My first corporate job was with Digital Equipment Corporation. I worked in the printer group, on PostScript technologies. It was common then to simulate the Digital logo by scaling Helvetica and superimposing it in white onto colored rectangles.

But I knew that was inaccurate, and it gave a bad hacked-up impression. So I took it upon myself to create a genuine Digital logo in PostScript. My association with the logo was strong enough that I still get requests every few months for the logo. I am now an HP employee, so I have contact with even more ex-DECcies interested in the logo (HP bought Compaq which bought Digital, you see).

When the latest request came in, I decided to make a serious attempt at resurrecting the logo.

I don’t have the PostScript file for the logo any more, but it was often included in PostScript files generated from the in-house document creation tool (VAX Document). HP still maintains an archive of papers from the Digital days, so I figured a little archaeology there would yield a logo fossil.

A Google search for the term VMS in PostScript files on hp.com provided a direct hit: the first result (a paper entitled How the RDB/VMS Data Sharing System Became Fast) had the Digital logo font in it. Digging deeper, it turns out I was really lucky: very few of the papers on the site had the logo.

The logo I made was actually a font (Type 3, meaning the characters were defined with PostScript code). Back in 1987 I went to the graphic design group and got the largest photographic master of the logo they had. I scanned them, then used an early version of Adobe Illustrator to create the curves.

Here’s the historical summary I included in the font file:

The logo was designed in 1957 by Elliot Hendrickson, who was then working as an independent designer. He was contracted by DEC to do a brochure, and DEC wanted a logo to accompany it. The logo up to then had been the letters DEC in blocks the shape of the plug-in cards that DEC had been producing. Elliot re-worked the logo, incorporating letters which were hand-drawn for the purpose by Arthur Hover(?). The logo has been maintained since then in conventional technology, i.e. film masters. There was at least one reworking of the logo at some point.

The masters I received had a number of interesting features. The boxes were not all the same width, and there seemed to be no logic to which boxes were wider. The ‘g’ was the narrowest, and the ‘i’ and ‘l’ were second widest. Also, the two ‘i’s were not exactly the same shape. On ten-inch masters, (one box to an 8”×11” sheet), the boxes were not rectangles, but were very slightly tapered in weird ways. I assume that the tapering is the result of too many reproductions, but the difference in widths may have been deliberate at some time. Elliot reports that when he drew it, all boxes were the same width. I have made all of the boxes the same width, since that seems to have been the original intent, since the differences were almost negligible anyway, and since there was no logic to the differences.

The font I retrieved from the research report had none of the commentary, but here is the code (declogo17.ps):

11 dict begin

/FontInfo 3 dict def
FontInfo begin
    /Notice (The Digital logo is a registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.) def
    /FullName (Digital Logo) def
    /version (1.7, 24-Apr-1989) def
    end

/FontName /DEC_Logo def
/FontType 3 def                         % This is a user-defined font
/FontMatrix matrix def                  % Use an identity transform
/FontBBox [ 0 0 3.383 1 ] def           % Logo itself is biggest
/GapWidth .070 def                      % The width of the gap between boxes
/LogoWidth 3.383 def                    % The width of the logo

/Encoding 256 array def
0 1 255 { Encoding exch /.notdef put } for

Encoding
dup (d) 0 get /DEC-logo put             % (d) gives logo
dup (t) 0 get /smalltrademark put       % (t) gives small trademark
    (T) 0 get /largetrademark put       % (T) gives large trademark

/Work 15 dict def                       % for doing work in font.

/BuildChar {
    exch begin                          % Use the font dictionary
        Work begin
            Encoding exch get           % Look up the character name
            load                        % Pull out the procedure
            exec                        % Run it.
            end                         % Work
        end                             % fontdict
    } def

