[HN Gopher] Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operati...
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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]
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(page generated 2021-07-08 23:00 UTC)