Breaking the physical limits of fonts

https://github.com/graphitemaster/breaking_the_physical_limits_of_fonts#breaking-the-physical-limits-of-fonts

112 23 7 years ago

emaro• 7 years ago

One could actually learn to read these five pixel characters. Amazing

Yetanfou3• 7 years ago

Not so amazing for those who, tired of the 40-column limit of their Commodore-64 or similar machine, took to such tricks to get up to 80 columns of text on screen (e.g. SpeedScript did this [1] as did TASword [2]). Was it easy to read? No, it wasn't. It was hardly readable to be honest but it did make it possible to get a full line of text on the screen.

[1] https://archive.org/stream/1987-12-computegazette/Compute_Ga...

[2] https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g2rIQtaJyKE/V2VO_lF88vI/AAAAAAAAB...

bitwize3• 7 years ago

Meanwhile, those of us still slumming it on our TI-99/4As were stuck with a word processor that didn't even try. Not only was TI-Write stuck in 40- (or perhaps 32-) column mode, but they didn't even bother changing the TI's default font, which mapped lowercase code points to small-cap glyphs, making text look nasty, hard to read, and nothing like printed output.

The dedication and achievements of the Commodore community never cease to amaze me.

mpweiher• 7 years ago

I typed quite a few papers in Screenwriter II on my Apple II, with its 70 column text (hi-res graphics was only 280x192) and its floppy-disk based virtual memory.

zimpenfish• 7 years ago

Tasword didn't do sub-pixel tricks, did it? Certainly didn't on the Spectrum to get 64 columns on a 32 column display - they just drew the letters themselves instead of using system output. I'd imagine the C64 version was exactly the same?

mooman219• 7 years ago

DPI scaling can ruin this effect too. Sub-pixel rendering is really a game for mature font renderers unfortunately.

benplumley• 7 years ago

I'm glad you pointed this out, I was ready to write this off as an illusion that just doesn't work for me. Provided your render scale is 100%, it's a very cool trick. Naturally easier to see on a lower DPI screen too.

salutonmundo• 7 years ago

this would be a nice easter-eggy way to watermark photographs.

adrianmonk2• 7 years ago

Maybe photographs not compressed with JPEG. I'm pretty sure JPEG wouldn't preserve this detail.

jejones3141• 7 years ago

It certainly tested the physical limits of my aging eyes. The version on the poorly-calibrated display was a good bit easier to read than that on the well-calibrated display.

nerd7473• 7 years ago

This is really cool.

grzm• 7 years ago

Related submission on Millitext from 5 months ago, over 240 points, over 50 comments :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18702900

sehugg• 7 years ago

A weird thing about some early discrete arcade games is that they generated 3x5 pixel digits without a ROM. They used a 7448 seven-segment decoder -- you know, like those cool LCD/LED clock radios. A BCD counter drives the 7448, then it feeds into a couple of multiplexers and a handful of gates, which generates the video signal.

I gotta think there's a better way, but I'm not inclined to second-guess these designers.

dpau• 7 years ago

lovely article. but also i find it so refreshing to read this as a simple github readme vs. a tweetstorm or popup-filled, gated medium article.

akx• 7 years ago

I once made something similar-ish (sans the fancy subpixel stuff) for rendering numbers into favicons for my cryptocurrency tracker.

Tiny number renderer: https://github.com/akx/bdf.js/tree/master/tinyb Cryptocurrency tracker: https://akx.github.io/goligoi

vectorEQ• 7 years ago

very nice article, love the background info on what's being done. been looking at implementing a simple font renderer for some bare metal software and something like this would be awesome to try and save some resources!

jbreckmckye• 7 years ago

Great article. As an aside: I found the bit buffer function a little hard to read. I suspect that's because I haven't done a lot of work where I've needed to manipulate bits in a procedural way. Can anyone recommend any resources / exercises for me to get better at this?

Breaking the physical limits of fonts

Related Stories