
Routed Gothic Font - dector
https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/
======
hlieberman
For a newer font in this vein, I'd look at B612, a font designed in
cooperation with Airbus specifically for visibility inside cockpits:
[https://github.com/polarsys/b612/blob/master/docs/B612-Leafl...](https://github.com/polarsys/b612/blob/master/docs/B612-Leaflet.pdf)

~~~
cyphar
I'm also quite surprised that the symbols for "O" (capital O) and "0" (zero)
are very similar, even in the monospace version of B612.

~~~
randomcarbloke
Cyphar, two years ago you posted:

"Well, there is a port of glibc to UEFI, so one could very easily "boot into
Emacs". Strangely I've not seen anyone do this."

Can you hook me up with that link :) Cheers.

~~~
FullyFunctional
Very off-topic but hilarious.

Back to topic: inability to distinguish O and 0 seems pretty terrifying for
avionics. Related, I love SF Mono, but it's so hard to read 0000080 in small
fonts (try it).

~~~
randomcarbloke
Yeah, very off topic, terribly sorry. My brain won't let me write 0's without
strikethrough anymore.

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ginko
Sort of related, there's DIN 6776, a German standardized font used for
technical drawings:

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normschrift](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normschrift)

[https://www.typografie.info/3/uploads/99b804cee64ef8c64ad900...](https://www.typografie.info/3/uploads/99b804cee64ef8c64ad900e80d7cf1a9.jpg)

I had to learn that one in drafting class in middle school.

~~~
app4soft
_DIN_ standards are local derivatives of _ISO_ standards.

There are few widely used _" Technical lettering"_[0] standards: «ISO
3098»(EU/International), _«ASME Y14.5»_ (US) and _«GOST 2.304»_ (ex-USSR).

There are few FLOSS fonts which cover _«ISO 3098»_ [1,2,3], _«ASME Y14.5»_
[3,4,5] and _«GOST 2.304»_ [6,7,8] technical lettering standards.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering)

[1]
[https://github.com/hikikomori82/osifont](https://github.com/hikikomori82/osifont)

[2] [http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL.html](http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL.html)

[3] [http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL_0-16.html](http://peter-
wiegel.de/TGL_0-16.html)

[4] [https://www.fontspace.com/micronus](https://www.fontspace.com/micronus)

[5]
[https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Commit...](https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Committee=C64041150&Action=40068)

[6]
[https://bitbucket.org/fat_angel/opengostfont/](https://bitbucket.org/fat_angel/opengostfont/)

[7]
[https://github.com/Metrolog/Font.GOST2.304-81](https://github.com/Metrolog/Font.GOST2.304-81)

[8]
[https://github.com/MishkinIN/Font_GOST_2.304](https://github.com/MishkinIN/Font_GOST_2.304)

~~~
ginko
Seems like ISO 3098 is significantly newer than DIN 6776, so it's the ISO
standard that's derivative of the DIN one.

~~~
app4soft
Well, you are partially right, because most of "DIN" standards already
replaced by "ISO".

But there are still many "DIN" standards that now replaced by "DIN EN ISO",
e.g. German (local) version of «ISO 3098» (which replace «DIN 6776») is «DIN
EN ISO 3098».[0]

[0] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DIN_standards#DIN_6000_to_DIN_6999

------
exmadscientist
Thank you for posting this! I've been looking off and on for this for ages and
ages.

Trivial factoid: my understanding is that the Gorton pantograph fonts came
first, and that the Leroy lettering sets were manufactured using the Gorton
fonts. But I don't have a good source for that, so I could be completely
wrong.

~~~
rjsw
I had not heard of those brands, I had Rotring [1] lettering stencils to match
some of their pens.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotring)

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jccalhoun
If people aren’t familiar with the Leroy Lettering system here is a video of
it: [https://youtu.be/GZRvQDMBEOE](https://youtu.be/GZRvQDMBEOE)

This font was also used by EC Comics (their comics included Tales From the
Crypt). Here is another font based on that which is more fuzzy:
[https://caseyburns.com/artwork/font-
design/](https://caseyburns.com/artwork/font-design/)

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_jal
I'm pleased to see he implemented the vital U+1F4A9 code point.

~~~
dickeytk
[bottom of [https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/unicode-
coverage...](https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/unicode-
coverage.html)]

~~~
shmageggy
Ah, a mainstay of technical drawings and engraved office signs.

~~~
samplatt
Certainly required in the description of the accuracy of many of them.

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etaioinshrdlu
I learned to write in this style by hand in an engineering graphics / drafting
class in college.

I too find the high concentration of upper case fonts, especially Courier New,
in engineering and especially EE, to be kind of relaxing and pretty.

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gelo
It may be the size on the page, or glyph rendering artefact but this font
doesnt look... consistent. Dont get me wrong the font is brilliant, however
atleast for me there are some points at which the rendered glyphs are over
cut. Another way id describe this is the antialiasing is not consistent. Its
like layering the same text on top of the other multiple times.

~~~
Sharlin
The author mentions that there’s no hinting, which may explain what you’re
seeing.

