Intellifont was a scalable font

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....

 technology developed by Tom Hawkins at Compugraphic

Compugraphic

Compugraphic Corporation was an American producer of typesetting systems and phototypesetting equipment, based, at the time of the Agfa merger, in Wilmington, Massachusetts, just a few miles from where it was founded...

 in Wilmington, Massachusetts

Wilmington, Massachusetts

Wilmington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 22,325 at the 2010 census.-History:Wilmington was first settled in 1665 and was officially incorporated in 1730, from parts of Woburn, Reading and Billerica. Minutemen from Wilmington responded to the alarm...

 during the late 1980s, the patent for which was granted to Hawkins in 1987. Intellifont fonts were hinted

Font hinting

Font hinting is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text...

 on a Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

 VAX

VAX

VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...

 mainframe

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

 computer using Ikarus software

Ikarus (software)

Ikarus is a type design and production software developed by URW foundry, for converting existing typefaces and logos into digital format for use on computer driven printing, plotting and sign cutting devices....

. In 1990, printer and computing system manufacturer Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

 adopted Intellifont scaling as part of its PCL 5

Printer Command Language

Printer Command Language, more commonly referred to as PCL, is a page description language developed by Hewlett-Packard as a printer protocol and has become a de facto industry standard. Originally developed for early inkjet printers in 1984, PCL has been released in varying levels for thermal,...

 printer control protocol, and Intellifont technology was shipped with HP LaserJet III and IV printers. Intellifont technology became part of Agfa-Gevaert's

Agfa-Gevaert

Agfa-Gevaert N.V. is a European multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, and distributes analogue and digital imaging products and systems, as well as IT solutions. The company has three divisions. Agfa Graphics offers integrated prepress and industrial inkjet systems to the...

 Universal Font Scaling Technology (UFST), which allows OEM's

Original Equipment Manufacturer

An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...

 to produce printers capable of printing on either the Adobe systems

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...

 PostScript

PostScript

PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...

or HP PCL language.

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