Marcin WicharySep 28, 2025

Now *this* is an interface to a computer – or, it seems, specifically its printer – with an aesthetic I have not seen before. (At a Warsaw museum of technology.)

I don’t know much yet about vector fonts. Is this some sort of a standard one, or a unique one? The 7 and C are pretty distinctive.

Show threadMarcin Wichary
Still trying to figure out this font from the prior post! The device is the printer control panel for Odra 1305, a Polish computer from 1973. I have spent a few hours looking at plotter fonts yesterday, but haven’t seen anything that looked quite like the letterforms above.
Sep 29 at 7:30amWeb
Show threadBrialaSep 29
@mwichary The sign above it looks a lot like OCR-A. But I bet you already knew that...
Show threadMarcin WicharySep 29
@static except for the mangled “1”
Show threadconor: conor editionSep 29
@mwichary @static perhaps I'm being naive... but there is a non-zero chance the character was mounted on the wall upside down
Show threadBrialaSep 29
@mrconorae @mwichary Sometimes the solution is so simple it's not always obvious...
Show threadMagnus AhltorpSep 29
@mwichary @static But the ”1” in ”1974” looks exactly like the OCR-A font. The one above it is just a vertically flipped ”1”.
Show threadMagnus AhltorpSep 29
@mwichary @static It says ”0DRA 13O5”, not ”ODRA 1305”. It’s also manually kerned.
Show threadSimon CozensSep 29
@ahltorp @mwichary @static Someone swapped the 0 and the O in the main sign and hung the 1 upside down.
Show threadMagnus AhltorpSep 29

@simoncozens Yes: https://mastodon.nu/@ahltorp/115286666457994883

But the ”1” is not rotated, it’s flipped.

Magnus Ahltorp (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] It says ”0DRA 13O5”, not ”ODRA 1305”. It’s also manually kerned.

Mastodon.nu
Show thread[email protected]Sep 29
@ahltorp @mwichary @static Someone had some fun…
Show threadBrialaSep 29

@chris @ahltorp @mwichary Perhaps they'd just never seen the font in the wild.

When I was in high school, the municipal library system here used green-screen terminals and hand-held readers to check books in and out. The library card and the book labels were all printed in OCR-A.

Show threadMagnus AhltorpSep 29

@static Our municipal library system had just started using a computerised system in the late ’80s, using terminals, but they were black&white. They were really nice, high-quality screens, much better than the PC-based solutions that some other municipalities used. Since they were completely quiet, they could be placed anywhere in the library, and they were.

Our cards and books used barcodes instead, but it was still handheld readers.

Show threadBrialaSep 29

@ahltorp I always thought the OCR readers were really neat. But I think it was a bit niche and so a bit expensive. They upgraded to a bar-code system some years later.

I really don't know what the system was, but it was definitely terminals and not PCs.

Show threadeuroplus Sep 29
@mwichary likely bespoke, I reckon. I wonder if any other “behind the iron curtain” countries shared it.
Show threadMarcin WicharySep 29
@europlus Me too!
Show threadmORASep 29
@mwichary OCR-A?
Show threadMarcin WicharySep 29
@mora Please scroll up!
Show threadmORASep 29
@mwichary Sorry 😇
Show threadDavid G. SmithSep 29
@mwichary Erm,… Looks to me like that “1” is both upside down *and* backwards. What’s also interesting is that they kept it that way. 😹
Show threadzakzakSep 29
@mwichary our late neighbor here in Wrocław was Roman Zuber behind the Odra computer and Elwro
Show threadMarcinMar 21
@mwichary
https://mastodon.social/@marcin_mfm/116194793993606477