You have got your hands on one of the most original fonts available, wether thru the shareware circuit or else.
This font is the version 2 of a research I made last year about this kind of design. Diodes Light does not copy what a LED pannel would display. I could have created that kind of thing easily, and may do so in the future to satisfy some customers (I had requests from customers who write technical books and would have needed the exact representation of what a LED or LCD generates). My goal with Diodes Light was rather to get the feeling of a LED display, and still have a nice look to the characters. I figure this font will best suit documents aimed at representing modernity and technical minded informations. It contains now every available symbol in the extended ASCII code (apart from ⌐, ¿ and ¬ which I used for my logos), including useful symbols for electronics, such as ╜, ░ and », among others.
I have seen about any kind of fonts around, since the Mecanorma and Letter Press catalogs, back in the seventies, when personal computers remained science-fiction, and when we where strugling to get a layout together without too much fuss with cutters and latex glu (Do they still make it ? I wonder...). Amazingly enough, although big and small font houses alike strugle to get everyday more fonts into CDs which are all but dull as a black and white TV rerun, none of these competitors is even starting to consider creating anything original.
They all have the average Times-look-alike, the everlasting Helvetica clone, yet another sort of Park Avenue. Some houses specialize in cloning fonts (small houses), other specialize into lawsuits (big houses, usualy). And users specialize into pirating more and more things as original as a cornflakes box, probably hoping like old Sam the miner, to find some gold nugget among tons of muddy dirt ...
What a pity. I don't know what would have become the writing art without copyists of the middle ages, who invented so many things : lowercases, for instance, which where unknown by the great Roman Empire, or new characters. Or what has become famous about them, ornamented letters. And it took them years to print what takes now a short hour with any laser printer. Talk about patience, when we curse a computer as soon as an operation takes more than 30 seconds ! Is'nt it curious to see how, with all our techno-junk, creativity went down the drain ? A few years ago, any good professional printer could have told you hours of stories about typography and construction of a layout. Of course, he was strugling with dirty lead squares everyday. Today, we tend to use computer everlasting so standard nobody ever seems to go away from the same look. From Futura to Helvetica is as far as we go. From Times to Garamond or Corina, is the wildest dream.
Well, pardon me for interrupting this well-behaved nap. All these identical DTP monsters stink, and have as much glamour as a phone book. I personally think typography has some characteristics of an art. I do not believe stuffing CDs with cloned junk has ever helped users, professionals or else. I tend to praise original work against stupid corporate "house opinion". The hell with all these people who manage the world and human beings like a Dow Jones commodity. I know you may not mind (some of us do have to survive in the crual world). I do. That's the freedom of any original individual, who does not depend to much on his mortgage to make ends meet. The right deep-down-to-earth rural America has always had (well, maybe before TV, my memories may go too far back) to think for oneself.
Where was I ? Hu, here is a font I designed with my little hands on my little mouse, in my little computer, for my own enjoyment and eventually yours, just like a good artisan would have done past for lead stamped types. I think it may look a little better for headline on your flyers, magazines, announcements, banners and other desktop publishing projects, than the dull things we endure everyday. And, I figure, if you like it, you may want to order some more original handcrafted fonts, in order to enhance your own original masterpieces.
Some technicalities, now.
This font has been thoroughly reviewed and tested before release, and worked perfectly on every Mac or Windows configuration I could try. It should begave perfectly on your system. If you experience difficulties, please refer to the Q&A file included in the distribution archive. You may find the solution in there.
By the way, here are the font's ID numbers, unique in the Match Software collection :
- TrueType : 1872
- Bitmapped : 6793
- ATM PostScript T1 : 4192539
Thank-you in advance for any comment and suggestions you may have. Particularly, if you have a favorite written or printed representation you may want to have made as a font, please send it along with your registration. It will take place in the project files folder, and if I follow-up on your suggestion, you will get this brand new font for free !
Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details -- some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With registration, you get anything from the simple right to continue using the software to an updated program with printed manual.
Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group. For example, some authors require written permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their Shareware (see enclosed VENDOR.DOC).
Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it.
