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5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

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Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#101

Post by archargelod »

Most tiny fonts are actually terrible to read at a glance especially when they're rendered at 1:1 scale. I've had a need couple years ago for a very tiny and compact font for a game mod I was making. And after trying a lot of 33, 35, even 2*5 fonts - they were all terrible to read.

In the end, I found "Gremlin-3x6" font[0] made by the guy named zephram. It's 1 pixel taller, but still a very compact when laid out horizontally. But, most importantly, all standard latin characters are pretty distinct from each other and it remains readable without zooming in too much.

Unfortunately, since then, zephram deleted his fontstruct account and all of his fonts. I have a copy of this font in my mod repo[1] along with a CC0 license and you can see the actual rendering of the font in the project screenshots[2].

[0] - https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1488093

[1] - https://codeberg.org/janAkali/isaac-extended-icons-mod/src/b...

[2] - https://codeberg.org/janAkali/isaac-extended-icons-mod/media...

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#102

Post by GaryBluto »

graybeardhacker wrote: post #32
ramses0 wrote: post #4

...and don't forget "twoslice": https://joefatula.com/twoslice.html I haven't done the pixel-by-pixel deviation checking, but they may be comparable and independently derived!

Can people read that? I want to do a study to see the cognitive difference between people who can read that and those who can't. I can't at all.

I tried copying a random line of text, pasted it into the textbox and could read most of it. Only a few words tripped me up.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#103

Post by jkonline »

JohnDotAwesome wrote: post #76
FelipeCortez wrote: post #10

1x5 can also work if you take advantage of subpixel rendering https://www.msarnoff.org/millitext/

Amazing. I zoomed in with my phone on the generated image and was surprised to see I could just make out the text! https://storage.j0.hn/subpixelfont.png - Also wow my screen is dirty af

Suggest you check your .htaccess (or however you secure your server) for storage.j0.hn.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#108

Post by ciupicri »

archargelod wrote: post #101

Most tiny fonts are actually terrible to read at a glance especially when they're rendered at 1:1 scale. I've had a need couple years ago for a very tiny and compact font for a game mod I was making. And after trying a lot of 3 3, 3 5, even 2*5 fonts - they were all terrible to read. In the end, I found "Gremlin-3x6" font[0] made by the guy named zephram. It's 1 pixel taller, but still a very compact when laid out ho…

> The server returned a "404 Not Found".

for [0]

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#109

Post by thwarted »

This reminded me of work to get the C64 to do 80 columns in software, using a 3x7 pixel grid (with one row and column used for spacing), some of which were part of commercial products.

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=901

> Creating a 4×8 character set that is both readable and looks good is not easy. There has to be a one-pixel gap between characters, so characters can effectively only be 3 pixels wide. For characters like “M” and “N”, this is a challenge.

Re: 5x5 Pixel font for tiny screens

#110

Post by archargelod »

ciupicri wrote: post #108
archargelod wrote: post #101

Most tiny fonts are actually terrible to read at a glance especially when they're rendered at 1:1 scale. I've had a need couple years ago for a very tiny and compact font for a game mod I was making. And after trying a lot of 3 3, 3 5, even 2*5 fonts - they were all terrible to read. In the end, I found "Gremlin-3x6" font[0] made by the guy named zephram. It's 1 pixel taller, but still a very compact when laid out ho…

> The server returned a "404 Not Found". for [0]

As I explained in the last paragraph of my comment, it was deleted for some reason. I also couldn't find any archives of that page. I only added the link to show where I got the font from, in case people will miss the link inside the license file.
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