




By Vera van de Seyp.
airconditioncomputingnightmare:
CGA and MDA, Part 2
As I briefly touched upon in my previous writeup on CGA vs. MDA, CGA’s 80×25 text mode is significantly coarser than MDA’s. CGA’s 80 column text mode is rendered at 640×200 with 8×8 characters (stretched vertically to approximately 640×400), while MDA’s 80 column text mode is rendered at 720×350 with larger 9×14 characters. MDA was capable of giving text attributes such as being bolded, italicized or underlined.
Seen here are the two side-to-side on the same display, a Compaq Portable’s screen.
Works by MuirMcNeil, a British design agency.
Very textmodey profile by Ivo Brower for All Eyes On Type, a calligraphy and typography festival in Rotterdam in May.
Typewritten fonts by Murielle Rouleau (top, using only m) and Julius Nelson (bottom, using X and _). From Today’s Secretary 1950-1951. Scanned by Marcin Wichary.
From 1882, these graphics were made with 13 symbols (shown at the bottom). This is a modular type called Combination Border No. 16, by Bruce’s New York Type Foundry. A little bit like PETSCII, a little bit more like alpha blox.
Found by Pinwheel Press & thanks to Marcin Wichary for the tip.
LetraTime, a German magazine from 1975. This cover won ITC’s first Upper and Lower Case International Typographics Competition.
More info. h/t: Tim Koch