When comparing DEC Terminal Modern vs Microsoft Verdana, the Slant community recommends DEC Terminal Modern for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” DEC Terminal Modern is ranked 78th while Microsoft Verdana is ranked 105th. The most important reason people chose DEC Terminal Modern is:
I use 18-point DEC Terminal Modern for interacting with OpenVMS systems, with anti-aliasing and subpixel anti-aliasing. With a dark background and a soft white, amber, or green foreground, it's very reminiscent of the physical terminals, though I don't actually have one for comparison. Unless you want an ultra-retro "rasterized" appearance, I would recommend it by far over either "Glass TTY VT220" or "VT220-mod". A very slight "con" is that it doesn't work well with at least some of iTerm2's built-in Powerline glyphs. Spaces appear as filled blocks, for example.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great looking retro font.
I use 18-point DEC Terminal Modern for interacting with OpenVMS systems, with anti-aliasing and subpixel anti-aliasing. With a dark background and a soft white, amber, or green foreground, it's very reminiscent of the physical terminals, though I don't actually have one for comparison.
Unless you want an ultra-retro "rasterized" appearance, I would recommend it by far over either "Glass TTY VT220" or "VT220-mod".
A very slight "con" is that it doesn't work well with at least some of iTerm2's built-in Powerline glyphs. Spaces appear as filled blocks, for example.
Pro Interesting look
The look of DEC Terminal Modern is somewhat retro-inspired.
Pro Free with Windows
Pro Compact while light
Packs lots of information into your screen space while remaining clear and never looking crowded.
Pro Renders perfectly at all sizes
Again, particularly in Windows
Pro Looks absolutely gorgeous in Windows
Looks good elsewhere as well, but the world-class hinting here really comes out with the windows rasterizer (probably optimized for it).
Cons
Con Not monospaced
-if that is an absolute must for you. But don't assume it is until you've tried without...