[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Are there any standard monochrome low resolu...
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Ask HN: Are there any standard monochrome low resolution
resolutions?
I have a rad idea for a low resolution one color pixel display. For
example, 20x80 would be very challenging but probably totally worth
it. The thing is I'm going to need to display stuff on it so I
need character glyphs and little graphics and stuff like that. Are
there any standard glyphs or libraries for resolutions that small?
Author : bestcoder
Score : 19 points
Date : 2021-04-25 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
| xvedejas wrote:
| This project seems to imply DejaVu Sans can be used on a 5-pixel-
| height display, although that's based on a very surface-level
| skim of the repo: https://github.com/rnauber/ESPHomeMatrixLED
|
| I'd suggest that your best bet in general would be to look at any
| projects using these kinds of LED dot matrix marquee displays. I
| was able to find a lot of arduino tutorials with a google search,
| there's probably relevant code with some of those. Good luck!
| messe wrote:
| OpenBSD's default console font _Spleen_ has a 5x8 version which,
| which is fairly legible while still looking nice:
|
| https://github.com/fcambus/spleen
|
| Any smaller than that and you're getting into ugly territory.
| clankyclanker wrote:
| The smallest size at which English capital and lowercase
| letters are differentiable is 3x5, so 5x8 is pretty close to
| that minimum possible size. Any smaller and some letters become
| ambiguous or lose too much information to be unique (e.g., B vs
| 8). I haven't checked to see if 3x5 can include symbols though,
| only the letters and numbers.
| messe wrote:
| Oh, it's definitely possible to go lower than 5x8 and include
| symbols, but the issue is aesthetics. A lot of your lowercase
| letters are going to look taller than they usually would,
| which can be a distraction when reading.
|
| If you don't care about appearances and just whether or not
| every character is distinct enough to be understood, then I
| think 4x6 is probably the limit, but I'd be happy to be
| proven wrong.
| tomcam wrote:
| That 5x8 font was completely legible to my six-decade old eyes!
| Sweet.
| cameldrv wrote:
| The HP48 calculator had a 131x64 display, and there was a bunch
| of third party software that wanted to cram lots on the screen,
| and so there were a lot of third party fonts [1]. You would have
| to figure out how to decode the file format though.
|
| [1] https://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/utils/fonts/
| juancn wrote:
| You mean PC controllable?
|
| There are lot's of displays available, but most of them are
| geared to electronics projects. You'll need at least an arduino
| or some such to drive it.
| bestcoder wrote:
| Yeah I'm not sure how to drive it either. I'd like to use any
| sp32 but that only has like 40 gpios max. I think you can set
| up logic gates or something I don't even know what that means
| except very superficially superficially I'll cross that bridge
| when I get there
| pjc50 wrote:
| This display sounds very similar to LCDs, for which you can
| get row/column driver ICs.
|
| > I think you can set up logic gates or something I don't
| even know what that means except very superficially
| superficially I'll cross that bridge when I get there
|
| It sounds like this bridge is a long way in the distance.
| evan_ wrote:
| Look into addressable leds like the WS2812... you can wire
| them up in series (or buy them pre-soldered on tape) and you
| can control hundreds of RGB leds independently with just two
| wires.
|
| Adafruit sells tape as well as matrices of the stuff which
| might be what you're looking for
| evan_ wrote:
| if you're dead set on controlling individual LEDs look up
| "charlieplexing" which will let you use n pins to control
| n^2-n LEDs
| klyrs wrote:
| You want 1-bit pixel art. A quick search for that yielded a nice
| trove of assets meant for lo-fi games; maybe you can adapt some
| of them?
|
| https://itch.io/game-assets/tag-1-bit
| bestcoder wrote:
| Thank you for that phrase.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| For very low resolution pixel fonts, refer to the answers at
| https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/91478/a-fo...
| hazeii wrote:
| Generally anything low res is hand-designed on a pixel by pixel
| basis (whether monochrome or limited colours). For fonts the
| lowest legible is 5x8 (depending of your definition of 'legible',
| e.g. the alphabet as printed on a seven-segment display).
|
| You could look back at early graphics fonts/icons, e.g. early X11
| or after that Mac and Windows for inspiration. Also graphics LCD
| displays (e.g. one or two lines of 16 chars) and then there's the
| BBC Microbit with its 5x5 display - lots of creative stuff there,
| the stock demo it comes with does text and graphics (and the code
| is online).
| jerf wrote:
| I used to entertain myself during math class designing tiny fonts
| for my HP48. And I have 0 design skill. The constraints are so
| tight if you want really tiny fonts at that level that there
| aren't that many options anyhow. It's fun and easy to just make
| some.
|
| For stuff more in the 8 pixel range, there a ton of stuff. If you
| give a full 20 pixels to one line you can use almost any font you
| like.
| Syzygies wrote:
| For rendering images you may want to look at ordered dithering,
| based on a paper by Bryce Bayer (my father).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordered_dithering
|
| At higher resolutions there are better methods, so this is now
| ancient technology. You might recognize this dither pattern from
| the graphics on old DEC computer boxes...
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I don't know of any offhand, you might want to look for "pixel
| art" libraries.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Many years ago there was a VT-100 terminal program called
| VT-10-Squared for the Atari 8 bit computers that managed to
| produce legible characters that were only 3 pixels wide.
|
| IIRC, it had both upper and lower case, as well as the special
| VT-100 graphics characters. It was definitely usable, if somewhat
| headache-inducing when used to consume many screens of text.
|
| It worked by drawing the characters in "high resolution" graphics
| mode (320x192! Woohoo!) so you could use mainframe software on
| the Atari, which normally only supported 40 columns of text.
|
| Looks like the software is still hanging around the various Atari
| archives... it might be worth extracting the font, if licensing
| permits.
| Tagbert wrote:
| I can't help about the displays but must mention that I had a
| hard time understanding the subject line you posted. You might
| rewrite it to something like: "Are there any monochrome, low
| resolution displays?"
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| The title makes no sense to me either. Asking if there are any
| small resolutions is like asking if there are any small
| numbers.
| Someone wrote:
| I also have a hard time understanding the question, but reading
| the text, it asks a different question:
|
| _"The thing is I 'm going to need to display stuff on it so I
| need character gloves and little graphics and stuff like that.
| Are there any standard glyphs or libraries for resolutions that
| small?"_
|
| Because of that and the use of 'one color', I think/guess the
| OP has a 80x20 display that isn't black and white (say a LED
| panel), and looks for fonts that can be used on it (I would go
| look at https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/ or
| https://damieng.com/blog/2011/02/20/typography-in-8-bits-
| sys..., or look at old Mac and Windows bitmap fonts for those
| (warning: copyright laws may apply)) and, possibly, libraries
| to show an UI on it.
| dn3500 wrote:
| Any idea what a "character glove" is? A web search just turns
| up halloween costumes. Does he mean glyph?
| bestcoder wrote:
| Yes, sorry "autocorrect"
| bestcoder wrote:
| I went with your suggestion but changed a little I think I made
| it worse
| analog31 wrote:
| This is mostly a chip datasheet, but it describes a widespread
| set of glyphs used for cheap monochrome alphanumeric displays.
|
| https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/LCD/HD44780.pdf
|
| I had to look this up once, in search of "flat" and "natural"
| symbols for music. Turns out I had to create my own.
| water8 wrote:
| pixel size is dependent on the display size
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| In terms of hardware, pixel size is a fixed, literal
| specification of the actual display panel independent of its
| size.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Not free, but the best: https://www.ramtex.dk/
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(page generated 2021-04-25 23:02 UTC)