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Show HN: Berkeley Mono Typeface

355 pointsby neilpanchalabout 3 years ago

65 comments

armadilluabout 3 years ago
I can only really judge a font when its loaded in my system, running in my setup. I wish font makers targeting developers would release trial fonts (with some essential chars missing or similar), so that we could test them properly before paying.<p>I am always looking for a better font, and this one looks like it may be an improvement over my current one.
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huhtenbergabout 3 years ago
Looks nice in principle, but being suitable for the actual daily use (for coding) will depend on how it renders in a specific IDE at a specific size on a specific OS. There&#x27;s LOTS of mono fonts that look <i>great</i> in larger sizes or on Macs, but that all but unbearable to look at in smaller sizes on Windows.<p>There&#x27;s no mention of this font having a manually hinted TTF version, which is pretty much required for rendering under these conditions. This gives me a very big pause. As others have said - at $75 a pop this font absolutely needs a downloadable, installable and usable trial. How it looks in PDF and rendered to a bitmap may showcase its design well, but not its real-world usage. That&#x27;s assuming that the author means to position it <i>also</i> as a coding font (which seems to be the case judging by the samples).
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flobosgabout 3 years ago
What a great marketing page. I loved the animation!<p>I’m also a big fan of the design of the author’s website: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neil.computer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neil.computer&#x2F;</a>
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lidavidmabout 3 years ago
This may be a dumb question, but how do you make a document like that fake patient chart in this demo? [1]<p>Is there an editor that can do things like this? Or is it all laid out by hand?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neil.computer&#x2F;notes&#x2F;berkeley-mono-february-update&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neil.computer&#x2F;notes&#x2F;berkeley-mono-february-update&#x2F;</a>
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alangibsonabout 3 years ago
I rarely get excited by fonts, but I&#x27;m loving this one. I only recently realized how long machine readable fonts have been around while working on a reproduction of the Apollo 11 flight plan. I love how this one has some of their flavor while still being easy on the eyes.
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abeyerabout 3 years ago
The licensing is unclear&#x2F;vague&#x2F;contradictory... I&#x27;m totally confused what the &#x27;developer&#x27; license actually means when it says you can use it for &quot;personal use in professional context, but not commercial.&quot; And how is a subscription for a print product handled? Do I have to burn my printed materials if I don&#x27;t renew a subscription?<p>Font vendors seem to _love_ coming up with weird snowflake licensing schemes rather than trying to stick with something well understood.
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bborudabout 3 years ago
I like the font. I&#x27;d pay $75 for a license if it works for editing code.<p>The problem is that it typically takes a week or so of use to determine if it would work for me. I&#x27;m not going to pay $75 for something that I won&#x27;t know if I have any use for.
shirroabout 3 years ago
Very effective presentation. It looks fantastic. Will be good value at $75 for some people but not for me with so many other great mono fonts available (many with code ligatures). Probably better for designers than coders. With small fonts for everyday I don&#x27;t see any big difference in readibilty beyond something like Fira Code unles you are very particular. Beyond that it is mostly taste (or lack of) but then I currently use Comic Code Ligature so I am clearly crazy.
brightffwabout 3 years ago
I very much welcome the new wave of mono fonts being developed recently. As a visually impaired person who has issues differentiating fonts on different backgrounds, the variety of fonts is very important as it allows me to find the optimal font for the environment and color contrast. Mono variety used to be limited but I can see a renaissance now!
leetroutabout 3 years ago
I would love to see ligatures incorporated but I understand that is a polarizing opinion.<p>I love the little niceties of rendering arrows which are used all over the place these days.
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zitterbewegungabout 3 years ago
I like the typeface but I think it would be helpful to have a way for someone to copy and paste their code as a preview but I think that if you allowed that then others could download your font for free. You might want to mention that it costs $75 above the fold and I would think that you would want also to center the column of the site itself (these are nitpicks though).
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muhammadusmanabout 3 years ago
I am impressed by how quickly the page loaded, looked at the source code and what do you know? No modern UI library being used, semantic class names and not a lot of code being loaded. I&#x27;m impressed by the simplicity!
ainar-gabout 3 years ago
I really like the font, but I doubt that a claim of “wide language support” can be made when Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and other scripts are not supported.
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leetroutabout 3 years ago
The author is in this thread... a corp license is $30 &#x2F; year and a personal license is $75 forever.<p>Maybe we could do a one time HN group buy @ $30 forever just this one time? Say a minimum of 25 people agree?
