Guest post by In a discussion at TypeDrawers, Greg Hitchcock (from Microsoft) shares a bit of the history regarding OS/2 table’s name in the TTF font format:
Because the design of fonts between OS/2 and Windows was very similar (the same folks at Microsoft did most of the graphics for both OS/2 and Windows – with some input from IBM based on their FOCA values) we decided to consolidate the OS/2 and WIN tables into just one table – OS/2. This is why the spec says “…a set of metrics that are required by OS/2 and Windows.” The parting with IBM occurred later in 1990. Microsoft had already made enough fonts using the OS/2 table that we decided it would be too expensive to rename the table to the WIN table.
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Ultimately the OS/2 table has become somewhat of a catch-all for additional bits of data, which is why we are now on the 6th version of the table.
I love these bits of computing history.
Microsoft can not violate the touch patent and it expires 2019, apple, RIM and all the others pay for the liscence of capacitive touch sensoring.
Do i understand this right, microsoft wants it for free?
Its really just a repeat of Windows Chicago. WinFS will never be ready for primetime. I think don’t think we’ll see it or xaml until Blackcomb is out.
Aren’t TrueType Fonts vector values? Why must they be different in different operating systems?
Because, while the glyphs themselves are described as bezier curves, the features of a font and character set to glyph mapping differ slightly between the platforms. Fonts also sometimes needs to be synthesized and grid fitted the exact match does not exist.
There is also the “spaghetti” factor to take into account where half the tables were more or less “grown” and the “designed by committee” effect where you can embed PCL and PostScript glyphs into the font. They couldn’t agree on whose spaghetti was the best spaghetti, so they added tables for each variant.
Adobe one-upped them by adding countless more silly variants to PDF as their “gift” to the world.