DISCLAIMER - AGREEMENT
Users of MATCH SOFTWARE FONTS must accept this disclaimer of warranty:"MATCH SOFTWARE FONT is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of MATCH SOFTWARE FONT"
These fonts are "shareware program" and are provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using this font and continue to use this font after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration payment of $20 (in US funds) to Match Software. See order form at the end of this document.
This small $20 fee is intended to pay for this font usage licensing. It is agreed the user had plenty of time to evaluate it in any way he wanted, and to decide to register for it. The fonts included with the registered version of this font are indeed a complementary gift, and do not constitute a new acquisition. It is understood user will not be entitled for any money back, if for any reason he did not like one or several of them.
This registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time.
LIMITED WARRANTY
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This font is shareware. You had all the time you wanted to experiment with it in any way you wanted to, and for as long as you wanted to, before deciding to register. It means you found it satisfactory enough to pay the small usage fee.
Therefore, Match Software cannot accept any claim for money back, for any reason, after you have decided to, and did register.
If for any reason the registered version of the font was provided to you on a defective media (disk), it will be exchanged for a new one at no cost.
If you have suggestions for improving this font, we appreciate your comments. It does not mean we will fix or modify the font in the way you wish in a given time, or that we must do it in any way. However, if we feel the suggestion is appropriate, next version of the font may be inspired from these advises.
We decline any responsibility if for any reason this font is put to bad use in any way. It worked fine on a regular configuration, and on a regular printer, with the most usual software packages. If, for any reason, it could not work on your specific configuration, Match Software cannot be held responsible. As technical combinations are almost infinite, and because systems evoluate in ways we cannot predict, it might happen a new system, or a particular configuration, does not work with a font. For instance, because a new version of the system requires a new font format. In general, we will try to keep up with the system versions, and eventually offer upgrades, if possible, but it does not constitute an obligation, nor would it be the case if you acquired a set of seats cover for your specific car, and require they fit any new car you may decide to buy later on.
Hardware characteristics may also pose problems. For instance, it appears that some ink-jet printers or dot-matrix printers, used with Windows, cannot print accurately some complex fonts. It could happen with "dingbats" fonts, made out of small pictures, like Nahkt Hieroglyphs, or Dinosotype, for instance. For some reason, sometimes some sizes show on the screen as little square boxes, and print fine. Or the opposite ; it shows fine on the screen and never prints. Or worse, it does not print either on the screen, nor on the printer. We found no explanation to this phenomenon. It looks very much like a solid glitch either in Windows itself, either in the printer's drivers. Until His Majesty Microsoft fixes the problem, we are sorry to admit we cannot find any way to directly circumvent it (at least easily ; see Q & A in OFFER_50.TXT).
Some printers have also some very strange limitations concerning TrueType fonts. We had some nightmares with HP-Compatible printers which are not, in their native mode, capable of accommodating more than, say, 5 TT fonts. If configured as HP clones, however, they would print fine hundreds of beautiful TrueType fonts. Think about this kind of glitches, before accusing our fonts of not functioning properly.
Another bad use of a font may be generation of counterfeit documents, or any kind of falsified printing. We decline any responsibility in such and event. Please do not use our fonts for any illegal purpose.
USAGE LICENSING REGISTRATION
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If you got this font from a commercial shareware distributor, like on-disk vendors, CD compilations or on-line service, the price you eventually paid does not include usage licensing. Commercial distributors charge you for their time spent in selecting, promoting and shipping the shareware, or any other weird reason they might think of, but in no case for usage fees. In other words, should you decide to use this font on regular or publishing purposes, you still must acquire usage licensing by registering, before doing so.
This applies especially to desktop publishing, or any kind of publishing. If you should use this font in any publishing activity, you must register, and also mention in the copyright notices name and origin of the Match Software fonts you used. For instance "Bujardet Freres fonts from Match Software".
Thank-you for complying with these simple rules. If you publish books or any other intellectual creation, would they be records, software, videos or any other creation, you probably want to get recognized for it. Please do not deprive us from our small share of it, minuscule registration fee included. Thank-you !
