[HN Gopher] Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operati... ___________________________________________________________________ Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems Author : lnyan Score : 123 points Date : 2021-07-08 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | pininja wrote: | These fonts are super fun to browse through! I have had an eink | display and Arduino setup for about a year and finding a fun | bitmap font to use was a big headache. | | Espy_Sans_10.yaff from the old Apple Mac looks great! | ourcat wrote: | I'm tempted to write something to help convert these for using in | various U8g2/GFX libraries for micro-controllers. (I like | building LED matrix/screens.) | | It seems monobit only supports reading C/C++ fonts. | joombaga wrote: | You may find this useful/inspirational. | | https://github.com/ropg/truetype2gfx | | I've been using it for my Watchy (an esp32 that uses Adafruit | GFX). | unnah wrote: | Huh. Apparently the default Amiga Topaz font was redesigned for | Kickstart ROM 2.0 without changing the name of the font. Compared | to the old version, the new Topaz font does look rather generic. | LocalH wrote: | Topaz 1.x is basically a slightly modified IBM BIOS font. Topaz | 2.x may _look_ more generic but it's not so blatantly a copy of | any other such font that I'm aware of. Sort of like how the | Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 have identical lowercase | characters. | phkahler wrote: | I still have my original Interact computer which is not listed. | The text on that is 5x5 pixel characters with 1 pixel in between, | so 6x6 but the gap is not encoded in the font. Only upper case | characters were supported. The font is not in a separate prom, | it's in the main 2K eprom along with the tape read/write | functions and some very simple keyboard scanning and pixel, box, | and text rendering functions. I think a ROM dump exists somewhere | online, so with the above description someone should be able to | locate the character set easily enough. Probably the worst one | you'll ever see. | tenebrisalietum wrote: | I think the DEC VT05 font is similar, but I can't even find any | good closeup pictures of the screen (just ones that show the | whole unit, but don't really show the detail of the screen). | GekkePrutser wrote: | Did you ever use a real VT05? | | I love serial terminals and I love the design of the VT05 | (even though I know it's wayy too deep for a modern desk). | It's just so cool and futuristic in a 70s star trek kind of | way. | | I also heard it wasn't simply a small microcomputer, it had | everything in discrete logic on many PCBs which seems to be | why it was so big. Really cool. I'd love to see one some day. | | I volunteered at a computer museum that had a lot of DEC | stuff but we had nothing older in terms of DEC terminal sthan | VT100s. I still own an amber VT520 (though from the Boundless | era after the terminal business was sold by DEC) | Someone wrote: | Looking at the screen shots in https://www.old- | computers.com/museum/software_detail.asp?st=..., it doesn't | look bad. | | Of course, those are lying. https://www.old- | computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=100... says "The | Interact shipped with 2 joysticks, a built-in tape recorder, a | TV RF modulator and 2 KB of ROM". | | So, in real life, those characters were filtered through a NTSC | tv signal. | | Also, the last comment on https://www.old- | computers.com/museum/doc.asp?c=1004 claims _"It had no | character generator, formin it 's large letters from graphic | routines."_ That seems to imply all characters were drawn | procedurally, not from a bitmap font. I find that unlikely. Can | that be done in less memory than a generic blitter would use? | | There even is a link to emulators on https://www.old- | computers.com/museum/emulator.asp?c=1004&st=.... One of them | led me to http://dchector.free.fr/link.html, which has a few | emulators for (AFAIK) obscure systems such as "Thomson MO5NR, | Thomson MO6 & Olivetti Prodest PC128" and | http://dchector.free.fr/download/interact_rom.zip, which, | presumably, is the ROM for this system. | megameter wrote: | The term "character generator" in video specifically refers | to hardware that overlays text onto the video signal. That | is, in this case it's not a "text mode", it's a bitmap | graphics mode used for text, which appears likely just going | by the screenshots. There weren't many computer systems | taking this approach in 1978, since any bitmap mode would be | RAM-hungry, so they were usually either text | centric(Commodore PET) or had both text and graphics modes | and hybrids(Apple II, Atari). | LocalH wrote: | It probably means the hardware had no dedicated text mode | with a separate character ROM, but that the software would | draw the bitmaps to the graphics screen itself. | LocalH wrote: | Reminds me of the Fairchild Channel F font a bit | makeworld wrote: | Might also be of interest: | | https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/ | Propolice wrote: | Nice catalog. I also prefer bitmap fonts for terminals on low DPI | and even 32" 4K monitors. The OLDSCHOOL PC FONT RESOURCE is a | treasure trove. | AnthonBerg wrote: | Ditto!! I'm hooked on the 8x8 high-fantasy font EagleSpCGA Alt3 | from the Ultimate PC Font Pack. I use it everywhere. | | Well, almost everywhere. The square font tends to break certain | application layouts. So those get an 8x14 IBM VGA font. | jes5199 wrote: | somewhere I have the bitmaps for Zenith/Heathkit Z100 series | system fonts. I guess I should dig them up | soperj wrote: | My first thought on looking at a few fonts was why bother, but as | I started to go through more of them, there are some really nice | ideas there. | GnarfGnarf wrote: | Need Xerox 9700 laser printer fonts (ca. 1979). 300 DPI fonts, | one font file per point size. "Font" files could also store | logos. Max 512 x 128 pixels per character. | rbanffy wrote: | How do you dare to call these operating systems and computers | "disused"?! | anthk wrote: | Except Mac OS 7-9 (media production because a patched Mac OS 9 | under a G4 is beast) and DOS (expensive ad-hoc industrial | hardware), most computer/OSes aren't used to anything but | retrogaming/retroemulation except with some niches with the | Atari STE/FreeMint communities. | rbanffy wrote: | Well... in my house the only use the Windows box gets is | gaming and I wouldn't call it "disused". It's a horrible | kludge, but not "disused". | | By far the most fun computer in the house is the C64 Maxi | Commodore recreation. Endless hours of fun. | kzrdude wrote: | So somewhere out there there are people sticking to Mac OS 9? | Or earlier? That's rad | anthk wrote: | Yes because the input latency on os9 under a G4 it's almost | inexistent. There are unnoficial patches for media | production: | | http://macos9lives.com/ | | http://macos9lives.com/mac%20os%209%20lives_005.htm | | I am more like a Void/OpenBSD guy with Unix and CLI tools, | but people keeping old machines being useful it's always | good. | rbanffy wrote: | Unix is wonderfully useful. I can run my applications on | the Linux server in the shed and have the GUI on my | laptop using X. I can do the same from a G3 iMac or an | IBM RS/6000. | whoopdedo wrote: | A similar project is the Retro Computing fonts from | KreativeKorp[1]. | | [1] http://www.kreativekorp.com/software/fonts/index.shtml | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-08 23:00 UTC)