The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack • Hacker News Board

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#61

Post by teach » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 1:33 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #60

Elv13 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most implementations of markdown allow inline La/Tex and HTML, this is the best of both world. You have plain text notes and the power to inline some math. I would also suggest iPython notebook (if you can live with web apps, I don't) as it allow you to see what you write in real time and add some code too (and being able to use mathplotlib). That being said, I used computer to take note in high school (The KDE3 vers…

I'm thinking of giving markdown a try, for the reasons you say, but I'm not sure how the maths notation looks like when it's not rendered. I think it's all escaped characters, in which case it won't be as readable as plain text, even with rare glyphs that need special fonts. Some text editors even let you enter rare characters with key combinations (frex, Vim's digraphs). The end result is pretty much WYSIWIG mathema…

I'm not sure you're using the term "ASCII" correctly. There are virtually no characters in ASCII that aren't printed on a key on a typical US keyboard.

Especially when you say "with a font that has all the necessary characters". ASCII is ASCII. All fonts (except Wingdings) have 100% of the ASCII characters.

Maybe you're pasting in Unicode; maybe you're using the Windows-only ALT-numeric keypad garbage.

But I suspect your "nice formula" that renders in a text editor maybe isn't as clean or standard as you think.

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#62

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 8:18 AM UTC

teach wrote: post #61

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking of giving markdown a try, for the reasons you say, but I'm not sure how the maths notation looks like when it's not rendered. I think it's all escaped characters, in which case it won't be as readable as plain text, even with rare glyphs that need special fonts. Some text editors even let you enter rare characters with key combinations (frex, Vim's digraphs). The end result is pretty much WYSIWIG mathema…

I'm not sure you're using the term "ASCII" correctly. There are virtually no characters in ASCII that aren't printed on a key on a typical US keyboard. Especially when you say "with a font that has all the necessary characters". ASCII is ASCII. All fonts (except Wingdings) have 100% of the ASCII characters. Maybe you're pasting in Unicode; maybe you're using the Windows-only ALT-numeric keypad garbage. But I suspect…

Sorry, I meant "unicode", not ASCII, my bad. :)

I can't edit it unfortunately so it has to stay there, in perpetuity reminding me of my failings in life.

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#63

Post by rbanffy » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 9:11 AM UTC

mschaef wrote: post #58

rbanffy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that having a nice separate character generator ROM for use with their TTL monitore (both for the CGA and the MDA) wound increase the cost. Damn bean counters. I remember the frustration that my Apple II+ with Videx card (plugged to a monochrome monitor through composite) had nicer looking text than the IBM (mono CGA on RGBi) next to it. Even more infuriating, it was also better than the much better specced A…

Yeah... IBM CGA text wasn't that good even in the best of circumstances. The 640x200 resolution and 8x8 character cells were really inadequate. Part of the reason for this is that IBM split the market into CGA for graphics and MDA for better text (9x14 character cell). Because the MDA adapter didn't display graphics, IBM made it possible to run both a CGA and a MDA in the same machine. Software like Lotus 1-2-3 could…

> Dual monitors in the mid-80's.

I had that on my II+. Motherboard would drive the modified 16" TV (40 column, graphics) and a Videx Videoterm-like card would drive the monochrome monitor with beautiful (for the time) text.

I remember that in the late 80's I started seeing MDA/CGA hybrids that would drive MDA monitors with CGA-compatible text modes with MDA-like fonts and PWM grays. By then I was getting used and their ugliness no longer offended me.

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#64

Post by rbanffy » Fri, Feb 05, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #53

rbanffy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only PC ever to ship with composite video output was the PC Jr. (edit: sadly, no, it wasn't) I became fond of the white on blue scheme with the MSX machines, but kind of abandoned it when I moved to PCs.

Not only did the CGA have composite out, but by playing with the signal timings it was possible for a CGA to output more colors than the four nasty "CGA palette" colors it's known for (no matter which palette you use, shit's nasty) to a composite monitor. The demoscene prod "8088MPH" demonstrates this to spectacular effect.

> The demoscene prod "8088MPH" demonstrates this to spectacular effect.

I thought those were on an RGB screen. All the more impressed by the brilliance of those guys.

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#65

Post by bitwize » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 1:02 PM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #59

bitwize wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only did the CGA have composite out, but by playing with the signal timings it was possible for a CGA to output more colors than the four nasty "CGA palette" colors it's known for (no matter which palette you use, shit's nasty) to a composite monitor. The demoscene prod "8088MPH" demonstrates this to spectacular effect.

It was also very simple to just use the 640x480 graphics mode on a composite display. US NTSC color cycles 160 times in that display area, which yields 4 pixels per cycle. That's a 16 color, any color any pixel display 160x200. Some PC games offered this option. It should have been in the CGA spec. For memory reasons, 1 and 2 bits per pixel were common. However, the same amount of RAM offers the full color set at a r…

The drawback to this mode is it looks like ass on anything but a composite display -- which not a lot of people actually hooked up their CGAs to.

There was also a hack to set the display to text mode and reprogram the character height to fit 100 characters vertically on the screen, then use chopped-off block graphics characters to yield, in effect, a 160x100, 16-color, any color any monitor (composite or RGB) pseudo-graphics mode that compared favorably to, say, the 128x48 mono pseudo-graphics mode of the TRS-80. More PC games made use of this mode; one of the more notable recent ones is Paku Paku, a (remarkably good) Pac-Man clone.

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#66

Post by ddingus » Sat, Feb 06, 2016, 6:36 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #65

ddingus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also very simple to just use the 640x480 graphics mode on a composite display. US NTSC color cycles 160 times in that display area, which yields 4 pixels per cycle. That's a 16 color, any color any pixel display 160x200. Some PC games offered this option. It should have been in the CGA spec. For memory reasons, 1 and 2 bits per pixel were common. However, the same amount of RAM offers the full color set at a r…

The drawback to this mode is it looks like ass on anything but a composite display -- which not a lot of people actually hooked up their CGAs to. There was also a hack to set the display to text mode and reprogram the character height to fit 100 characters vertically on the screen, then use chopped-off block graphics characters to yield, in effect, a 160x100, 16-color, any color any monitor (composite or RGB) pseudo-…

Yes, all tradeoffs. Of course, it was not too difficult to have multiple sets of art.

I like 160x100 presentations and thought they were a good use of the CGA personally. A lot of game can be done at that resolution.

Really, the thing for IBM to have done was 16 color graphics of some kind. 160x200 was the obvious choice in that it would have worked with their memory scan scheme.

Re: The Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack

#67

Post by bgar » Sun, Feb 07, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #60

Elv13 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most implementations of markdown allow inline La/Tex and HTML, this is the best of both world. You have plain text notes and the power to inline some math. I would also suggest iPython notebook (if you can live with web apps, I don't) as it allow you to see what you write in real time and add some code too (and being able to use mathplotlib). That being said, I used computer to take note in high school (The KDE3 vers…

I'm thinking of giving markdown a try, for the reasons you say, but I'm not sure how the maths notation looks like when it's not rendered. I think it's all escaped characters, in which case it won't be as readable as plain text, even with rare glyphs that need special fonts. Some text editors even let you enter rare characters with key combinations (frex, Vim's digraphs). The end result is pretty much WYSIWIG mathema…

If you use Emacs' Org mode, you can actually convert parts of the buffer to LaTeX and have them inline. This solves the problem of equations being not as readable as you're writing.