Ai writing
Attacking the source of the message instead of the merits. Ad-HomineLLM
an article written by an AI about fonts, when the AI fundamentally does not look at rendered text, is inherently without merit
Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
21–30 of 88 posts
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#22I use Terminus TTF for my terminal and text editor. I fully agree with their description of it as a workhorse font. The Gohu font they mention also seem interesting.
In general bitmap fonts avoid the blurryness of modern font rendering made for high DPI monitors, which fails spectacularly on low DPI monitors (which is what I still have). And blurry text give me literal headaches. And this is why I gave up on anything but bitmap fonts in recent years.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#23I've dabbled a few times in writing bitmap font parsers for both technically constrained and artistic projects. There is a reason that design has resolved to the same few cliches, because expectability, latent understanding, and 'obviousness' reduces onboarding curve and fatigue. It's a cognitive accessibility issue before you even get to legitimate accessibility concerns. Render a .F16 at anything larger than 16px in a modern application and you're introducing issues which are solved, quantitatively and qualitatively, by vector graphics and antialiasing. There's an optimistic naivety which is nice to have, but misunderstands design as a conduit for informed action vs design as an aesthetic function independent of intent is legitimately dangerous if you're doing anything other than building narrative products emulating older tech.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#24This is like the (fortunately brief) fad of ‘shabby chic’ — it's a signal that you've never had to suffer the real thing.
Couldn't disagree more, I get headaches from blurry text, so I daily drive Terminus TTF, and have done so for years. Modern font rendering really has becole quite terrible unless you own a high DPI screen, even when using full hinting.
And no, subpixel anti-aliasing doesn't help, the colour bleeding is even worse.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#25Ai writing
Attacking the source of the message instead of the merits. Ad-HomineLLM
Who would want to read about the thoughts of an AI?
All it knows about your thoughts are from what text you already fed it with, and it will end up adding things you don't intend or agree with. Even just telling it to fix grammar it can subtly do this.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
>jaggies are a visual distraction So are serifs, and people don't complain about those. Whether any "visual distraction" actually distracts you is a matter of what you're accustomed to. If you read enough cursive or blackletter it will start to look normal to you. I disable anti-aliasing because I'm accustomed to aliasing and it doesn't distract me at all. In exchange, I get sharp text on an 1080p monitor, effectivel…
Serifs are chosen intentionally to be harmonious with the overall letterforms. They provide a feeling of visual stability and additional cues for recognizing letterforms. They provide a kind of consistency. They're not a distraction. Jaggies come from a limitation of the pixel grid. They arbitrarily make diagonal strokes and curves bumpy while horizontal and vertical strokes are perfectly smooth, an inconsistency tha…
Serifs are a skeuomorphic artifact of stone-carved text. They're no more legible than sans-serif fonts (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492894 ). The only reason people like them is because they're used to them. You can get the same feeling from bitmap fonts if you read them enough.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#27I often question myself on why the aesthetics of personal computing were so special our brains that it sticks to this day.
Because there were constraints. Name it: CPU speed, RAM, screen size, connection speed, whatever. We long for those days when we had to sit back and think the problem out instead of adding another package import.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#28> Bitmap fonts are the ones that look perfect at their intended resolution. This seems to be the center of the author's argument. But I prefer legibility, readability, being easy on the eye. I also prefer antialiasing for its smoothness. Every screen I have has been Retina for a long time. I greatly appreciate that text is now as legible as it is in books. No distracting jaggies. I don't want my computer to feel like…
> Every screen I have has been Retina for a long time. I greatly appreciate that text is now as legible as it is in books. No distracting jaggies.
Not all of us are in that position, and modern font rendering has gotten really bad on non-high DPI monitors, so using a bitmap font has been a way to get rid of the blur and get back to sharp crisp text.
For me, I'd rather have jagged text than a blurry literally headache inducing mess.
That said, the issue here isn't that one is better than the other, but that for some people one or the other is easier to read, and the right answer is that all of this need to be configurable. Just like light and dark mode.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#29I often question myself on why the aesthetics of personal computing were so special our brains that it sticks to this day.
It was an era when you could know a machine. I had a C64 and had a huge chunk of its kernal addresses memorized from sheer repetition. You could remember its whole ISA and timings. The memory map was learnable. The hardware interfaces were simple.
I have zero desire to use a C64 again, aside from the occasional nostalgia pang for a specific game or program. But I do miss that feeling of complete, total understand of the thing in front of me. I think that’s the feeling that implanted on me, and that the aesthetics conjure. “Hey, the world is complicated, but this font looks a lot like the time when you felt like you knew everything.”
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#30This is like the (fortunately brief) fad of ‘shabby chic’ — it's a signal that you've never had to suffer the real thing.
Couldn't disagree more, I get headaches from blurry text, so I daily drive Terminus TTF, and have done so for years. Modern font rendering really has becole quite terrible unless you own a high DPI screen, even when using full hinting. And no, subpixel anti-aliasing doesn't help, the colour bleeding is even worse.
Buy a modern monitor or just run your display at a low res and disable antialiasing? Phones are now 500 PPI+, theres no real excuse for using a low DPI screen.