I released Waker on March 26, 1998. The original name was “Wake and Bake,” a joking reference that was quickly dropped after a distributor raised concerns while trying to sell an OEM software bundle. The characters had cartoon-like lines above them, which I drew directly in Fontographer with a tablet; the effect was meant to suggest rising vapors. The design was offered only in a single style. I licensed it for free commercial desktop use from the beginning and made no changes to that arrangement until August 2020, when I placed the typeface in the public domain. It never found notable use, but I kept the renamed Waker available as a lighthearted experiment from that period of my work.