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Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
里德大學在那時開設了也許是全美最好的美術字課程。校園里的每張海報、每個抽屜的標簽都用漂亮的美術字做成。因為退學了，不必去上常規的課程，所以我決定去上美術字課，學習怎樣寫出漂亮的美術字。我學到了關于serifff和san seri字體的知識，還有改變不同的字母組合的間距，以及好的印刷式樣之所以好的原因。它很美，有歷史感，還有一種科學無法解釋的藝術精妙。我發現那實在是太迷人了。
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
當時這些東西在我的生活中全都沒有任何實際應用的可能。但是十年后，我們設計第一臺Macintosh電腦時，這一切又回到我的腦海。我把那些東西全都放進了Mac的設計之中。那是第一臺擁有漂亮印刷字體的電腦。在大學，要是我沒去旁聽這門課，Mac今天就不會有這么豐富的字體以及賞心悅目的字體間距。又因為Windows只是照抄了Mac,所以任何個人電腦可能都不會有這些東西。要是我沒有退學，我就不會去旁聽那門美術字課程，個人電腦也就可能不會擁有現在這么漂亮的字體。當然，我在大學的時候，還不可能在展望未來的時候把這些點串連起來，但是十年后再回顧這一切，就再清楚不過了。
