I'm really surprised this made it through, it's one of the handful of character sets that require distinct glyphs to prevent confusion/mixups.

Not quite, the 1's top serif extends to the left edge. https://postimg.cc/nXMt2qhx Still way too close for comfort.

To be fair, they did say it was inspired by typewriters, and most old typewriters don't have a '1', so you type a lowercase 'l' instead.

Then don't call it "server". Call it "typewriter".

How did they type '2' on those old typewriters?

There was a "2" key, just no "1" key on some models.

That are really old typewriters.

Actually, it was /most/ typewriters. Having a numeral one (1) key on a keyboard was something brought about by computer input keyboards (where there did, indeed, need to be a distinct numeral one separate from lower case-ell (l)).

But for most typewriters, the ell (l) key also served as the numeral one key.

not really, in the sense that it would be a really old typewriter, there aren't any new typewriters. I'm not super old, and typewriters I used in high school did not have a one. Nobody had an IBM Selectric at home.

BTW on the same subject of fonts, you want to be able to distinguish between 1, l, and I which are not always distinguishable.

I just googled for some typewriter pictures and only really old typewriters didn't have a "1".

I use proportional fonts for coding that don’t really distinguish between 1 and l, it doesn’t seem to matter in practice.

Yeah it's annoying in several fonts, not just that one. So I simply modify the font I'm using: one thing I do is I remove the lower left horizontal bar from lowercase 'l', that way it cannot be mistaken from a '1'.

Basically changing what's on the left to what's on the right:

    ***         ***
      *           *
      *           *
      *           *
    *****         ***

It's a little trick I've been using since so long I don't even remember since when I'm doing that.

> I simply modify the font I'm using

One of those minor nudges in life...

EDIT: and also a monospaced comment on hn to describe it :)

Do you use [ttx](https://fonttools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ttx.html) for this?

Love the zero, but agreed.

yeah ibm's courier has a horizontal top line for 'l' and a slanted top line for '1'