Most Modern Monospace - modified

[Chris Dean]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Compiling a list of modern monospaced fonts. Trying to find the newest, and slowly work backwards.

Univers® Next 430 Typewriter Regular made my jaw drop. I’m guessing it’s >2009 as it’s not on Wikipedia’s list of Adrian Frutiger’s typefaces.

[Chris Dean]

And as I write this I notice the featured face is Alix FB. However, I cannot find a date for this.

For the thread, this is strictly a fun personal project (avoidance behaviour).

[J Weltin]

As far as i recall, the Univers Typewriter dates from the early 90’s when it came along with the formerly named ›Linotype Univers‹ revised edition. (Univers Next is just an updated name for the new Univers.)

[dberlowgone]

Alix is new this week.

[mike_duggan]

Consolas

[Riccardo Sartori]

Inconsolata, Anonymous.

[Chris Dean]

@ Berlow, Duggan & Sartori: Do you have dates for these?
@ Welton: Thanks for the Next info. I was wondering what that was all about.

[Té Rowan]

FB Alix is dated 2011 on the "Typography for Lawyers" site, pretty much its home site.

Monospaced fonts at hand on my box (year is earliest found in file):

Anonymous Pro (2009)
Bitstream Vera Sans Mono (2003)
CBM-64 (1997)
CPMono_v07 (2006)
Deka (2010)
Droid Sans Mono (2007)
Envy Code (2006)
Erica Type (2010)
Fixedsys Excelsior (2007)
IBM Courier (1990) - gunna bottom out your list.
Inconsolata (2006)
Liberation Mono (2007)
monofur (2000)
NotCourier Sans (2008)
ProggyCleanTT (2004)
RursusCompactMono (2010?)
saxMono (1999)
Share-TechMono (2005)
String Literal (2005)
SV Basic manual (2004)

[Nick Shinn]

Panoptica (2003)

[Gerry K]

Andalé Mono, which is used, I think, in the logo of The Early Show on CBS, with aggressive kerning around the lower case l.

[Gerry K]

Also, Lucida Typewriter, Lucida Sans Typewriter, and Lucida Console.

[Chris Keegan]

Nitti

[Riccardo Sartori]

http://myfonts.us/td-IwWxBc (searched "monospace" with design date after 2000)

Also, do you count derivatives, like Menlo?

[Chris Dean]

@Nick: An impressive family. Have you ever had call for setting long passages in Panoptica? If so, do you have any screen shots? I am also curious as to the genesis of this design.

[Nick Shinn]

The Panoptic alphabet (unicase + monowidth) was created for a certain kind of constraints-based concrete poetry, in particular Diamonds by Christian Bök. Here's a page:

Subsequently, I rendered the alphabet in a variety of type styles, beyond the original "old style" (shown), which is most suitable for poetry.
In fact, it would be possible to do a Panoptic version of just about any typeface.
I've thought about providing Panoptic versions of the types I design, but I don't think it would be worth the effort. My next development along these lines will more likely be display cuts of the original Panoptica fonts, with proportional widths. That doesn't really make sense according to the original premise, but would probably be much more useful.

[dberlowgone]

"@ Berlow,: Do you have dates for these? "

I don't believe fonts should date their first year of release. They're just too young to make well-informed decisions.

[fonthausen]

There is also Neue Sardines from VetteLetters, which is monowidth and monoheight.

[Chris Dean]

@Té Rowan: Impressive. Can you do that backwards starting with oldest? That might be a Shinn or Berlow question too. And I just extracted the dates joke you made. Well put. It’s been a rough week, thanks for the smile.

[Té Rowan]

This listing is in passwd format.
1. Earliest date, believed or known.
2. Name of face/font and version I have.
3. Age of the version I have (file stamp).
4. Comments, sarcasm and half-wit

