Swissmicros - Fonts

[BarryMead]

(02-04-2016 09:13 AM)Pekis Wrote:  Hello,

What's your opinion about the fonts used in the Swissmicros series calculators ?

I'd prefer the same as on the original related HP calculators, but perhaps is it a copyright question ? or legibility ?

Thanks

The original HP calculators (like the HP-15C) use a "Custom" LCD display, with crisp 7-segment numbers, and enunciators that cannot be rendered as well using a "Dot Matrix" LCD display. Since the Swiss Micros uses a Dot Matrix LCD display, they have to build the numbers/enunciators out of individual dots, which may not be as pleasant to look at with the human eye. Since they emulate a number of different calculators, I can understand why they chose the more "Flexible" Dot Matrix LCD display, but I do agree with you that it isn't as visually appealing as the original HP calculators that they emulate. The entire Voyager line of calculators made by HP do use the same custom LCD display, and it very well may be copyrighted, so Swiss Micros may not have been able to clone that custom display due to copyright issues, but even if they did clone the Voyager display, that would not have enabled them to emulate the HP-41 which has alpha-numeric letters to display, so the Dot Matrix display definitely gives them more flexibility at the cost of visual clarity.