Great Runes
Great Runes
See also runes, smash case, fold case.
Decades ago, back in the days when it was the sole supplier oflong-distance hardcopy transmittal devices, the TeletypeCorporation was faced with a major design choice. To shortencode lengths and cut complexity in the printing mechanism, ithad been decided that teletypes would use a monocase font,either ALL UPPER or all lower. The Question Of The Day wastherefore, which one to choose. A study was conducted onreadability under various conditions of bad ribbon, worn printhammers, etc. Lowercase won; it is less dense and has moredistinctive letterforms, and is thus much easier to read bothunder ideal conditions and when the letters are mangled orpartly obscured. The results were filtered up throughmanagement. The chairman of Teletype killed the proposalbecause it failed one incredibly important criterion:
"It would be impossible to spell the name of the Deitycorrectly."
In this way (or so, at least, hacker folklore has it)superstition triumphed over utility. Teletypes were the majorinput devices on most early computers, and terminalmanufacturers looking for corners to cut naturally followedsuit until well into the 1970s. Thus, that one bad call stuckus with Great Runes for thirty years.