1987:Bitstream Courier:1992-04-25:
1990:Courier New v2.90:2001-08-18:
1990:IBM Courier v001.003:2000-08-30:The X11 loaner.
1990:Courier 10 BT mfgpctt-v4.4:1998-12-10:
1990:Letter Gothic 12 BT mfgpctt-v4.4:1998-12-22:
1990:Prestige 12 BT mfgpctt-v4.4:1998-12-22:
1992:Monospaced v001.003:1992-10-31:Corel's Letter Gothic
1992:ElroNet Monospace v1.0:1995-04-23:
1993:Andale Mono v2.0:1998-11-12:
1994-11-15:AnonymousTT v1.3:2005-03-22:
1995-10-03:Crystal v5.1:1999-03-25:
1996-06-02:Everson Mono Latin 6 v1.1:2007-02-09:
1997-11-27:CBM-64 v1.0:1997-11-29:
1999:History Happens v2.00:2002-08-30:
1999:LCD Mono v1.0:1999-10-30
1999:Nimbus Mono L v1.05:1999-12-29:In the gs600 fontpack.
1999:saxMono v1.10:2009-01-16:
1999-03-10:Ericsson GA628:1999-03-10:I miss my '628.
2000-03-28:monofur v1.0:2000-05-05:
2001:Luxi Mono v1.2:2002-01-24:
2001:ModeNine:2001-03-19:
2002:HPGCalc v004.000:2002-10-31:
2003-05-07:Crisp:2004-07-31:
2004:Cubi:2004-07-29:by Warp3
2004:F25 Telegraphem v1.000:2009-08-06:All-UC.
2004:SV Basic Manual v1.00:2007-09-07:
2004-04-15:PixelCarnageMono:2004-12-30:
2004-04-15:ProggyClean:2005-03-17:
2005:AUdimat Mono v1.0:2005-10-13:
2005:Metro:2005-09-07:by Warp3
2005:Share-TechMono v1.000:2005-10-31:
2005:String Literal v0.60:2005-12-22:
2005-08-26:Inconsolata-dz v001.010:2009-02-12
2006:F25 BlackletterTypewriter v1.000:2009-08-06:
2006:F25 Daisywheel v1.001:2009-08-06:
2006:Envy Code R v0.079:2008-05-26:
2006:Verily Serif Mono:2006-07-23:
2007:Aurulent Sans Mono:2009-01-16:
2007:BPmono v1.000:2008-01-19:
2007:Droid Sans Mono v1.00.112:2009-03-30:
2007:Fixedsys Excelsior v3.01:2009-03-01:Download date.
2007:F25 TypewriterCondensed v1.000:2009-08-06:
2007:Liberation Mono v1.06:2010-07-21:
2007-04-20:tt-kp:2007-07-25:
2007-12-20:Rursus Compact Mono:2010-04-12:
2008:NotCourier-Sans v1.1:2009-05-15:
2009:CPMono_v07:2009-08-07:
2009:monoMMM_5:2010-01-27:
2009-07-10:Anonymous Pro v1.002.001:2010-09-08:
2010:Anka/Coder v001.000:2010-03-12:
2010:Bowman v1.000:2010-03-30:
2010:Camcorder Monospaced v2.000:2010-01-11:
2010:Cousine v1.00:2010-08-09:
2010:Deka v20100322:2010-04-02:

Not a perfect list by any means, since it only shows what I have, and not even all of that, either. I'm yet to sort through the Manfred Klein accumulation (not gunna dignify my 'acquisitions' with a word like "collection" - let alone "library").

[Maxim Zhukov]

Here are some more:

Arial Monospaced (1990)

Arial Alternative (1995)

ITC Avant Garde Mono (1994)

Deja Vu Sans Mono (2003)

Monospace 821 BT (1990)

OCR-A (1968)

OCR-B (1968)

ITC Souvenir Mono (1994)

Script 12 Pitch BT (1990)

I am not sure of the dates, though…

By the way, here you can find information on the old Soviet industrial standard (GOST) on Cyrillic OCR type design: GOST 16330-85, Information processing systems. Founts for optical character recognition. Types, basic parameters and dimensions. The 16330-85 was an update of an earlier standard, 16330-70 (the last two digits in the number stood for the year of adoption). The expiration date of that new standard was July 1, 1991. Those ROS-A and ROS-B types looked pretty scary.

[Birdseeding]

No, no he wanted MODERN monospace fonts. Here's one:

http://fontnest.net/viewfont.php?font=miss_cosmo

[Chris Dean]

Thanks for the link Birdseeding .

Towards the middle I said “@Té Rowan: Impressive. Can you do that backwards starting with oldest? That might be a Shinn or Berlow question too…” Looks like were talking about all ages at this point. Which is even better. For some strange reason I find myself strangely fascinated by mono-spaced fonts. I think it’s a math/I’m reading old type-written manuscripts thing.

The more the merrier.

[Té Rowan]

Programmers use them a whole lot, too, so there is still refining going on.

[Chris Dean]

@Té: Programmers. Good one. I’m particularly fond of monospaced fonts that have dots or slashes on the zero’s so they can't be confused with capital O’s. Without looking, how many can you name? Then you can cheat.

[Riccardo Sartori]

Without looking: Monaco (slash), Andale Mono (dot), Anonimous (slash). One feature I find interesting (and would like to see often) in some monospaced typefaces is that slashed zero sports a backslash, to further differentiate from Ø.

Related question: are license plate typefaces generally monospaced?