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Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

pelulamu.net

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Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#31

Post by masklinn »

_arvin wrote: post #7

Well, I'm ecstatic. What a beautiful font. After seeing this, I was finally inspired to find out why BitchX wouldn't display ANSI art correctly. Turns out I needed a code 437 emulator! [1] I can now use it the way it was meant to. Here it is paired with unscii-16-full 12pt [2] This isn't nostalgia, this is just _better_. [1] https://github.com/keaston/cp437 [2] https://i.imgur.com/3Oj9Vsy.png

> Turns out I needed a code 437 emulator! [1]

So that… just converts from cp437 (output by the subprocess) to whatever the "system encoding" (assumed to be the terminal's) is?

I'm surprised iconv or the like doesn't handle that natively. Or is the issue that you still need to interact with the subprocess and iconv(1) only does piping/non-interactive conversions?

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#32

Post by dukoid »

girst wrote: post #26
dukoid wrote: post #22

It's a bit sad that many of the ETSI EN 300 706 V1.2.1 graphics characters (1, section 15.7.2) are not available in Unicode. I am maintaining a small program that renders images directly in the terminal using unicode block graphics characters (2), and these would come really handy to enhance the conversion... 1) https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/300700_300799/300706/01... 2) https://github.com/stefanhaustein/Termi…

There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while (and its the third proposal since 2017): https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18275r-terminals-prop-no-at...

Looks great! Do you know why the other two have failed? I was initially wondering whether it makes sense to bundle legacy and teletext all together into one "big" proposal, but then I realized that there is a very high amount of overlap...

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#33

Post by PavlovsCat »

lubujackson wrote: post #5

It's a little confusing, but my read is that this is a generalized set of old font characters that were used for graphics (like code 437) plus a bunch of unicode symbols that are also useful for graphics. With the idea being you could make much more intricate art from this font set. I think the more interesting idea would be to use it to encode movies similar to how ASCII animations work - I wonder how compressed and…

I don't know if MPlayer can already take arbitrary fonts into account for playing movies back in the terminal, but it's open source, so it probably could be expanded in that way:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/screen.html

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#34

Post by Sharlin »

Annatar wrote: post #23

z!OMG it supports Amiga ASCII and C= PETSCII!1!11!!, instead of being yet another PC-tin-bucket-MS-DOS-only font. Now we can enjoy all that wonderful Amiga Type ASCII art in front of Skid Row cracked games! Well done! Well done! (Loading Star Control.)

The author, viznut, is an olskool demoscener and specifically interested in extreme low-end and vintage computing.

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#35

Post by coldtea »

girst wrote: post #26
dukoid wrote: post #22

It's a bit sad that many of the ETSI EN 300 706 V1.2.1 graphics characters (1, section 15.7.2) are not available in Unicode. I am maintaining a small program that renders images directly in the terminal using unicode block graphics characters (2), and these would come really handy to enhance the conversion... 1) https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/300700_300799/300706/01... 2) https://github.com/stefanhaustein/Termi…

There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while (and its the third proposal since 2017): https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18275r-terminals-prop-no-at...

>There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while

Whereas if it was for adding some BS emojis, it would have been done in a week.

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#36

Post by ubernostrum »

coldtea wrote: post #35
girst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while (and its the third proposal since 2017): https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18275r-terminals-prop-no-at...

> There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while Whereas if it was for adding some BS emojis, it would have been done in a week.

The process of proposing and adding an emoji to Unicode is slower and less easy than you seem to think it is.

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#37

Post by itukeitto »

I also recommend checking out glyphdrawing.club for a contemporary web-based editor using inventive unscii fonts. It features an original font and some contributor-submitted ones! Really fun to play with.

https://glyphdrawing.club

https://github.com/hlotvonen/glyph-drawing-club

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/glyph-drawing-club-edit...

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#38

Post by girst »

dukoid wrote: post #32
girst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while (and its the third proposal since 2017): https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18275r-terminals-prop-no-at...

Looks great! Do you know why the other two have failed? I was initially wondering whether it makes sense to bundle legacy and teletext all together into one "big" proposal, but then I realized that there is a very high amount of overlap...

well, the three proposals are from the same group of people. they probably are reactions to feedback from the unicode technical commitee[0]. I've looked into the utc meeting notes, but those don't really contain much info[1].

[0]: see the progression at https://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetMatchingDocs.pl?L2/18-275... and https://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetMatchingDocs.pl?L2/18-235 and https://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetMatchingDocs.pl?L2/17-435 [1]: https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18007.htm and https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18272.htm and https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18115.htm

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#39

Post by reaperducer »

Sharlin wrote: post #20
kyberias wrote: post #13

It's a bit unclear why this exists. It seems to combine glyphs from 8-bit computers and place them in Unicode space even though the standard doesn't define many of them. I guess the reason is to be able to combine them in some "art". Perhaps those missing code points could be added by the Consortium based on this feedback.

> some ”art” Eh, text art is a venerable art form as old as teletypes.

Older than that, even.

It goes back at least to typewriter days. The women in the typing pools of large companies would make these and post them on the pin boards.

Imagine the kind of abstract thinking it took to do ASCII art with no delete key!

Re: Unscii – a bitmapped Unicode font for blocky graphics

#40

Post by coldtea »

ubernostrum wrote: post #36
coldtea wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a proposal to add them to Unicode, but the process takes a while Whereas if it was for adding some BS emojis, it would have been done in a week.

The process of proposing and adding an emoji to Unicode is slower and less easy than you seem to think it is.

And yet it happens like clockwork, with 200+ additions in the past several years and 100s more in the pipeline...

http://unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline.html

Except if you mean that some layman proposing a new emoji for addition to the Unicode standard is difficult -- but I'm talking about the big companies...

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