Printed circuit boards manufactured by Sphere Corporation of Utah, circa 1975. The condensed sans is Alternate Gothic.

Sphere Corporation was a short-lived manufacturer of early microcomputers outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, operating from 1975 to 1977. Sphere computers were available in kit or assembled form, and were among the earliest all-in-one microcomputer systems, using an integral keyboard and screen. Sphere’s logo and wordmark consisted of the name “SPHERE” set in Tuxedo (a.k.a. Program) and “CORPORATION” in a close-tracked Microgramma.

This branding did not appear on the exterior of the computer itself, but could be seen etched in tiny form on some individual circuit boards (shown above). It was used in large format on documentation and in the company’s marketing.

Notably and curiously, Sphere's use of Tuxedo in their wordmark followed competitor MITS, which used Tuxedo prominently on their earlier Altair computers. This was probably a coincidence, but nevertheless appears as a strange homage to a key competitor in what was a very small industry at that time.

Binder of documentation for a Sphere computer (c. 1975)

Full-page advertisement in Byte magazine (January 1976). Other fonts used for the ad include Gill Kayo, Alternate Gothic, Times New Roman, Optima and Univers.

The logo in another full-page advert in Byte magazine (Nov. 1975), with the address in Optima

Altair 8800 Computer

From Wikipedia:

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975.

The Altair 8800 is generally credited with being the first broadly available microcomputer system. It debuted on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine in January of 1975 (albeit in the form of a prototype with a different nameplate in Microgramma), and was available in kit or assembled form, across different model variations, over the subsequent two years. The brand nameplate for the Altair 8800 and also the Altair 680 used the Tuxedo typeface, as did some of the accompanying documentation.

Cover of the documentation for the Altair Computer System

The front panel of an Altair 8800 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California

The labeling for switches and lights on the front panel appears to be in Helvetica. The slight rounding of the letterforms is probably due to the application process.

The Altair 680 was announced in November 1975 and shipped in May 1976. “MITS” is in outlined Helvetica.

Cover of the New Mexico Speed Study from 1976, prepared by the New Mexico State Highway Department, Planning and Programming Division, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration.

The origin of the unicase typeface with the unconventional weight distribution is unclear. A version for dry transfer lettering is shown in a 1974 catalog by Formatt as Program. Dan X. Solo included a film version named Tuxedo in his Art Deco Display Alphabets, published by Dover Books in 1982. I don’t know whether Tuxedo preceded Program, or who designed it. Both Formatt and Solotype are known for adopting designs from other sources, often under new names. The font comes with one to three alternates for most alphabetic characters – note the different forms for E in this use. In 2010, Dick Pape made a freebie digitization based on the Solo showing, named DXS Tuxedo. Kryton by Ben Balvanz appears to be based on (the same source as) Tuxedo, too.

Via Rachel Cole, librarian at Northwestern University’s Transportation Library. A digitization of the full study is available from Hathi Trust.