4 ms·

If you're interested in other tiny fonts: - PICO-8's 3x5 font with support for programming characters: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php?page=faq https://w

by sxp 3y ago

If you're interested in other tiny fonts: - PICO-8's 3x5 font with support for programming characters: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php?page=faq https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php?page=faq - Ken Perlin has an RGB stripe subpixel font. Unfortunately, the original page uses Java so I can't access it, but https://www.fastcompany.com/1662778/the-worlds-smallest-legible-font-for-an-lcd-screen https://www.fastcompany.com/1662778/the-worlds-smallest-legi... has more info. - Dotsies if you're willing to try very strange encodings: https://dotsies.org/ https://dotsies.org/ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33127419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33127419 has more examples.

dmitrygr 3y ago
I like Tom Thumb: https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1656341/tom-thumb https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1656341/tom-thumb
Avshalom 3y ago
obviously 8x8 is comparably enormous but https://damieng.com/typography/zx-origins/ https://damieng.com/typography/zx-origins/ has a great collection of fonts
- voidUpdate 3y ago
  Theres also the wonderful "Arcade Game Typography: The Art of Pixel Type" by Toshi Omigari which has pages and pages of fonts used in arcade games, sorted by style, most of which are 8x8
- NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
  Also; if you really, really want the old-skool feel of the Trident 8900 SVGA card you had in your early 90s PC-compatible, or your Toshiba laptop from the same period: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/ https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/
lencastre 3y ago
Mouse TTF
6510 3y ago
I believe mine, while very incomplete, given some practice, is the most readable of the lot. http://synesthesia.go-here.nl http://synesthesia.go-here.nl
sgustard 3y ago
Of related interest, the smallest grid needed for Simplified Chinese is 8x8: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16669/lowest-pixel-resolution-needed-to-support-chinese https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16669/lowest-pix...
dmazzoni 3y ago
I'm glad you linked to one with subpixel rendering. Considering that when we view text on a modern display we're almost always seeing anti-aliased grayscale pixels with subpixel rendering, it doesn't make sense to me that you'd design a font that doesn't take advantage of that. Why not even grayscale? Surely a few of the letters could be improved by using a pixel other than pure black or pure white?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
accrual 3y ago
A favorite of mine is the MonteCarlo Programmer Font [0]. I used it as my terminal font for a couple years. [0] https://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/ https://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/
- whhuh 3y ago
  It looks like it's been iterated on quite a few times. Here's an active descendant project, for anyone that might be interested: https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font
  - accrual 3y ago
    I didn't know about this, thanks for sharing!
dheera 3y ago
3x4 = 12 bits 52 upper/lower case letters + 10 numerals ≈ 64 = 6 bits It's kind of amazing that the overhead is only a factor of 2 to literally read BINARY data with my eyes. And that a 1bpp uncompressed image of a piece of text can be only 50% larger in file size than its .txt file and be readable.
- notorandit 3y ago
  Readability is in your own eyes. What it is readable for you, is not for me. Just map lower case to uppercase and replace any non alpha-num to a black square. This font is not for general use but just to squeeze text messages on tiny displays. TBH, I see all this pretty useless. While still interesting enough.
  - dheera 3y ago
    I'd say it's probably actually useful if you want to cram a lot of debugging info on a display like this for a small IOT device or something in the field. https://www.adafruit.com/product/3527 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3527
- cutemonster 3y ago
  Does this mean that ASCII / the Latin alphabet, is actually pretty good :-)

by sxp 3y ago

dmitrygr 3y ago

I like Tom Thumb: https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1656341/tom-thumb https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1656341/tom-thumb

Avshalom 3y ago

obviously 8x8 is comparably enormous but https://damieng.com/typography/zx-origins/ https://damieng.com/typography/zx-origins/ has a great collection of fonts

voidUpdate 3y ago
Theres also the wonderful "Arcade Game Typography: The Art of Pixel Type" by Toshi Omigari which has pages and pages of fonts used in arcade games, sorted by style, most of which are 8x8
NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
Also; if you really, really want the old-skool feel of the Trident 8900 SVGA card you had in your early 90s PC-compatible, or your Toshiba laptop from the same period: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/ https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/

lencastre 3y ago

Mouse TTF

6510 3y ago

I believe mine, while very incomplete, given some practice, is the most readable of the lot. http://synesthesia.go-here.nl http://synesthesia.go-here.nl

sgustard 3y ago

Of related interest, the smallest grid needed for Simplified Chinese is 8x8: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16669/lowest-pixel-resolution-needed-to-support-chinese https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16669/lowest-pix...

dmazzoni 3y ago

I'm glad you linked to one with subpixel rendering. Considering that when we view text on a modern display we're almost always seeing anti-aliased grayscale pixels with subpixel rendering, it doesn't make sense to me that you'd design a font that doesn't take advantage of that. Why not even grayscale? Surely a few of the letters could be improved by using a pixel other than pure black or pure white?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

accrual 3y ago

A favorite of mine is the MonteCarlo Programmer Font [0]. I used it as my terminal font for a couple years. [0] https://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/ https://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/

whhuh 3y ago
It looks like it's been iterated on quite a few times. Here's an active descendant project, for anyone that might be interested: https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font
- accrual 3y ago
  I didn't know about this, thanks for sharing!

dheera 3y ago

3x4 = 12 bits 52 upper/lower case letters + 10 numerals ≈ 64 = 6 bits It's kind of amazing that the overhead is only a factor of 2 to literally read BINARY data with my eyes. And that a 1bpp uncompressed image of a piece of text can be only 50% larger in file size than its .txt file and be readable.

notorandit 3y ago
Readability is in your own eyes. What it is readable for you, is not for me. Just map lower case to uppercase and replace any non alpha-num to a black square. This font is not for general use but just to squeeze text messages on tiny displays. TBH, I see all this pretty useless. While still interesting enough.
- dheera 3y ago
  I'd say it's probably actually useful if you want to cram a lot of debugging info on a display like this for a small IOT device or something in the field. https://www.adafruit.com/product/3527 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3527
cutemonster 3y ago
Does this mean that ASCII / the Latin alphabet, is actually pretty good :-)