Kevin Slavin wrote in response to a recent RHIZOME RAW discussion:

There are certain questions Alex Galloway raises that I don't quite
understand. He wrote that HTML and computer fonts are alike because
"both are a set of instructions for the compilation of contents: fonts
compile and represent digitized texts (from a disk or from the net),
while HTML compiles and displays hypertextual elements."

Fonts do not compile contents; they represent them. A font is a set of
instructions like a painting is a set of instructions: that is, kind of,
and not really. The typeface lends meaning and presence to the
proposition. Is this what you mean by "compilation of content?" What is
the comparison you are making between "digitized texts" and
"hypertextual elements"? Further, you set up some comparison between the
"digital/semiotic world" and the "virtual world." I need to get clear
about what defines these worlds (even in terms of their *difference*) to
understand just what you're asking, which seem like interesting
questions.

That the font makes us rethink the signifier is well covered in Drucker,
as well as parts of Jonathan Culler's "Structural Poetics." I'll try to
outline what I understand from them in another post.

[…]

As for Galloway's last suggestion, a "fontless alphabet" (look, by the
way at Don Knuth's work, which is often overblown but not
uninteresting). Have computers provided us with this just because we
have the technical capacity to change fonts quickly and arbitrarily? Or
is that simply a function of writing itself, around since the first
texts were recopied, rewritten, translated, quoted, reprinted, enlarged?

Alex Galloway responded:

I am trying to define a font as separate from a mark (ink, light, etc.)
and thus as sort of list of directions for visual representation–a type
of protocal.

To answer your questions, I see the difference between "digitized texts"
and "hypertextual elements" as follows: "digitized texts" mean the code
behind any text file. It's digital (all 0s and 1s), but it is only coded
so that it may be decoded as a readable, coherent text file.
"Hypertextual elements" are all the things that HTML pulls together, GIF
images, html text files, Quicktime Movies, audio files, etc. And
therefore this would necessarily include "digitized texts."

I see the difference between the "digital/semiotic world" and the
"virtual world" as follows: the "digital/semiotic world" seems to be a
collection of digital values, like machine code, that work in systematic
ways, i.e. they are compiled, listed, loaded, … Thus, it is like a
more traditional sign system. the "virtual world" refers to any
situation where content and context are both provided by means of
computer; this includes any sort of non-traditional interface such as a
website or VR.

…The only point of this analogy was to use a knowable concept, HTML,
to help understand what I believe is a more elusive concept, a computer
font…

It just seems to me that since fonts are so disposable/transformable and
the textual information behind them is so non-dependent upon their form
of representation (i.e. any raw data/information can be represented in
any font, any format, any media), there is no longer a one-to-one
connection between info. and its representation. Now, this may seem
obvious. However, note the fact that words like Helvetica are widely
used and understood these days, whereas pre-computer they were part of a
specialized graphical vocabulary. It seems that one time there *was* a
more direct connection between content and representation.

The question is, Is there now a third term? content, representation,
protocal? (font being an example of protocal.)