0Early OCR technology such as David Shepard’s “GISMO,” a “Robotic Reader-Writer” built in an attic and unveiled to the public in 1951, focused on tasks like reading for the blind and text duplication (Schantz 8)⁠. It was not until Reader’s Digest purchased and implemented a large-scale OCR machine for managing its database of subscribers that OCR realized its potential for streamlining data entry (Schantz 9)⁠. In this way, utility and efficiency became the driving forces of OCR innovation as numerous corporate, government, and financial institutions purchased or developed recognition technology for managing large amounts of information.

0In order for any of these tools to work efficiently, a reliable input pattern must be achieved. The noted OCR developer and prolific inventor Jacob Rabinow writes of the importance of this input in developing his pattern-matching technique after working with Vannevar Bush on his Rapid Selector:3

0This was a 35 mm film processor where data, recorded on film, had to be identified by a dot code accompanying each record. The dot code had to be recognized ‘on-the-fly’ at about 300 frames per second … In working on the recognition of the dot pattern, it occurred to me that recognizing a pattern of dots is basically no different from recognizing a character … (Rabinow, qtd. in Schantz 10)⁠

0Thus, the typographic challenged facing OCR developers was to develop a font as reliable and uniform as a “pattern of dots” that yet remained legible to human readers. Emphasizing the benefit of strict control for minimizing costs, Rabinow later wrote, “Now, how can we get this control? The answer is ‘Standardize!’ Standardize the type of paper, standardize the size of paper, standardize the quality of printing, standardize the quality of printing, standardize the format, and standardize the font” (Rabinow 40)⁠. This drive for standardization had culminated three years prior to Rabinow’s writing in a standard document issued in 1966 by the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI). 4 This document, X3.17-1966, presented a recommendation for a standard set of alphanumeric character shapes for OCR, including 10 numerals, 26 letters (capital), 17 symbols, and 4 abstract symbols (“USASI X3.17-1966” 9 - 10)⁠.

0Figure 2-4. Standard OCR characters established by USASI X3.17-1966. The font derived from this standard is commonly referred to as OCR-A. This image is a scan of the character set at size “B.” (Scan from “USASI X3.17-1966” 38)

0Figure 2-5. The detailed specification for the OCR numeral 3. (Scan from “USASI X3.17-1966” 12)

0Like the characters designed for videogames, these OCR forms depend on satisfying technological constraints. Therefore, they exhibit a high degree of stylization (see figures 2-4 and 2-5). Specifically, the angular shape of each character is based on a requirement to make each form as unique as possible so that the pattern of positive and negative space creates a distinct pattern as the OCR machine head scans across the page. But as Rabinow’s call for standardization illustrates, the sense in which OCR text is constrained extends beyond the actual form of the characters and the technical apparatus includes every conceivable material aspect of the document. This move demonstrates how an aesthetic form emanating from such a thorough constraint can come to signify the entire material situation of that constraint, which is the same process of transferral occurring when videogame typography takes on a unique aesthetic identity. Videogames enforce their own standards (most notably the binary storage method of any given platform), so when any type design adopts the aesthetic properties of either OCR-A or videogame text, that design recalls the technical apparatus that constrained the original. However, the independent value of OCR-A was not immediately apparent, and the fact that some resisted it on aesthetic grounds is important for contextualizing its later adoption in videogames and elsewhere as a signifier for technological precision.

