Monaco (typeface)
Encyclopedia
Monaco is a monospaced sans-serif typeface designed by Susan Kare
and Kris Holmes
. The face shipped with all versions of Mac OS X
(including version 10.6) and was already present with previous versions of the Mac operating system. Characters are distinct, and it is difficult to confuse 0 (figure zero) and O (uppercase O), or 1 (figure one) | (Vertical bar
) I (uppercase i) and l (lowercase l).
Monaco has been released in at least three forms. The original was a bitmap monospaced
font that still appears in the ROM
s of even New World Macs, and is still the default form in 9 point size even on OS X. The second is the outline form, loosely similar to Lucida
Console and created as a TrueType
font for System 6 and 7; this is the standard. There was briefly a third known as MPW, since it was designed to be used with the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop
IDE; it was essentially a straight conversion of the bitmap font into an outline font with the addition of some of the same disambiguation features as were added to the TrueType Monaco.
In Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Monaco was replaced as the default Terminal font by Menlo
, a font based on Bitstream Vera
Sans Mono, like the popular font DejaVu Sans Mono. However, Monaco remains preloaded on all Snow Leopard systems.
Susan Kare
Susan Kare is an artist and graphic designer who created many of the interface elements for the Apple Macintosh in the 1980s. She was also one of the original employees of NeXT , working as the Creative Director.-Background:Kare was born in Ithaca, New York and is the sister of aerospace engineer...
and Kris Holmes
Kris Holmes
Kris Holmes is a type designer. She is with Charles Bigelow the co-creator of the Lucida font family.She received her B.A. from Harvard University and her MFA from UCLA Film School in Animation...
. The face shipped with all versions of Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
(including version 10.6) and was already present with previous versions of the Mac operating system. Characters are distinct, and it is difficult to confuse 0 (figure zero) and O (uppercase O), or 1 (figure one) | (Vertical bar
Vertical bar
The vertical bar is a character with various uses in mathematics, where it can be used to represent absolute value, among others; in computing and programming and in general typography, as a divider not unlike the interpunct...
) I (uppercase i) and l (lowercase l).
Monaco has been released in at least three forms. The original was a bitmap monospaced
Monospace font
A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space...
font that still appears in the ROM
New World ROM
New World ROM computers are Macintosh models that do not use a Macintosh Toolbox ROM on the logic board. Due to Mac OS X not requiring the availability of the Toolbox, this allowed ROM sizes to shrink dramatically , and facilitated the use of Flash memory for system firmware instead of the now more...
s of even New World Macs, and is still the default form in 9 point size even on OS X. The second is the outline form, loosely similar to Lucida
Lucida
Lucida is an extended family of related typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes in 1985.There are many variants called Lucida, including scripts , serif , and sans-serif .Bigelow & Holmes, together with the TeX vendor Y&Y, extended the Lucida family with a full...
Console and created as a TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font for System 6 and 7; this is the standard. There was briefly a third known as MPW, since it was designed to be used with the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop
Macintosh Programmer's Workshop
Macintosh Programmer's Workshop or MPW, is a software development environment for the Classic Mac OS, written by Apple Computer. For Macintosh developers, it was one of the primary tools for building applications for System 7.x and Mac OS 8.x and 9.x. Initially, MPW was sold as a commercial product...
IDE; it was essentially a straight conversion of the bitmap font into an outline font with the addition of some of the same disambiguation features as were added to the TrueType Monaco.
In Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Monaco was replaced as the default Terminal font by Menlo
Menlo (typeface)
Menlo is a monospaced sans-serif typeface designed by Jim Lyles. The face first shipped with Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Menlo is based upon the Open Source font Bitstream Vera and the public domain font Deja Vu.-External links:* * *...
, a font based on Bitstream Vera
Bitstream Vera
Vera is a group typeface with a liberal license.It was designed by Jim Lyles from Bitstream, and it is closely based on Bitstream's Prima, for which Lyles was also responsible. It is a TrueType font with full hinting instructions, which improve its rendering quality on low-resolution devices such...
Sans Mono, like the popular font DejaVu Sans Mono. However, Monaco remains preloaded on all Snow Leopard systems.
