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Why do all Windows consoles use crazy thick fonts? It always seems weird to me, as someone weaned on xterm.
by krakensden 13y ago
Why do all Windows consoles use crazy thick fonts? It always seems weird to me, as someone weaned on xterm.
- stephengillie 13y agoYou know the cmd and ps fonts can be changed, right?
- fragmede 13y agoFine. Let me restate GP's question: "Why do all Windows consoles use crazy thick fonts by default?"
- headbiznatch 13y agoBecause they had to pick something and you can't please anybody ever when picking typefaces?
- bluedino 13y agoFor one, they are bitmap fonts, based on what you'd usually see in video hardware ROM. Using a thinner font would cause DOS applications (the first, and main thing you'd run in a DOS box) to look really bad. Remember they would use things from the (character set)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437] to do windows and such in text video modes. In the current day, the non-bitmap fonts such as Consolas don't translate well when using things like RDP or other remote tools. Partially because you lose things like font smoothing which make them more readable and partially because of compression artifacts obscuring characters.
- krakensden 13y agoAlmost all Linux distributions without an Android userland have a nice selection of bitmap fonts that are noticeably thinner. I've never noticed ill effects in curses applications. Your last sentence is confusing to me. RDP supports ClearType, and lossy compression is disabled by default (and only arrived in what, 2008 R2?.)
- bluedino 13y agoThis is probably the answer you're looking for: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/default.aspx?PageIndex=232 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/default.aspx?PageIndex=2... TL/DR; The font has to support all the needed characters, plus not have have overhang etc which keeps the font from 'going outside the box'.