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Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

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Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#51

Post by amlib »

VorpalWay wrote: post #22

I 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…

I've been using it for a long time and I can't use a new computer or a work computer without it for long before I feel like my eyes are going bad. I specially like the bold version, seems to do well with my astigmatism, specially in reverse video/"dark mode".

I never knew there was a TTF variant, might be a good fit on software that stubbornly blurs it when rendering in hi-dpi.

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#52

Post by [deleted] »

0907 wrote: post #23

I'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 i…

[deleted]

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#53

Post by gorgoiler »

KronisLV wrote: post #37

Can confirm that Terminus is pretty nice, used it as my main programming font for a little bit, before moving over to Iosevka!

What I love most about Iosevka — and there are surely many things more than just one thing to love — is that it is not merely defined as a typeface using a fount encoding, but it is defined in a programming language. Of course it shows up in its router-sign aesthetics, but knowing how it is all defined is a huge part of its charm. A kind of Esperanto of faces.

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#55

Post by Lammy »

I am eternally annoyed at GNOME Project for, among many many other reasons, forcing the removal of bitmap font support as of Pango 1.44 due to forcing Harfbuzz as the only supported shaping library:

- https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-dire...

- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/-/issues/386

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#56

Post by TacticalCoder »

cladopa wrote: post #42

I 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 qual…

> One of the reasons for starting to use Linux was using high quality fonts with the terminal.

Yes! Speaking of Linux, I'm personally very font of Terminus.

I like it so much my main coding font is a modified, pixel-perfect (no AA at all) version of Terminus since forever (I modified a few letters like the 'l' and the 's' and took a few glyphs from a pixel-perfect Monaco font [like %, &, @ and modified those a bit too). I did it so many years ago I don't remember the process (but I've got notes about it, so I could redo it).

I'm on a (non-retina / non 4K) 38" ultra-wide display that does 3840x1600 natively (and it's the resolution I use). I love it for I can have three 1280x1600 "columns" side by side (but I'm using a tiling WM so I've got many preset layouts anyway). YMMV.

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#57

Post by TacticalCoder »

VorpalWay wrote: post #22

I 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…

Same. Pixel-perfect Terminus for the win in my terminals and in my beloved Emacs.

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#59

Post by jamiejquinn »

susam wrote: post #38

A few years ago, when I wrote my own Invaders-like game [1], I was quite unhappy with the rendering quality of the HTML Canvas fillText() method. The antialiasing introduced multiple shades of green, whereas I wanted to render the text in a solid monochrome green while the glyphs retained their crisp, jagged edges. Although `canvas { image-rendering: pixelated }` improved the crispness and jaggedness, it could not en…

Absolutely sublime attention to detail. Reminds me of the series on fonts in Josh Ge's blog on Cogmind (https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/09/cogmind-fonts/)

Re: Bitmap fonts make computers feel like computers again

#60

Post by ASalazarMX »

VorpalWay wrote: post #22

I 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…

Subpixel antialiasing works really well on low DPI monitors, though. When Microsoft implemented it, it felt like magic compared to bitmapped or regular font aliasing.
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