Fixedsys

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Fixedsys

Category	Sans-serif
Designer(s)	Bitstream Inc.
Commissioned by	Microsoft
Foundry	Microsoft
Date created	1984; 40 years ago (1984)
Date released	1985; 39 years ago (1985)
Also known as	SysFixed[1]
Sample
See all characters

Fixedsys is a family of

.

Fixedsys fonts family contains fonts encoded in several Windows code pages, with multiple resolutions of the font for each code page. Fixedsys fonts of different code pages have different point sizes.

The glyphs for the upper areas of each one appear to be drawn separately, not taken from a single master set, as there are visible differences in the appearance of various visually similar characters that are shared between the code pages.

Though Fixedsys is a sans-serif font, it is vaguely similar in appearance to the

seen in Windows.

In

, this default font cannot be changed. Fixedsys of other code pages can be selected by specifying script settings in font selection dialogue, but not font of all code pages can be chosen.

Due to its clean style and easy readability, it has enjoyed some popularity with the programming community, even giving rise to an imitation font — Fixedsys Excelsior — which, based on the original Fixedsys typeface, also includes a large number of Unicode script ranges.^[2]

There is a certain amount of similarity between Fixedsys and

between 1984 and 1997. The key difference is that Chicago is a proportional typeface while Fixedsys is monospaced. A smaller CGA version of this font also exists, with some characters bearing a resemblance to the IBM 8x8 CGA font. The EGA version is nearly identical to the CGA version, only in differing in a small number of characters.

According to a string embedded in the .FON file (which is viewable with a hex editor or with a typeface editor such as Fony), this font was designed in 1984 by Bitstream Inc., but the high resolution 8514/a version (used in modern versions of Windows operating system as the high DPI variant, which is larger and looks different from the VGA version) was designed in 1987 by Microsoft Corporation.

Example

The following is the lorem ipsum as it appears here written in Fixedsys.

See also

• System (typeface)
• Terminal (typeface)
• MS Sans Serif

References