Bill Godbout Electronics advert in BYTE magazine
Byte magazine, issue #4, December 1975
Bill Godbout was something of a pioneer in the early microcomputer movement of the 1970s, and his firm Bill Godbout Electronics was a commercial vehicle selling discount and surplus electronics and microcomputer components. Bill Godbout Electronics was a regular advertiser in the early issues of the seminal BYTE magazine. Issue #4 is the first Christmas issue and features a 2-pager from Bill Godbout Electronics that mixes a large number of fonts in a style typical of both this era and this advertiser.
“Bill Godbout Electronics” is in Wexford. I think the “CAVE grafix” is lettering, but the first word may be based on Koloss (see further below). “Wish you a joyous holiday season” and so in is in Davida. “If you are into toyful tinkering” and so on is in outlined Cooper Black.
“Son-of-a Cheap Clock” is in Tonight, and above it “We have a successor to our very popular ‘Cheap Clock Kit’!” is in Script (for the IBM Selectric; see also the body fonts, glossed below). The price, $14.50, is in Umbra. Both Script and Umbra are used on the following page.
Windsor is used for “they also make great gifts” (on the curve) and the following text. “Electronic Projects for Musicians” is Reklameschrift Herold. Below the decorative band, “EROM board special offer” is in Helvetica, outlined and with a South shadow.
“4K x 8 pre-programmed for 8080” is in an outline style of a somewhat Microgramma-like font that I couldn’t identify that is also used on the second page.
On the second page, “Bigger & Better” is in Skin & Bones (using two alternates for G, but not for E). “Pace 16 bit chip set” is in Koloss. “1 Pace 16 bit CPU” and other text on and under the curve is the previously mentioned and unidentified outline Microgramma-lookalike.
“Pace Data Packet” is Advertisers Gothic (using the A without a top flag). “4K x 8 RAM kit” is in Umbra. “EROM board kit” is in Rock Opera. The “8K x 8” and so on again is in Wexford. “There’s more … We have” is in Monogram.
The body text (and some secondary and subtitle text) is typewritten in a variety of fonts, and I did a much better job of identifying those, all available on the IBM Selectric:
On the first page the text for the clock, starting “BIGGER DIGITS” is in Artisan. “By Craig Anderton” (the author of “Electronic Projects for Musicians”) is in Orator (probably, in any case Orator is used on the next page).
The text for the Craig Anderton blurb is Adjutant, I think. Delegate and Adjutant are very similar with only slight differences in weight and thick/thin contrast, but they have different pitches: Adjutant is 12 characters per inch, and is tighter than Delegate at 10. The text block at the bottom of the first page, starting “By special arrangement”, is in Bookface Academic.
On the second page, below “Pace 16 bit”, the text starting “This chip set gets you into PACE” is in Manifold. The word “PACE” itself is in another font (the Selectric had a feature where you could switch type-balls and still retain the cursor position), possibly Pica. Manifold is again used for the bottom paragraph starting “READOUTS, LEDS, TRANSISTORS”. Below “Pace Data Packet”, “Since we started advertising” is Orator. Below “4K x 8 RAM”, “Note the lower price” looks like Prestige Elite.
Below “EROM BOARD”, the text starting “Now you can stuff up to 8K” initially had me stumped, but I think I have tracked it down. The small caps in place of little letters, made me think of Orator, which it isn’t; the o is distinctly squaroid and reminded me of the output of the IBM lineprinters, such as the 1403. It turns out that the IBM Selectric has a typeball called AN3/360 which the 1972 brochure specifically says matches the AN3 style available on IBM’s lineprinters.
At the bottom of the second page, to the right of the wordmark, the payment and terms text starting “YOU MAY PLACE MASTERCHARGE® OR BANKAMERICARD® ORDERS” is in Script.
4 Comments on “Bill Godbout Electronics advert in BYTE magazine”
Wow! I can’t say it’s a beautiful ad, but it sure is eclectic in its typographic ingredients.
Turns out that almost all of the type was sourced from just two providers: as you mention, the body copy was composed on an IBM Selectric typewriter. And the display type came from Formatt.
I can find back most of the styles in Catalog No. 6 (1978) by this manufacturer of dry transfer lettering from Rolling Meadows, Illinois. It includes adaptations of Umbra, Windsor, Herold Reklame, Koloss, Advertisers Gothic, and Rock Opera. Since one can’t outline rub-down type (unlike phototype and digital type), Formatt carried a pre-outlined version of Cooper Black, aptly named Cooper White.
They also had versions of Wexford Bold (here named Diplomat Bold), Davida (as Darling), and Tonight (as Marquee). I also found the last two missing IDs: the open and shaded Helvetica variant is Helvetican Shadow. Finally, the Microgramma lookalike is another Formatt “original” dubbed Micro Bold Outline.
Only two of the display typefaces are not present in the Formatt catalog, Skin & Bones and Monogram. These were both original releases by phototype company VGC.
To the right of “BY CRAIG ANDERTON” there is some micro-text that reads “+shpg” (plus shipping). It makes me wonder if it’s a 15-pitch font, and therefore a daisywheel. I don’t think the Selectric did 15-pitch, but many daisywheels did; and although it’s only four letters, “shpg” is a good match to Letter Gothic 15 (that is, 15 pitch) from this Xerox brochure.
That brochure also has versions of all the Selectric fonts used here, except for AN3/360. All of which makes me wonder if it was typed on a daisywheel, not a Selectric.
Commentators wishing to grab an ID should note that the phone-number, bottom of second page, is still unidentified.
PS It is not a beautiful ad, it is an ugly ad :)
PPS “Cooper White” is quite funny.
Oh, I’ve heard that Daisywriter’s powerful!
I wonder if the phone number is simply Orator, but smudged, or rather double-struck. Here’s a comparison using Bitstream’s digital Orator 10 Pitch BT. The first line shows it unmodified. In the third line, I’ve copied the text a couple of times, with some vertical offset. Note how in the original sample (second line) there’s a small gap at the bottom of the first and last 7 – as one would get in a double-struck character without sufficient ink smudge to close it.
I think you’re right. I know the Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer had vertical carriage movement in small steps (1/216 inch); i wouldn’t be surprised if some models of daisywheel or golfball typewriters did too. I think it’s how daisywheel “graphics” worked: by typing the dot at arbitrary positions on the page.