelix wrote: post #11
plerpin wrote: post #8

LOL! Funny how doing something in 2020 takes ten times the resources for doing the same thing in 1995. Every pixel on these fonts is now a complex vector path.

I could format my table layout with the font to make it pixel perfect, assuming a white on white color scheme. /s

The other day I discovered https://favicon.cc, "in beta" since 2007. Instead of canvas it uses a html table for drawing (as well as the 1:1 preview!)

Re: Convincing-looking 90s fonts in modern browsers

#20

Post by saagarjha »

toothbrush wrote: post #17
saagarjha wrote: post #4

Ha, this website seems to trip up the WebKit layout code ( https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211679 ) and cause large spaces to appear randomly in the middle of paragraphs that go away when you select the text…

We had noticed this early on indeed, but no idea what's going on. Thank you for reporting it — we didn't think of raising it against WebKit since we assumed they'd be Doing The Right Thing™.

It's not just your website, mind you. I've been seeing it for quite a while even on other website but I've just been too lazy to report it ;)
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