Why is Greybeard listed as "License: Custom, double-check before reuse" when the LICENSE file in the repo is MIT?
Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#42I have a different opinion. I had access to real terminals when I was young and they had amazingly sharp fonts. They had hardwired optically etched fonts and were incredible. 100% smooth.
I had to work with DOS screens that were sketched to different aspect ratios and blurred and it was so painful, specially after having seen proper fonts on the screen.
One of the reasons for starting to use Linux was using high quality fonts with the terminal.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#43Glad I have a good font in my browser to read such nonsense.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#44I often question myself on why the aesthetics of personal computing were so special our brains that it sticks to this day.
Perhaps because we grew up with it. The VGA 8x16 font reminds me of growing up when I had my first computer that was all mine, with a plasma display where the pixels were clearly visible, yet quite restful on the eyes.
the nostalgia doesn't check all the boxes, even though yeah it's hard to deny, but it embodies a different mindset, a strange limited visual form that promised the future. it was also its own kind of design and aesthetic, today we have infinitely capable machines and all possible fonts but we lost that difference.
ps: i have the same relationship to vintage desktop computer form factor, something about an old blocky box, an hdd led, a cd drive
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#45Well written article, a great eye opener. I did not at all consider the bitmap fonts in context of aesthetics, which is such an oversight.
The fonts presented do look amazing, so absolutely will ck figure my terminal with one of them.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#46I 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…
I started programming on an IBM 1620 with 20,000 BCD digits of memory, 20 usec to add 2 digits, 160 usec for branch not taken, 200 usec for branch taken. I remember these and many other details but I have no desire to go back because I'm not an idiot. The first computer I owned was an Amiga 1000, to which I added a 50 MB hard drive that cost me $1000. Again, no desire to go back. Same with bad fonts.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#47Sometimes I think all the HN "get off my lawn" postings need to be moved to another site.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#48Ai writing
It's so bad that whenever I click on blog post I don't start by reading the content, first I skim to see if it's even worth my time. This one is not. > The part I keep coming back to Immediately caught my eye. Reading in... > Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again. Not abstract “digital products”. Not generic interfaces. Not frictionless panels pretending to be neutral. Actual computers. Aaand there it…
It's gotten to the point where I barely even skim first. I sort of unfocus my eyes and can sometimes see the shape of LLM writing. Sort of like when I'm birding and I switch from eagle vision to owl vision, and I can ID a bird just by catching the way the light reflects off its wingflash in the corner of my vision.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I very intentionally didn't say serifs were more legible than sans-serif.
There are reasons people like them more than just that "they're used to them", however. I named a couple of them. Just because they originated in stone doesn't mean we kept using them for the same reason. A lot of things originate for one reason and then become used for other reasons.
Believe me, I got "used to" bitmap fonts throughout the 80's and 90's. But I still always preferred the 300dpi version of a document from my LaserWriter and then inkjet. Getting used to bitmap fonts never meant preferring them for general computer usage. Jaggies that appear arbitrarily on some strokes but not others is not visually pleasing. Nostalgic, maybe, but virtually never anything you'd choose if you weren't intentionally trying to create a retro vibe.
Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again
#50Conspicuously missing to this list is uwe's ttyp0 [0].
One of the few bitmap fonts (with terminus) having somewhat complete unicode support and going to very large pixel sizes, so that they are visible on modern screens with tiny pixels.