Typography in 8 bits: System fonts (2011)

doomlaser · on May 29, 2014

A fun tangential fact about the original Macintosh's system font, Chicago: it was the typeface used by Squaresoft in most of their 16-bit era Super NES RPGS (Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, etc)

damieng · on May 29, 2014

They modified the upper case characters to shave 1 pixel off the height tho - presumably to fit it in an 8x8.

mzs · on May 29, 2014

I've got a soft spot for the MC6847, who needs lower case or an glob-star even when you have semigraphics!

http://members.casema.nl/hhaydn/howel/Acorn/Atom/atap/charse...

I even made it a pcf, from my notes:

  $ convert charset.png -crop 256x48+0+0 +repage c6847.png
  $ convert c6847.png -crop 8x12 +repage +adjoin 'c6847g%02x.png'

Need to make B&W:

  $ convert c6847.png -threshold '1%' c6847.gif
  $ for p in c6847g??.png; do convert "$p" -threshold '1%' "`basename $p .png`".gif; done

Got gif2bdf

  $ curl -O http://czyborra.com/unifont/gif2bdf

Looked at it, decided it was safe, and patched it to hackishly get around some issues.

  @@ -5,20 +5,19 @@
   # into a handier bitmap distribution format font
   
   $[ = 1; $chars=$#ARGV; undef $/; 
  -
  +$dec = 32;
   for (@ARGV)
   {
  -     $dec = hex ($hex) if ($hex) = /([0-9A-F]{4})/ || next;
  +     $hex = sprintf("%04x", $dec);
        $_ = `giftopnm $_`;
        s/^P4\s(\d+)\s(\d+)\s/$wid=$1,$nib=$wid>>2,$ht=$2,''/e;
        $_ = unpack ("H*", $_);
        s/(.{$nib})/\n$1/g;
        $header ||= print "STARTFONT 2.1
  -FONT -Unicode-Charts-Medium-R-Normal--$ht-${ht}0-72-72-C-${wid}0-ISO10646-1
  +FONT -c6847-fixed-medium-r-normal--$ht-${ht}0-72-72-C-${wid}0-iso8859-1
   SIZE $ht 72 72
   FONTBOUNDINGBOX $wid $ht 0 0
  -STARTPROPERTIES 4
  -COPYRIGHT http://www.unicode.org/unicode/copyright.html
  +STARTPROPERTIES 3
   DEFAULT_CHAR -1
   FONT_ASCENT $ht
   FONT_DESCENT 0
  @@ -33,7 +32,10 @@
   BITMAP$_
   ENDCHAR
   ";
  -
  +     $dec = $dec + 1;
  +     if ($dec == 96) {
  +             $dec = 192;
  +     }
   }
   
   print "ENDFONT\n";

Made fonts

  $ ./gif2bdf `ls c6847g??.gif | sort` > c6847.bdf
  $ bdftopcf c6847.bdf > c6847.pcf

DanBC · on May 29, 2014

The Sharp MZ80k had an interesting font which included a bunch of "graphics", which were available feom the huge horrible keyboard.

http://www.1000bit.it/scheda.asp?id=101

mitosis · on May 29, 2014

That keyboard is wrong on so many levels.

salgernon · on May 29, 2014

I recently restored an ADDS Regent 25 terminal; it has an 8085 inside, so I'll claim it as an 8-bit system font :-)

Sorry I don't have a better picture:

http://i.imgur.com/4jR8izX.jpg

Its close to the 'Speccy' font included in cathode:

http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/

damieng · on May 29, 2014

It is an interesting font although very different from the Sinclair Spectrum font. (I added a bunch of those to Cathode)

salgernon · on May 30, 2014

Just to close the loop; a better picture:

https://flic.kr/p/nMA6kz

I quite like the 'l' and 'i', but the 'V' is worrisome.

mattl · on May 29, 2014

Wow, so the Amstrad CPC font is very very similar to the IBM CGA font.

And to think all these years I'd thought they were using CPCs on TV :/

OneOneOneOne · on May 29, 2014

So much nostalgia. It's funny but looking at these fonts reminds me of the good times programming these machines.

izietto · on May 29, 2014

I love the commodore one!

jokoon · on May 29, 2014

missing: profont

to3m · on May 29, 2014

The Macintosh had a 16-/32-bit CPU, and so custom 3rd-party fonts for it do not qualify for inclusion on a page of system fonts from 8-bit systems...

jokoon · on May 29, 2014

I find it fits pretty well and to me it beat all the fonts listed in the article

SwellJoe · on May 29, 2014

How do you find it "fits pretty well"? This is an article (a quite interesting one) about system fonts for 8 bit systems. Profont is not a system font on any 8 bit system. It makes no sense to discuss Profont in this context.

jokoon · on May 30, 2014

http://www.tobias-jung.de/pics/profont9pt.gif

yell at me all you want, you know what I mean.

"DON'T CALL THE SKY BLUE, SCIENTIFICALLY IT HAS A CERTAIN WAVELENGTH WHICH YOU TOTALLY IGNORE"

SwellJoe · on May 30, 2014

I'm not yelling at you, and I genuinely don't know what you mean. Are you simply saying you really like Profont? It's been discussed (along with several other programmers fonts) several times over the years here at HN. I'm not being pedantic, I'm just confused why you believe Profont has any relation to 8 bit system typefaces.

This is an article about history of typefaces on early personal computers. That's a cool thing to read about. There have been similarly interesting articles about programmers fonts, and I tend to read those, too. But, it's OK for us to discuss one without pulling the other into the discussion. It's simply a non-sequiter.