Modern fonts tend to be in the OpenType format. Older operating systems like many of the ones collected here tend to want fonts in Postscript Type 1 format. Does anybody have anything along the lines of Adobe Font Folio 7.0 or 8.0 for use with older machines or am I out of luck here?

I am not sure which older operating systems you refer to, but older Windows actually supported TrueType fonts. With additions such as Adobe Font Folio you could get support for PS fonts as well.

If you want TrueType fonts let me know, I got a gazillion of them.

And the Adobe Font Folio ones I got used OpenType fonts as well, I have to check older floppy sets for anything older.

Windows 3.x and 9x could use Type 1 fonts if Adobe Type Manager was installed. Given that Type 1 stuff also works on OS/2 and with many DOS programs, it would seem to be the format of choice. The reason I mentioned versions 7.0 and 8.0 of Font Folio were because those versions were all Type 1, with no OpenType yet. The problem with TrueType is that except for fonts that shipped with other programs, most TT fonts tend to be rather poor quality. Still, if you have any original collections, I'd be interested in at least seeing what I can get to work with Windows 3.1.

Adobe Type Manager was first developed for Windows 3.0

AFAIK fonts don't classify as abandonware (ie. they don't lose usefulness value over time)

Still, most fonts (99%) are in public domain anyway so anyone is free to use them...

You must not have looked into many -good- fonts, then. Most of the good ones worth using aren't exactly public domain.

I'd actually disagree about fonts not losing their usefulness on modern systems. Just as old operating systems still work really well on older hardware but don't have all the functions of newer versions, fonts are the same. It would be silly to use old-fashioned Type 1 fonts on a modern system. IIRC, they don't even fully WORK on modern OSes (Windows programs that use WPF, for example can't use Type 1 fonts) and Type 1 fonts lack many features that newer programs such as recent versions of MS Office and the Adobe CS programs make heavy use of. When you combine that with the fact that many font vendors (jncluding Adobe) don't really sell anything other than OpenType fonts anymore, I'd say that they're just as abandoned as, say, Windows 95.

Website that has a wide variety of fonts. http://www.dafont.com/

For me, a font is good if it actually "works" and supports most characters. There's plenty of such fonts on the web...

Though I'd be interested in hearing your definition of "good" font.

Presumably one that doesn't look like crap. Common ones that are crap include fonts that are drawn by kids before they can write properly, fonts that are entirely symbols and fonts designed to look "urban".

Well, I just ignore fonts I don't like. Most of the time I use Calibri (Word), Tahoma, Segoe UI (Poseidon) and Arial. The rest are used exclusively...

Try this: http://www.dafont.com/

No need to repeat yourself.

Contrary to the misguided belief among some people here, fonts do not lose value over time. While you might not think something has the same value as before, that doesn't make it so in the eyes of the law.

Fonts are copyrighted, so regardless of the font format, the value lies in the design of the characters, even if one version has fewer characters than another; format makes no difference. This has been upheld through various legal rulings over the years, including several lawsuits by Adobe Systems where they prevailed. Other font foundries would also prevail in any similar suit.

Copyright law is Universal among all developed countries; thus, we have the Berne Convention where every signatory (over 170 countries) agreed to uphold a common standard of copyright, regardless of the origin of the disputing party. The penalties are quite severe.

So lets try to be adults and stop pretending that fonts have no value just because they were developed for a previous OS. That's childish. If you want good fonts, you should be willing to pay for them instead of trying to pirate them.

Example #68493 of how bad my memory is.

My definition of a "good" font is a font that's well designed and aesthetically pleasing. So, naturally, that excludes Arial - which is just an inferior, cheap version of Helvetica.

I missed Ohlfs font very much.

Generally, i go for fonts that have the latin-B extensions implemented.

The microsoft ones don't have these, so ye need something like deja vu or alphabetum.

They do, since Vista. You can copy them from Vista/7 and install them in 2000/XP too (it's a bit of a hassle but it should work if you use Recovery Console).

If you want vintage fonts, cant you load up an older OS, like Win 1.0-3.1 or OS/2 warp or whatever and copy the fonts to a floppy or something?

The old, pre-Windows 3.x font format is incompatible with newer versions of Windows. I don't know about OS/2 though.

I never knew that actually.

I'm in the middle of copying all the fonts from Windows NT 3.51 to my hard disk
then I'll PM the link to you