0Figure 2-6. A sample character set for a font of OCR-B, also known as ISO-B, first published in 1967 as a more aesthetically pleasing alternative to OCR-A. (Image from “OCR-B 10 BT : Style Details : MyFonts”)

0Shortly after the design and publication of OCR-A, the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) sponsored an alternative character set, eventually released by the ISO as “ISO-B” or OCR-B (Frutiger, “OCR-B” 137)⁠. Though its significance is less obvious for videogame typography, OCR-B is important because of an interesting and revealing conversation which emerged around the time of its creation and dissemination. In an article describing the logic behind the character set, Adrian Frutiger, an influential Swiss typographer, implies that OCR-A is “offensive to human taste” and proposes that OCR-B can provide a “decipherable” alternative (Frutiger, “OCR-B” 137, 142). OCR-B’s forms are indeed less stylized and are less obtrusive than OCR-A’s (see figure 2-6), but as OCR technology rapidly improved and the need for either OCR-A or OCR-B decreased, OCR-A maintained the most lasting aesthetic influence. Kathleen Spangler, writing in 1971, notes that “the OCR faces are appearing on posters, advertisements, and other pieces of display type where their unconventional forms are not purely functional … It is possible that the OCR types, with their non-decorative characters, will become associated with accuracy of fact, and therefore, set a new standard in advertising type” (46)⁠. Rabinow seems to anticipate this possibility even as he dismisses the need for OCR-B on both technical and aesthetic grounds. From the examples he chooses, it appears that Rabinow’s article (published in 1969) is responding to Frutiger’s (1967), and as Rabinow insists on the utilitarian reliability of OCR-A, he makes an interesting argument about the origin and potential influence of its aesthetics:

0Our experience with thousands of users is that the stylizing of the A font doesn’t create any human problem. … I know of no case where anyone had to go to a doctor for eye treatment or a psychiatrist because of the font. I don’t even know anyone who raised even mild objections. … The esthetics of characters vary with time and place in history. The serifs which we know today are based on something which happened in Roman times due, some believe, to the problems of chiseling in stone. In any case, the Roman serifs were copied in our printing. (Rabinow 42)⁠

0Rabinow elaborates an example of reproduction technology influencing aesthetics, explaining that at the turn of the 20^th century, photographers using Graflex cameras captured distorted images of race cars traveling at high speed. Because these cameras expose an inverted image from the top down, the bottoms of the cars were captured first with the rest of the car progressively later, creating an impression that the car is leaning forward. When cartoonists drew pictures of racecars, they tended to mimic this optical distortion, so a forward-slanting line became a signifier of speed that ultimately influenced the design of actual vehicles (Rabinow 42)⁠.5 A similar progression of influence and signification occurs with videogame type where rigidly constrained typographic forms in early games are retained in later games where the constraints are no longer necessary, partly as a way of retaining their geometric aestheticism and partly as a reference to the earlier technology.

0Figure 2-7. Cover of Cyber Crime Investigator’s Field Guide⁠ illustrating OCR-A in use as reference to computer technology.

0Figure 2-8. Cover of Persuasive Games⁠ by Ian Bogost.

0Figure 2-9. Cover of Gamer Theory⁠ by McKenzie Wark.

0Figure 2-10. Cover of Halting State⁠ by Charlie Stross.

0It is through this avenue of referencing technological determinism that OCR-A has been used in relation to videogames. OCR-A fonts often appear in contexts where they are meant to invoke technology, often associating that technology with alienation such as the cover for the Cyber Crime Investigator’s Field Guide (Figure 2-7). Uses of OCR-A in or in relation to videogames are not necessarily this dystopic. For example, the covers for Ian Bogost’s Persuasive Games and McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory both use OCR-A (Figures 2-9 and 2-10), as does the cover for Halting State, Charlie Stross’s post-cyberpunk novel revolving around a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or MMORPG (Figure 2-11).

0Significantly, OCR-A is a font of choice for much of the Matrix universe created by Andy and Larry Wachowski, particularly bringing the font’s referential technological constraint to its logical extreme. Like the forward-slanting lines of bus windows which associate speed with an optical defect of specific technology, OCR-A in The Matrix vindicates the otherwise false association between OCR-A and modern computing. Not only is OCR-A the typeface of choice for the Agents when they are in the Matrix (see Figure 2-12), it also appears in the humans’ interfaces with the Matrix, shown in figure 2-13 as it used in the game Enter the Matrix.

