Apple LaserWriter symbols font

[TYancy]

One of the fonts included on the floppy with my old LaserWriter was an Apple symbols font. This is different from the current "Apple Symbols" font and had some very interesting glyphs - clock faces, etc... One I remember was a circle with five horizontal lines....

I haven't used this since I had an 8100 and I can't find it anywhere. Does this ring a bell?

 

[MisterMe]

It might help if you stated which model LaserWriter included this font. The original LaserWriter included only 13 fonts. One of these was Zapf Dingbats which you would call a symbol font.

If you go way back, then there was Cairo. Cairo, like all fonts named for cities, was a bitmap font. However, it was one of several city fonts to receive a TrueType version.

 

[dmz]

Symbol-ly ridiculous...

God bless the mis-info-net. I don't know why people respond when they don't really have a clue what they're talking about, but... The original LaserWriter had only four fonts, not thirteen, and one of them was Symbol. All LaserWriters, from the LaserWriter to the LaserWriter 8500 included the Symbol font. From the LaserWriter's manual:

The LaserWriter's publication-quality output demands the highest quality fonts. You can use four font families built into the printer: Helvetica™, Times™, Courier™, and Symbol™. ... We've also included the Symbol font - a valuable tool for the scientific community...

The Symbol font is where the lived in those days, as well as a wealth of math symbols, and some of the common characters that seemed to be part of the regular fonts were actually substitute characters from the Symbol font, i.e., when you typed shift-option-k in any font, the symbol was called up from the Symbol font.

Quark Xpress, pre-OS X, would not even function without the Symbol font installed, though it obviously functions without it now, you can still use the old Symbol font - if you can transfer it from a floppy somehow, OS X still recognizes the old Type 1 fonts/suitcases and their outlines. So you need both the suitcase named "Symbol" and the outline file called "Symbo" in order to use it.

Font-astic!

dmz

 

[MisterMe]

God bless the mis-info-net. I don't know why people respond when they don't really have a clue what they're talking about, but... The original LaserWriter had only four fonts, not thirteen, and one of them was Symbol. ...

dmz

Wow! Talk about a totally irrelevant screed. The OP is clearly not asking about Symbol. The standard Symbol font does not have glyphs with clock faces and circles with five lines through them and never did. The Symbol font has Greek and other characters suitable for use in mathematical equations. None of the other widely used PostScript fonts included the glyphs described by the OP.

Instead of going off, you might be better served by learning something. This paragraph from an exchange on the Swedish TypeTalk website is a good place to start:

The first LaserWriter had only 13 fonts: Times (4), Helvetica (4), Courier (4) and Symbol (1). ITC Zapf Chancery (Medium Italic) was planned as part of this set, but the Type 1 version wasn't ready in time. ...

Maybe then you will be able to help someone with your next post.

 

[dmz]

Pot calls Kettle Black

Totally irrelevant screed? You didn't even attempt to answer the OP's question. I apologize for my sarcastic tone, I was having a bad internet day (who really cares that much about Tiger Woods?), but you obviously missed not only my point, but the OP's - not to mention, you contradicted yourself. Zapf Dingbats was not an "original" LaserWriter font,and Symbol was - as you neatly point out in your dubious "quote". By the way, quoting some web site as an "authority" is not de rigeur, my quote is directly from the Apple LaserWriter manual.

Now, to demonstrate how thoroughly we both missed the OPs point. Though the heading reads "Apple LaserWriter symbol font", the body says he is searching for a font he describes as "included on the floppy with my old LaserWriter was an Apple symbols font", that's not what he is really looking for. In the last sentence, the OP states he "had an 8100", which is, of course, not a LaserWriter, but rather a LaserJet. Apple made an "810" and an "8500", but never an "8100".

So, my informed guess is that he is looking for "Wingdings", which includes clock faces, etc., but I find no glyph of "circle with five horizontal lines". Laserjets of that era came with a 45 TrueType faces for Mac or PC, including Wingdings, and a 65 "SmartFonts", which if I remember correctly, only worked on a PC.

Next time you go off on your own "screed", try to remember why you're here - to answer questions, to help or aid people in finding solutions. Your "screed" does none of these.

with humility,

dmz