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qwerty456127
It's not ugly, it's beautiful.

~~~
spectramax
At the risk of sounding "out of touch with reality" and "retro nostalgic", I
strongly believe that a lot of clean, sterile work took place in the 1965-1985
era. From UNIX to SR-71, everything mankind did in the technical space was
minimal, purposeful, clean, legible, durable, maintainable, modular and many
other adjectives that would compound on the idea of creating a truly better
product or service. Marketing took a backseat, science and data mattered and
advertisement was truthful.

Today's world seems broken, fragile, noisy and unmaintained. May be that
humanity needs to unwind, rewind back a couple of decades and try again. If
you play the scenario of human evolution multiple times, I am sure a large
scale system such as global society would end up in a different state... every
time.

Reminds me of the story that Kyoto, Japan didn't get ruined because one of the
military commanders in charge of the nuclear bomb drop locations, had a soft
spot for Kyoto... and instead chose Nagasaki and Hiroshima. [1]

If we were to replay human progress, I want us to go back to that era and
relive the engineering life. Must have been amazing to work in a technical
field in the 70's and 80's. Now we have AI and Quantum and all these fucking
buzzwords, largely perpetuated by people who have no clue - marketing and PR
folks.

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/hi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/hiroshima-
nagasaki-atomic-bomb-anniversary/400448/)

~~~
chapium
Perhaps what has survived into the 21st century are simple designs and less so
complex ones.

~~~
blt
Survivorship bias at work.

Unix was a reaction against failed complex designs. So was the F-16, maybe a
better example in military aviation because the SR-71 had such a unique
purpose.

Popular and complex things from that era have been forgotten: PL/1, the VAX
instruction set, overuse of manifold vacuum to power car accessories.

One can hope that simplicity comes in waves. Complexity is popular right now.

~~~
Gravityloss
SR-71 was indeed extremely complex and expensive to operate. They got rid of
it as soon as they could.

There are good free books available of the subject. Just looking at the amount
of heat management and the required systems and heat exhchangers...

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reaperducer
Wow, this is triggering some kind of memory cascade in the back of my brain
that I simply cannot place. I know this font, but I really can't say from
where.

The closest guesses I can come up with is the Commodore 64 Programmers
Reference Guide, or maybe an old terminal or computer magazine. But I could
easily be wrong.

Either way, I love it.

~~~
aaronharder
Perhaps Forrest Mims of Radio Shack Engineer's Notebook fame?

[https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-
and...](https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-and-the-
notebooks-that-launched-a-thousand-careers/)

~~~
reaperducer
Wow. I think that might be it!

------
chewxy
I like how under unicode coverage, the one emoji that is covered is the poop
emoji. Human universals I guess.

------
Dramatize
I love the feel of this font.

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uasm
> "I created this font by purchasing a Leroy Lettering set, using Inkscape to
> trace the scanned letterforms of one of its templates, and some FontForge
> Python scripting."

How does this work from a copyright/legal perspective?

~~~
runxel
Guess why so many Helvetica impersonations/clones exist:

The thing is called "tracing" and quite common.

The actual code (which means the ttf/otf) is protected under copyright. The
shape of a letter isn't and can't be by any form of IP.

So: You're not allowed to redistribute the font file but creating your own
font which just happens to look alike is perfectly fine.

~~~
uasm
Thanks.

So, a given "specification" (how a font looks to the human eye) can have many
different "implementations" (ie. TTF files). The specific "implementations"
themselves can be copyrighted, but somehow not the "specifications"?

If so... assume one TTF file which is copyrighted, pay-per-use license. Assume
another TTF file, which is open-source, free to use and redistribute. The
files both implement the "Helvetica" specification, rendering the same letters
to the human eye. How "different" must the free implementation be from the
paid one, for it to not be considered an infringement?

~~~
runxel
Since the shapes afaik can't be copyrighted: Your selfdrawn font has totally
the right to look the same.

They probably won't however, since you might be able to copy the shape, but
for being displayed on screen you need a process called "hinting". That is the
term for making pixels out of the shapes. Professional fonts are hinted by
hand, making it look neat even in small sizes. There is auto-hinting, but it
only gets you so far.

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microcolonel
An OpenType tabular numbers feature would be a nice addition, for numbers in
tables. I think it would mostly be a matter of adding a hook to the 1 like
other similarly-proportioned industrial fonts.

------
sgt
This is pretty much the same as Comic Sans, except Comic Sans is a bit more
curvy and fun. Routed Gothic is what Comic Sans should have been.

~~~
Pinus
You should check out Comic Neue.
[http://comicneue.com/](http://comicneue.com/)

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Waterluvian
Related to this one, has anyone identified an equivalent font for what was
used in the Apollo CSM and LM cockpits?

~~~
urxvtcd
Wasn't this just Futura?

~~~
Waterluvian
Oh hey it might have been. I dunno how I missed that. Thanks!

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kccqzy
Why does it implement just a few of the superscripts, but not all?

~~~
maxerickson
1, 2 and 3 are in the Latin 1 block, 0,4-9 are at U+2070-U+2079.

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masswerk
I've been on the look for this for a long time. Thanks!

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Gracana
KiCAD 6's font support can't come soon enough!

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dim13
Would love it in monospace variant.

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cellular
Brick Hect would be proud.

