[texhax] Times New Roman font

[William Adams]

On Mar 23, 2011, at 9:40 AM, Lisa Benaglia wrote:

> I am taking the liberty of contacting you because I have seen on the internet a question you asked about Times New Roman font.
> http://www.tug.org/pipermail/texhax/2005-December/005208.html
> 
> My name is Lisa Benaglia and I'm studying Forensic Science at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
> 
> I'm getting in touch with you because I'm writing my degree dissertation about Times and Times New Roman's history.
> I must produce prints of both typography for each technical revolution and era in order to make the authentification of printed documents easier.
> 
> I must establish the story of Times and Times New Roman since they are in digital form. I have found that Times exists on Mac since 1986 and that the font Times New Roman was integrated with the Windows operating system 3.1 on the PC in 1992. 
> So I'm asking you if you obtained an answer to your question  "what did TNR look like pre 1992 before Microsoft released their version?"
> If you did, could you tell me what did you find on the subject ? 
> 
> If you have any information, advice or proposal which you think would be useful to me.
> Please, write me back. You would help me a lot.
> 
> I look forward to hearing from you.

You sent this missive to the TeXhax mailing list, not Mr. Jasper.

I wrote him the following response which may be of use to you:

It's more complicated than that.

Walter Tracy covers the older backstory in good detail in his wonderful 
book _Letters of Credit_ which you should be able to find at any decent 
library or through inter-library loan.

There's been a bit of controversy on this since, check the journal for 
the APHA for an interesting take on it.

The more recent bit was addressed by Dr. Chuck Bigelow in a set of 
postings to usenet:comp.fonts and the TYPO-L mailing list. In short, 
Monotype did a metrically-compatible set of Times and Helvetica for IBM 
and Microsoft chose to license them having just lost a trademark 
lawsuit to Linotype.

William

-- 
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.