Apple’s macOS Has A Last-Surviving Typeface That Pops Up When No Other Exists
Image via David Remahl, Shlomital, Joey-das-WBF (CC BY-SA 3.0)
There is a typeface in the depths of Apple’s Mac operating system that usually doesn’t show up to most users. It is suitably named ‘LastResort’, as it only shows up in a worst case scenario.
The hieroglyphs were first created back in 1998 for macOS 8.6 as part of Apple Type Services for Unicode imaging (ATSUI) stack, and are often used as a recourse for typography within the operating system, according to an intriguing discovery from Motherboard’s Ernie Smith.
The symbols usually surface in technical settings and only display as single characters at a time to reflect the respective missing glyphs. They act as replacements to indicate errors so font developers know what else to add to their typefaces.
The emblems are prominent enough to offer cues about the particular font that is not represented as a Unicode character.
It is so elusive, Smith reported that the typeface doesn’t appear in macOS’ basic Font Book. He also pointed out that most users don’t see the ciphers because they tend to keep to one language in their systems.
If you wish to get a glimpse of the ‘Last Resort’ typeface, you can browse through Github user altmind’s renderings of the glyphs here.
🄰
— Fake “Unicode.” ↙️ (@FakeUnicode) November 13, 2019
Last Resort. Originating on macOS as the bottom of the font stack, it would show a glyph representing each block.
Available here: https://t.co/VD8ecxhhQs (by Michael Everson).
Not bad. Slightly more informative than all but Hexagana. pic.twitter.com/3OOVL4HEIt
[via Vice, cover image via David Remahl, Shlomital, Joey-das-WBF (CC BY-SA 3.0)]
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