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Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

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Re: Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

#21

Post by GekkePrutser »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #5
phkahler wrote: post #3

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 RO…

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).

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)

Re: Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

#24

Post by kzrdude »

anthk wrote: post #19
rbanffy wrote: post #15

How do you dare to call these operating systems and computers “disused”?!

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.

So somewhere out there there are people sticking to Mac OS 9? Or earlier? That's rad

Re: Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

#25

Post by anthk »

kzrdude wrote: post #24
anthk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So somewhere out there there are people sticking to Mac OS 9? Or earlier? That's rad

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.

Re: Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

#26

Post by rbanffy »

anthk wrote: post #19
rbanffy wrote: post #15

How do you dare to call these operating systems and computers “disused”?!

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.

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.

Re: Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

#27

Post by rbanffy »

anthk wrote: post #25
kzrdude wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So somewhere out there there are people sticking to Mac OS 9? Or earlier? That's rad

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.

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.

Re: Hoard-of-bitfonts: bitmap fonts from disused operating systems

#28

Post by phkahler »

Someone wrote: post #7
phkahler wrote: post #3

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 RO…

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 ht…

We disassembled the 2k rom back then. There are routines for drawing text, character by character, pixel by pixel. The code is terribly not-optimized but fits in 2k including the character set. Hardware just has a single frame buffer at a fixed address. 4 pixels per byte, 32 bytes per line, and that includes over scan and horizontal blanking so 112 to 114 pixels wide 3 scan lines tall. Doubling the pixel clock, devoting more ram to it, and using the empty rom socket would have made it quite a machine for back then.
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