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z3t4about 3 years ago
I do not have any problems paying for something that I will use several hours every day. But would like to try the font in my editor before purchasing. Could have a demo download that only contains the most common letters like A-z0-9 and the brackets etc ([{:,.-_|&amp;! Sure many will use the &quot;demo&quot; forever, but those people might be future customers and mouth-to-mouth marketers
rootusrootusabout 3 years ago
It looks really nice! Probably not $75 of nice for me, but I can appreciate that the designer ought to get compensated for their effort.
ismaildonmezabout 3 years ago
I know I&#x27;m the niche of the niche, but many fonts I tried, have problems rendering Turkish characters e.g &quot;ş&quot; &quot;ı&quot; &quot;ğ&quot; &quot;ü&quot;, does the font support these, if yes, could we get a screenshot with iTerm2 if possible? :)
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37ef_ced3about 3 years ago
I use the Go font:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;go.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;go-fonts" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;go.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;go-fonts</a><p>Free and beautiful.
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airstrikeabout 3 years ago
I wish the page had more examples at, say, the 10pt size which is more comparable to what I am using in my editor. The huge copy in the examples look beautiful but they hardly map to real world usage so not entirely helpful...
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banku_broughamabout 3 years ago
I think this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Of course the creators should get paid, its a lifetime license, I&#x27;m going to forgo some of my usual BS purchases and get it.
_jordanabout 3 years ago
side note: what an absolutely beautiful website. clear and fast. I love it.
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motohagiographyabout 3 years ago
Having flashbacks to Sun 3&#x2F;60 bootp sequence to get X served to them. Nice.
mangopiabout 3 years ago
As a dev who constantly switches out fonts &#x2F; themes &amp; also pays for them, a few things to note:<p>- I mainly test for clarity, how HD something is on my IDE from 12 to 16px. I paid for Monolisa (which I like a lot) but other open source fonts actually have higher fidelity(Luculent, Fairfax HD, Hermit, Agave) - this gives me pause on purchase of license. - No ligatures isn’t a deal breaker, but many open source fonts have them Day 1 &amp; are implementing them well. My work place has lambdas &amp; operators all over code base - some fonts make it easier to parse around. - Price is not bad overall, as I feel paid fonts are Quality of Life coder tools, like mechanical keyboards (pro surfers don’t use surfboards from Walmart). - Summary is that I’m on the verge to take the plunge but really need a day or 2 in the trenches with it to see how I flow with it. Trial version should exist like others say. Similarities to JetBrains Mono are there even if unintentionally so. - I support indie mono fonts, keep iterating!
andybp85about 3 years ago
i actually really like the font, but I&#x27;m super turned off by the copy. i feel like this kind of writing belongs on a wine bottle or in a calvin klein catalog. to each their own, i suppose.
chaz6about 3 years ago
I enquired and I was told in no uncertain terms that the license forbids patching. This means that you cannot use the popular Nerd Fonts [1] patch set for adding missing glyphs. I hope that will change as I would like to use this typeface.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nerdfonts.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nerdfonts.com&#x2F;</a>
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woodruffwabout 3 years ago
This looks very nice. I&#x27;ve used Latin Modern Mono[1] as my monospace font for a decade, but this is seriously making my consider a switch!<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fontsquirrel.com&#x2F;fonts&#x2F;latin-modern-mono" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fontsquirrel.com&#x2F;fonts&#x2F;latin-modern-mono</a>
ricardobeatabout 3 years ago
Love this, but I find the yearly &#x2F; per-seat pricing for commercial use very hostile. Nobody wants to be chasing bills for a single typeface in their project. A one-off charge somewhere between $300-$999 would be much more attractive, buy-and-forget.
Alohaabout 3 years ago
I&#x27;d pay something to use this on my personal machine, but I don&#x27;t make printed materials, I just like a nice terminal font.<p>Nor do I much care to use web fonts either, so while its very pretty, I dont know that its 75 dollars worth of pretty.
neilpanchalabout 3 years ago
Berkeley Mono Trial version is now available: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;berkeleygraphics.com&#x2F;typefaces&#x2F;berkeley-mono" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;berkeleygraphics.com&#x2F;typefaces&#x2F;berkeley-mono</a>
biztosabout 3 years ago
Looks nice.<p>You could support Hungarian with only two additional letters.<p>I find the subscription license for commercial use a bit problematic. Say I have an app and I want to use the font. That’s “commercial” as long as it’s not “personal” AFAICT… and if I stop paying your fee some day then technically the app has to be modified or taken down.<p>This might not be a problem, but it’s not really “no strings attached.” There should be a fixed-fee perpetual commercial license as well.<p>Best of luck with it, I’m sure it’s hard to compete with all the free developer fonts!
teknopaulabout 3 years ago
If you look at the Burgevouns comparison Berkley mono is the least good. It&#x27;s compared to non-mono fonts which, naturally, have better kerning. Having three different representations of the number 0 including one that is indistinguishable from upper case o makes this a no-no for coding from my point of view. It&#x27;s one of the first things I look for and why I love Hack.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sourcefoundry.org&#x2F;hack&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sourcefoundry.org&#x2F;hack&#x2F;</a>
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mtgentryabout 3 years ago
As a designer I love how much typography is appreciated on HN.
liquidiseabout 3 years ago
The Zero and capital &quot;O&quot; look quite similar to my eye: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;berkeleygraphics.com&#x2F;static&#x2F;images&#x2F;marketing&#x2F;code-symbols.svg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;berkeleygraphics.com&#x2F;static&#x2F;images&#x2F;marketing&#x2F;code-sy...</a><p>I doubt that this amount of work overlooked such a common programming font comparison. Any idea why they made them nearly identical?