Work begin

/.notdef {} def

/words {
    0           %
    moveto      % !
    curveto     % "
    closepath   % #
    lineto      % $
    boxw        % %
    boxstep     % &
    translate   % '
} bind cvlit def
( mr vy! mt rQ h[ kF aw kE" Zw kG T@ q] T@ ~I" T@ AKA Zv AQi ai AQk" h[ AQi m
t AJX mr ADw"# nI AZ[! nI Avp$ |C Avp$ |C ^h$ mk ^h$ mk bl$ l` a` gc \\U _F
\\U" VR \\T Fa cj Fa ~I" Fa ATf RS A`M `S A`M" e_ A`M je A^W nI AZ["#% !% B\\
P$  B\\P$  $#& '% !% B\\P$  B\\P$  $# ZK ^h! ZK A]p$ hO A]p$ hO ^h$# ZK AfV!
 ZK Au~$ hO Au~$ hO AfV$#& ' l[ AE~! l[ AKe fG AQX `Q AQX" [O AQX S] ANK S]
?t" S] pa ]A nR `L nR" f_ nR l[ rg l[ yS"#  B\\P!% B\\P$% $  $# ld AWi! kG A
Yn fV A^\\ _b A^\\" T} A^[ FM AXT FM }s" FN hy V{ ax ]r ax" eL aw jl fK lL g
s" lL aN$ lL \\W gM Wg ^w Wg" Wk Wh V{ \\O V{ ^a" HO ^a$ HO WN L| Ld ]~ Lc"
mN Lc rP RX t[ Td" vP VZ x? [^ x? _a" x? A]p$ le A]p$#& '% !% B\\P$  B\\P$
$# ZK ^h! ZK A]p$ hO A]p$ hO ^h$# ZK AfV! ZK Au~$ hO Au~$ hO AfV$#& ' dX Aue
! Wa Aue$ Wa A^w$ Pr A^w$ Pr ATT$ Wa ATT$ Wa ld$ Wa d? [Z _B fP _C" kU _C kH
 _A ob _r" ob lz$ lj lZ kq lM jW lP" gj lU dX mR dX rF" dX ATS$ nd ATS$ nd A
^w$ dX A^w$#% !  $  B\\P$% B\\P$#& '  !  B\\P$% B\\P$% $# J{ AIx! V~ AIx$ V~
 APR ZR ASi `f ASi" jj ASj jU AOK jT AId" dF AGI dk AGM [L AEC" OI ABQ Gq }G
 Gp ph" Gq d[ P] ]z ZP ]{" dD ]z fF aE jJ cr" jJ ^z$ yb ^z$ uz dp vw ey vu j
R" vv mn vu AOX vu AOX" vv AVC sX AZH qG A[_" k] A^w d^ A_Q `f A_R" Ru A_P J
z AXU J{ AIx"# jT }j! jT uI$ jT qP ee in \\R im" Wp il UN mC UM qZ" UN ur X{
 yI \\D yq" _U z[ fv |V jT }j"#& '% !% B\\P$  B\\P$  $# ZK ^h! ZK Awb$ hO Aw
b$ hO ^h$#)
/pathstring exch def

/round-to-pixels {
    0 transform
    round exch round exch
    itransform
    pop
    } def

/DEC-logo {
    3.383 0 0 0 3.383 1 setcachedevice
    .0001 .0001 scale

    /boxw 4250 round-to-pixels def
    /boxstep 4950 round-to-pixels def

    pathstring
    {
        dup 62 gt
        {   63 and exch 6 bitshift add }
        {   dup 32 ge
            {   32 sub words exch get exec }
            {   pop }
            ifelse
            }
        ifelse
        }
    forall

    fill
    } def


/trademark {
    /s exch .380 div def
    /w s .725 mul .070 add def
    /u 1 .673 s mul sub def
    w 0 0 u w 1 setcachedevice
    /Symbol findfont s scalefont setfont
    .070 u moveto                               % Superscript it
    (\344) show
    } def


/smalltrademark { .15 trademark } def
/largetrademark { .25 trademark } def

end                                             % Work dictionary

FontName                                        % Get the name
currentdict                                     % Get the font dict
end                                             % Close up the dict
definefont pop                                  % Define the font

I don’t remember encoding the path in that tricky way: the printed copy I have of the code was much lengthier. Updated: Alert reader Peter Weaver sent along a copy he found of the earlier version: declogo11.ps.

To draw with the font, I added this code:

/DEC_Logo findfont 100 scalefont setfont
72 72 moveto
(d) show
showpage

With that PostScript file, I could create a PDF file, an Illustrator file (back to home!) then .PNGs:

Hopefully, these will satisfy the needs for Digital logo fans. If you need anything more, let me know!

Update: in September 2023, Paul Koning sent along an SVG version of the logo. Thanks Paul!