0Figure 2-11. In this brief shot from The Matrix, Agent Smith’s file on “Neo” is written in OCR-A. (L. Wachowski & A. Wachowski)

0Figure 2-12. This screenshot from the videogame Enter The Matrix depicts the character selection screen, which is the same interface used in the films for the monitors which provide visual access to the Matrix. The text “GHOST”, “NIOBE,” and “PWER FLUX –OK-“ as well as the numerals are all rendered in OCR-A. (Shiny Entertainment)

0The 2008 television series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, also makes frequent use of OCR-A both in its advertising and within the show itself. The association it creates in these contexts (see figures 2-13 and 2-14) is similar to the one employed by The Matrix – a sense of contact, overlap, or contamination bridging the gap between human and machine intelligence. In both Terminator and Matrix universes, humankind is pitted against superior machines in a fight for survival. Therefore, OCR-A in these contexts reflects a sense of dystopian anxiety or technological determinism regarding the prospect of machine intelligence, specifically the relationship between the visual senses of humans and machines.

0Figure 2-13. OCR-A within a heads-up display for an android assassin. Image from the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Nutter)⁠.

0Figure 2-14. OCR-A depicted within a contemporary (late 1990s) surveillance camera. Image from the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Nutter)⁠.

0Besides this associative or expressive use, The Sarah Connor Chronicles also uses OCR-A in a more subtle, discursive way. Figure 2-14 is an image from the pilot episode where the main protagonists are shown on a security camera. The information displayed on the camera uses OCR-A, associating ubiquitous surveillance technology with the apocalyptic authority of SkyNet. In other words, as a declarative statement, this use of OCR-A seems to say, “SkyNet is already watching.”

0One final example of OCR-A used for expressive purposes illustrates a less dystopian, though far more articulate use of the typeface, which further underscores the ability for technological artifacts within typeface design to have meanings and applications within culture. Figure 2-15 shows an advertisement which appeared in the same issue of Datamation as Rabinow’s column quoted above. The ad is interesting because it uses typefaces to demonstrate a progression from human-friendly reading to machine-friendly reading. Depicting the device itself as a robotic Janus head calls attention to the dual-nature of typefaces designed for mechanical character recognition technology, the sense in which these typefaces must be legible to both machines and humans. The fact that this ad shows this relationship through a typographic progress narrative is related to the temporal gestures of Springer’s Time Machine typeface and, by implication, the historically situated, holotypical typefaces and letterings used within videogames.

0Figure 2-15. Advertisement for Scan-Data 200, an OCR reading device. (Scan-Data Corporation)

0As a videogame paratype, OCR-A images the same relationship among technological context and expressive form that characterize videogame typography. Furthermore, OCR technology led the way for the technology of Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) and its signature typeface, E13-B, which would have a more direct influence on and application within the broad field of videogame culture. In this way, OCR-A is a typeface which exhibits the same logic of textuality as videogame expression more generally. Therefore, identifying the potentially dystopian science-fiction narratives embedded in OCR-As form suggests one cultural context in which to situate videogames and demonstrates one means by which a cultural pattern of anxiety can find expression in typographic form.

• 3. The ‘Rapid Selector’ was a device based on microfilm which retrieved and displayed documents when requested by a user. This was effectively a forerunner to Bush’s hypothetical “Memex,” a device outlined in his article “As We May Think” which many see as anticipating the later development of hypertext technology.
• 4. Prior to 1966, USASI was known as American Standard Association. In 1969, the group changed its name to American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which it remains today.
• 5. Curiously, Frutiger supplies exactly this sort of cartoon image in article published in 1970. (“Letterforms in Phototypography”). The illustration reinforces an analogy Frutiger is making between fast driving and smooth reading (careful typography is to legibility what smooth paving and wide shoulders are to driving), but its timing and placement hint that Frutiger may be responding to Rabinow.