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grafelicabout 3 years ago
Is it available as a bitmap font, i.e pcf or bdf? It is the only way I can get mono spaced fonts as crisp as I like them in linux desktop terminals.
whg_about 3 years ago
The &quot;This page has been intentionally left blank.&quot; in the datasheet... what a beautiful &amp; hilarious touch.
tasha0663about 3 years ago
All those zero glyphs... is it getting hot in here??<p>Never seen that one with the negative-space slash. Is there a name for that?
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jonsenabout 3 years ago
This is the first time I see a new monospaced typeface and it does not immediately invoke some skepticism.
raphlinusabout 3 years ago
This one is tasty! It reminds me of Olivetti Cubic a bit, but definitely has its own distinctive style.
cormullionabout 3 years ago
&gt;comforting and yet stern, disciplined yet easy, regimented yet flexible<p>I admire the marketing copy very much!
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ChikkaChiChiabout 3 years ago
Very derivative of OCR B by Frutiger. A shame it doesn&#x27;t come out and say that: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;OCR-B" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;OCR-B</a><p>Looks great, otherwise!
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fhoabout 3 years ago
Funny to see Haskell as the only (general purpose) language in the demo :-)
sp332about 3 years ago
Overall I <i>really</i> like this, but a five-pointed asterisk? Everyone knows an asterisk should have six points!<p>Edit: in the datasheet PDF, on page 14, I&#x27;m seeing both styles of 7 render the same. ss05 and ss06
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spockzabout 3 years ago
I really like the font. At least at mobile it seems to be extremely clear. I cannot pinpoint why.<p>But to try it in my editor it seems I need to buy a $75 license first. Is there another free download button I missed?
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wolverine876about 3 years ago
Why the alternative version of &quot;7&quot;? The alternative zeroes are useful because zero looks like capital O, but with what would I confuse a &quot;7&quot;? Or is it there for another reason?
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jasonpeacockabout 3 years ago
I can’t tell from the page - is this powerline compatible? Many of us all have fancy prompts and other text envs that need powerline glyph support.
crispyalmondabout 3 years ago
I like it, but there&#x27;s one thing about fonts that always gets me is that it looks better in the pictures than it does in my editors.
wodenokotoabout 3 years ago
That marketing animation looked absolutely amazing!
xiphias2about 3 years ago
I see all Hungarian letters supported in the central-European character set, I think you can add it to the list of supported languages.
seanhunterabout 3 years ago
This looks great. It reminds me very much of the old vt100 font except that obviously without visible pixelation and gaps. Nice job.
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Gollapalliabout 3 years ago
It&#x27;s really rather beautiful. I&#x27;d love to able t run it in my terminal or my emacs. IDK, maybe when I can splurge.
AtNightWeCodeabout 3 years ago
I am against serifs but for monospace fonts I find it to be a necessity. For me the examples are very hard to read.
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jmrmabout 3 years ago
Does it has ligatures? If it doesn&#x27;t, it should be a pretty good thing to add to some people.
woahabout 3 years ago
Nowhere on the page does it show the font being used in a code editor with code colorization
minimaxirabout 3 years ago
At a risk of sounding like a font snob, what&#x27;s the difference between this and Roboto?
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jbverschoorabout 3 years ago
Looks nice. I might even change
rytillabout 3 years ago
Does anyone know what font is used for the copy of this website?
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atoavabout 3 years ago
I like the font. But I think it really misses a light variant.
olivertaylorabout 3 years ago
Looks great, congrats.
serverlessmomabout 3 years ago
I refuse to support any typeface that lacks my háček
MrYellowPabout 3 years ago
That&#x27;s a really nice set of uppercase letters.
29athrowawayabout 3 years ago
Very similar to JetBrains Mono.
M0r13nabout 3 years ago
Love it.
Koshkinabout 3 years ago
Looks nice, but Consolas is the best IMO.
Iwan-Zotowabout 3 years ago
l is wrong, no go for me
humanistbotabout 3 years ago
&gt; Berkeley Mono wears a UNIX T-shirt and aspires to be etched on control panels in black synthetic lacquer. It is Adrian Frutiger visits Bell Labs. It is Gene Kranz&#x27;s command. It operates with calibrated precision and has a datasheet.<p>It costs $75 for an individual license, not really in the spirit of UNIX
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