5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens • Hacker News Board

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#91

Post by ranger_danger » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

IvanK_net wrote: post #54

JoshTriplett wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Too bad "tiny screens" pretty much do not exist anymore. https://www.crystalfontz.com/product/cfal12856a00151b-128x56... - 128x56 https://www.crystalfontz.com/product/cfag12864u4nfi-128x64-t... - 128x64 There's a whole world of embedded devices with wide varieties of screen resolutions.

That is not a tiny screen, it has over 7 thousand pixels. I think you will not be able to read 5x5 pixel letters on that display (a letter would be about 1 mm tall).

What is your definition of a tiny screen?

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#92

Post by anthk » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 10:40 PM UTC

I remember a weird font with a special alphabet made of dots or something like that. Not Braille, it was for fast reading or such.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#93

Post by SyzygyRhythm » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:06 PM UTC

The ship computers in the old game Privateer (and probably Wing Commander) had a pretty nice pixel font. Most of the characters were 3x4, but with a few niceties: descenders (j, p, q) could go below the normal outline, and wide glyphs like m/n/w were more than 3 pixels wide. Overall, pretty readable for uppercase/lowercase/numerics, and included a few "futuristic" touches.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#94

Post by davebren » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

Somewhat relevant, I learned a mapping of individual characters to colors with a chrome extension I made, so the text size doesn't really matter since words are just sequences of colors. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/rainbow-text/jhkgcm...

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#95

Post by JKCalhoun » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:14 PM UTC

Gonna have to ask for a proportional version of this font.

I mean, look at the capital "I".

;-)

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#96

Post by dnnddidiej » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:24 PM UTC

Makes me wonder. Geeks are happy to learn a new keyboard layout. What about a new alphabet that can give higher on screen density of data. Now 3x3 isn't necessary because we have high res monitors. We need 26 distinguishable shapes for a-z.

In theory (focusing on non colourblind english speakers) there could be say 8 distinct colours and 8 shapes giving 64 chars.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#97

Post by mchl-mumo » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:31 PM UTC

dnnddidiej wrote: post #96

Makes me wonder. Geeks are happy to learn a new keyboard layout. What about a new alphabet that can give higher on screen density of data. Now 3x3 isn't necessary because we have high res monitors. We need 26 distinguishable shapes for a-z. In theory (focusing on non colourblind english speakers) there could be say 8 distinct colours and 8 shapes giving 64 chars.

This would be insanely cool. Building characters for the digital era not for handwriting.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#98

Post by DHowett » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:40 PM UTC

dnnddidiej wrote: post #96

Makes me wonder. Geeks are happy to learn a new keyboard layout. What about a new alphabet that can give higher on screen density of data. Now 3x3 isn't necessary because we have high res monitors. We need 26 distinguishable shapes for a-z. In theory (focusing on non colourblind english speakers) there could be say 8 distinct colours and 8 shapes giving 64 chars.

There was a project a while back that attempted to do this, named “Dotsies”.

https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/dotsies.htm (original site https://www.dotsies.org, which has a casual introduction text that slowly transitions into dots; however, it was unavailable at the time of writing.)

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#99

Post by fluoridation » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

dnnddidiej wrote: post #96

Makes me wonder. Geeks are happy to learn a new keyboard layout. What about a new alphabet that can give higher on screen density of data. Now 3x3 isn't necessary because we have high res monitors. We need 26 distinguishable shapes for a-z. In theory (focusing on non colourblind english speakers) there could be say 8 distinct colours and 8 shapes giving 64 chars.

Doesn't braille already cover this need?

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#100

Post by IvanK_net » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 11:55 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #65

IvanK_net wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you colorize grayscale photos of your grandmothers wedding? Seeing that a "neat tool" exists and using that "neat tool" are two diffrent things. Google Glass was neat, too.

Is there a particular reason you resent what other people enjoy researching and spending time on, enough so to post all this?

I am just saying that the colorization was needed in 1995, when 90% of people had black-and-white childhood photos.

But today, only 1% of people has black-and-white childhood photos. I just makes me want to argue when people pretend that it is still needed as much as in 1995 :D

I was also arguing with my friends about buying laptops with an optical drive ten years ago :D