219 replies to this topic

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Thu Oct 7, 2010 11:49 PM, said:

One more font added.

Very nice!

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

Font 0090 and 0100 (Commodore 64 Attack of the Mutant Camels and Burnin' Rubber) were the same, so 0100 has been replaced.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

This one (0215) is 1980 Carnival arcade by Sega. Almost the same as 1981 "005" arcade (0014) also by Sega. Only 0, J, K Q, X and Z are changed.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

I've included the font used in TurboForth by Mark Wills. I've listed fonts below with both 40 column mode and lowercase capability. There's another 5 fonts without lowercase but with 40 column mode capability in the collection.

0004 MSX computer.
0005 Memotech MTX computer.
0027 TI-99/4A computer (lowercase are small uppercase).
0028 TI-99/4A computer lowercase modified.
0123 ZX Spectrum computer modified by sometimes99er.
0180 Unknown or not confirmed.
0217 Unknown or not confirmed.
0220 TI-99/4A computer with lowercase from TurboForth.

Here's an animation using the above and the startup screen of TurboForth.

[sometimes99er]

The TI-99/4A came with lowercase actually being small uppercase. Many other computers of the day had "real" lowercase. I don't know why TI did as they did. Maybe at some point they wanted to extract the small uppercase from the uppercase.



The first character above represents the title and selection screen characters. The next is standard uppercase, and the last represents lowercase. All of them are designed in an 8x8 pixel character cell. The first generally being 6x8, the second 5x7 and the last 5x5.

The 5x7 and 5x5 are both stored in GROM as 8x7. So all of the lowercase alphabet characters starts out with 2 empty lines of pixels.



When one creates a font (for use as text), one have to consider spacing between characters on a line, and spacing between lines. Usually one set aside one pixel for this. We should therefore basically design all characters within a certain 7x7 pixel area - otherwise we run the risk of having characters "touch" or "glue" to one another - and that usually makes some or all of the text hard to read.

If one wants to have a font display in the 40 column mode, one has to design in 6x8 pixel cells. The width of the characters are shortened to the first 6 pixels. The 3 sets (title, upper and lower) supplied with the TI-99/4A all fits in 40 column mode, though the first (title) will only be readable with space characters separating individual letters in both horizontal and vertical directions.



You will get something like this on screen ...

Edited by sometimes99er, Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:24 AM.

[sometimes99er]

As awkward as fonts (letters etc.) may seem at first glance, most of them quickly become readable and acceptable to humans (hehe). They come in all different shapes and colors all around, in commercials and on television. Some are bizarre and maybe graffiti like, but even my 2 year old recognize it everywhere as text ... "Daddy, what does it say ?"

Many programs for the TI-99/4A kept the uppercase and redefined the lowercase (small capitals) with some more "real" small letters. It would usually look something like this:



Now, in the real world, lowercase letters g, j, p, q and y go below the baseline - into what we call the descend area. Something like this:



The solution above is a bit complicated and takes 2 lines of characters on screen to make up one line of text. Now, if we move all characters one pixel up and reduce the descend area from 2 to 1 pixel, we could get something like this:



This might look nice, but since the original uppercase is 7 pixels high, and we're adding a descend area, then this font is 8 pixels high. We will then see characters on different lines touch each other. Now, it's only g, j, p, q and y maybe touching down on a character. Often comma and semicolon will also use the descend area, but that should be about it. Personally I don't like the "effect".



So to go any further, we have to also change the uppercase, to get some nicely aligned small letters with descend area. Uppercase reduced from the original height of 7 pixels to 6 pixels would solve the problem, but then we will be redefining at least twice as many characters (uppercase, digits and probably a good deal of special characters).

You may think that since we're redefining everything, the dogs are loose, but there's still a chance to keep things TI related. The TI-99/4 (notice no A) standard font was only 5x6 and had no lowercase at all. To be continued ...

Edited by sometimes99er, Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:09 AM.

[sometimes99er]

Okay, so I got the 5x6 original TI-99/4 (no A) font - it is uppercase only. It's 0184 in the collection. Looks a bit like the ZX Spectrum/Timex, though that one is 6x6 - including lowercase with no descend (small letters like g have no stuff below baseline). It's 0015 in the collect. Anyways, the TI-99/4 5x6 allows a lowercase with one pixel line of descend. So I went away and designed a lowercase. - Okay, it looks like any other old font, but now it's done. Below is a test screen, 40 column mode. I think it looks great. Quite readable. "Real" lowercase descends. And TI related.



This was mostly done to provide an alternative for TurboForth. I guess anyone can use it and modify it without any further ado.

Edited by sometimes99er, Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:11 AM.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

Edited by sometimes99er, Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:15 AM.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.

[sometimes99er]

One more font added.