Top all-time · #929
Marcin Wichary
Personal blog · aresluna.orgdesignhistorywriting
Marcin Wichary writes Aresluna, a personal blog at aresluna.org about design, history and writing. Since 2008, 70 different Hacker News readers have linked it 79 times, most often “Not mine, but it's a website where you can use a segment display”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-18, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (29) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Marcin Wichary's site for long-form type and computing history, such as the Gorton font and classic Mac settings, and for interactive pages with embedded emulators and segmented-display tools.
- Recommended for · 10 comments
- Commenters call the Mac settings history a gorgeously written and incredible piece, the Gorton font article beautifully written and well worth the read, and the
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 29 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Marcin Wichary’s site
Most-linked posts?
- Not mine, but it's a website where you can use a segment display9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2018-05-12
- Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–20047 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2025-07-09
- Show your hands honor for the power they bring you6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2026-06-19
- The hardest working font in Manhattan6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2025-02-14
- Favorite Tech Museums3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-01-05
- A hacker's guide to bending the universe (2016)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-03-19
- Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-08-29
- Gorton Recreations3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-02-15
- Input Latency Simulator2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-03-26
- A Guide to Keyboard Customization2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-20
What Hacker News says?
ha :) https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/comments/1jp9juj/i_turne... and from that discussion: https://aresluna.org/segmented-type/ in Vienna we have a 66 segment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vienna_u-bahn_display_clo...
Comment linking /segmented-type/
on “Fran Sans – font inspired by San Francisco light rail displays”Submitted The hardest working font in Manhattan as a story · 857 points
HN discussionSomeone made a JavaScript version of Glassner's 55 segment design along with a dozen others that's fun to play with: https://aresluna.org/segmented-type/
Comment linking /segmented-type/
on “Fran Sans – font inspired by San Francisco light rail displays”Submitted The day Return became Enter (2023) as a story · 345 points
HN discussionWow, the props to the author for digging deep ! > Looking inside of the display, I found labels identifying the make and model. The signs were designed and manufactured by Trans-Lite, Inc., a company based in Milford, Connecticut that specialised in transport signage from 1959 until its acquisition by the Nordic firm Teknoware in 2012. After lots of amateur detective work, and with the help from an anonymous Reddit…
Comment linking /segmented-type/
on “Fran Sans – font inspired by San Francisco light rail displays”Submitted Apple bought out all of Newsweek's 1984 Election issue ad space for Mac as a story · 342 points
HN discussionThis reminded me of https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/ prev hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43053419
Comment linking /the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
on “Fran Sans – font inspired by San Francisco light rail displays”Submitted Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004 as a story · 207 points
HN discussionThe article links to an ‘appendix’ of known digital versions, though it's easy to miss: https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/r...
Comment linking /the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/recreations/
on “The hardest working font in Manhattan”Submitted Keyboards from my collection (2023) as a story · 139 points
HN discussionin the further reading there is also a list with a number of recreations of related digitzed routed fonts: https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/r...
Comment linking /the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/recreations/
on “A font recreated from photographs of classic Commodore 64 keycaps”Submitted Dutch computer museums (2022) as a story · 111 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of this beautifully written article about the font Gorton. https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201953
Comment linking /the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
on “A font recreated from photographs of classic Commodore 64 keycaps”Submitted A story of a Figma bug that wasn't a bug at all (2021) as a story · 73 points
HN discussionFonts with 'routed' in their names are often a good place to look for this - they're named thus because they were designed to be scribed/engraved with a router, so very frequently have a constant width. (and if you're up for a rabbit hole, https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/ )
Comment linking /the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
on “Show HN: I made a site to tell the time in corporate”Submitted Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023) as a story · 70 points
HN discussionhttps://aresluna.org/keyboard-secrets/typing-delay/
Comment linking /keyboard-secrets/typing-delay/
on “Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think”Submitted Ten Years of Rows and Columns (1989) as a story · 50 points
HN discussionPage 14 is a very pleasant read in terms of marketing copy. https://aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/internatio...
Comment linking /attached/computerhistory/ads/international/apple/mac-newsweek/pics/page14
on “Apple bought out all of Newsweek's 1984 Election issue ad space for Mac”Submitted Show your hands honor for the power they bring you as a story · 12 points
HN discussionI wish I could get an Apple Card issued today that looked like this. https://aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/internatio...
Comment linking /attached/computerhistory/ads/international/apple/mac-newsweek/pics/page113
on “Apple bought out all of Newsweek's 1984 Election issue ad space for Mac”Submitted Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, and the first great war for your thumbs as a story · 7 points
HN discussionThe original Apple Card: https://aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/internatio... *note: you must be a homeowner to finance a Macintosh. (fine print at bottom of page)
Comment linking /attached/computerhistory/ads/international/apple/mac-newsweek/pics/page113
on “Apple bought out all of Newsweek's 1984 Election issue ad space for Mac”Submitted Fractal San Francisco as a story · 7 points
HN discussionWhat a wonderful site. A lot more vintage apple ads https://aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/internatio... Love this particular one that talks about obtaining stock quote, make travel arrangement, and scan New York Times. In 1983! https://aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/internatio...
Comment linking /attached/computerhistory/ads/international/apple/pics/annual83-mail
on “Apple bought out all of Newsweek's 1984 Election issue ad space for Mac”Submitted Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, and the first great war for your thumbs as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThere was a really good post here a few months back on Gorton: https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/ Discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201953 . A long read but well worth it.
Comment linking /the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
on “Good type against all odds”Submitted The primitive tortureboard: Untangling myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY as a story · 4 points
HN discussionWhat an incredible application of the infinite-mac project. I'm eager to learn how the in-emulator events were dispatched to the page script. Edit: good lord, what's it doing with these hotspots? Is all the checkbox progression outside of the emulators, in "screen space"? By analyzing specific pixels in the current emu framebuffer?! https://aresluna.org/site/scripts-frame-of-preference.js?v60
Comment linking /site/scripts-frame-of-preference.js?v60
on “Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004”Submitted The Primitive Tortureboard as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
