Bill Hill - How does ClearType work?

Posted: Apr 26, 2004 at 1:19 PM

By: The Channel 9 Team

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9 Comments

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Bill Hill runs the team that came up with ClearType, so we thought we'd ask him how ClearType actually works and what Bill Gates' reaction was when he first saw it.

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dpen2000

Apr 26, 2004 at 2:31 PM

green eh? that explains why the xp start button is green I guess.
But hey, cleartype is cool and nice looking but what is it actually? How do you define Cleartype?

DP
warren atom heart mother

Apr 26, 2004 at 3:06 PM

dpen2000 wrote:

green eh? that explains why the xp start button is green I guess.
But hey, cleartype is cool and nice looking but what is it actually? How do you define Cleartype?

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/default.htm

This is Microsoft's site on ClearType. There's some good information there.
PeterV

Apr 27, 2004 at 8:10 AM

Does that explain why i can't look at a default Windows theme all day, but i can do it with my own theme that's based on shades of green (=no more pure white surfaces).
The Channel 9 Team 5 guys from Redmond

Apr 27, 2004 at 10:54 AM

PeterV, post a screen capture!
Sathyaish Chakravarthy Sathyaish

Apr 30, 2004 at 5:59 AM

I just love you, Bill Hill.
SuperRob UI Geek

Apr 30, 2004 at 6:56 PM

Well, he didn't really explain how ClearType works, just people's reactions to it. That was disappointing.

I'm also a little surprised that Bill didn't mention that this isn't really a new technology, and that sub-pixel font rendering was being used way back on the Apple II computers (created by the geek-messiah himself, Steve Wozniak), and many applications and systems since. Don't get me wrong, ClearType was LONG overdue, but I'm not sure why Microsoft is co-opting the technology and not giving Woz his due. It was a righteous hack.
lars

Apr 30, 2004 at 7:07 PM

True.

Who Did It First? - Distant Origins of Sub-Pixel Font Rendering
PeterV

May 10, 2004 at 12:02 AM

I've been using about the same color scheme since I started using Win95 extensively.
I just find it hard staring at RGB(255,255,255) all day and in the default setup it's the background for every text-based program.

You can have a look over here : ...

I might add that i've only switched to WinXP on this machine on Monday. Our central IT-team didn't allow it earlier because the standard profile is Win2k.
So it's just XP in classic mode, I haven't spend much time tweaking it.
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