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Wow. I've been using 5px wide Fixed[1] for years because I'd never seen another font that is as readable that small, but this seems pretty nice. [1] https://en

by jolmg 5y ago

Wow. I've been using 5px wide Fixed[1] for years because I'd never seen another font that is as readable that small, but this seems pretty nice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_(typeface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_(typeface)

tyingq 5y ago
There are a fair amount of what you'll see described as 5px wide fonts, but are actually 4px wide. Just that every character has a blank column on the far right so that you can simplistically put chars one after the other. So you sometimes have to actually look at, for example, the H or W glyph to see if they really mean "5px wide" or not. This image, for example, is the "5x8 Spleen" font. If you zoom in, though, you can see it's really a 4px wide font: https://camo.githubusercontent.com/b2fa71fde615bd5510b5e9cb93e733bfb5fcc41bc2a1ed6358b17736cdc39695/68747470733a2f2f7777772e63616d6275732e6e65742f66696c65732f73706c65656e2f73706c65656e2d3578382e706e67 https://camo.githubusercontent.com/b2fa71fde615bd5510b5e9cb9...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jolmg 5y ago
  Sorry, I actually meant 5px without the space, because the HN title here says 4px despite it actually being 5px if you include the space. The font I use is actually 6px wide (the 6x9 version).
fouc 5y ago
Do you use 5px as your primary terminal/editor font size? What sort of screen/resolution do you use?
- jolmg 5y ago
  Yes, as well as for the window titles and panel bars for system status and other things. The resolution I'm mostly using right now is 1366x768. When I decided on that font I was using a netbook though, so the screen was quite smaller. The 5px font[1] allowed me to have terminals side-by-side on a tiling WM and still get 75 columns. Without it, I probably would have had to stick to seeing just one window at a time. I've since stopped using a netbook, but I still like maxing out my screen/terminal real-state with it. Right now on the resolution I said it's letting me have 3 terminals of 75 columns side-by-side. Although, I normally just stick to 2 terminals of 113 columns for those times when lines go over 80. Anyway, I find the font so crisp and readable that I've never felt a desire to change it. I'm getting a bit tempted by the font of this post, though. [1] It's actually one of the 6px-wide ones, the 6x9 version, but that includes the space to separate characters. I said 5px to compare with the HN title which says 4px despite that not including the spacing.
sp332 5y ago
There's a font called Flea's Knees that's sort-of 3 pixels wide. The pixels are different colors and it relies on LCD subpixel spacing to create the light-and-dark patterns. https://web.archive.org/web/20190705030013/http://www.typophile.com/node/61920 https://web.archive.org/web/20190705030013/http://www.typoph...
- jolmg 5y ago
  That's very interesting. I've never heard of subpixels being used to make fonts extremely small.

by jolmg 5y ago

tyingq 5y ago

There are a fair amount of what you'll see described as 5px wide fonts, but are actually 4px wide. Just that every character has a blank column on the far right so that you can simplistically put chars one after the other. So you sometimes have to actually look at, for example, the H or W glyph to see if they really mean "5px wide" or not. This image, for example, is the "5x8 Spleen" font. If you zoom in, though, you can see it's really a 4px wide font: https://camo.githubusercontent.com/b2fa71fde615bd5510b5e9cb93e733bfb5fcc41bc2a1ed6358b17736cdc39695/68747470733a2f2f7777772e63616d6275732e6e65742f66696c65732f73706c65656e2f73706c65656e2d3578382e706e67 https://camo.githubusercontent.com/b2fa71fde615bd5510b5e9cb9...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jolmg 5y ago
Sorry, I actually meant 5px without the space, because the HN title here says 4px despite it actually being 5px if you include the space. The font I use is actually 6px wide (the 6x9 version).

fouc 5y ago

Do you use 5px as your primary terminal/editor font size? What sort of screen/resolution do you use?

jolmg 5y ago
Yes, as well as for the window titles and panel bars for system status and other things. The resolution I'm mostly using right now is 1366x768. When I decided on that font I was using a netbook though, so the screen was quite smaller. The 5px font[1] allowed me to have terminals side-by-side on a tiling WM and still get 75 columns. Without it, I probably would have had to stick to seeing just one window at a time. I've since stopped using a netbook, but I still like maxing out my screen/terminal real-state with it. Right now on the resolution I said it's letting me have 3 terminals of 75 columns side-by-side. Although, I normally just stick to 2 terminals of 113 columns for those times when lines go over 80. Anyway, I find the font so crisp and readable that I've never felt a desire to change it. I'm getting a bit tempted by the font of this post, though. [1] It's actually one of the 6px-wide ones, the 6x9 version, but that includes the space to separate characters. I said 5px to compare with the HN title which says 4px despite that not including the spacing.

sp332 5y ago

There's a font called Flea's Knees that's sort-of 3 pixels wide. The pixels are different colors and it relies on LCD subpixel spacing to create the light-and-dark patterns. https://web.archive.org/web/20190705030013/http://www.typophile.com/node/61920 https://web.archive.org/web/20190705030013/http://www.typoph...

jolmg 5y ago
That's very interesting. I've never heard of subpixels being used to make fonts extremely small.