Show HN: Original 8x16 ASCII Fixed Width Font: Classic Console Neue (opens in new tab)

(webdraft.hu)

132 pointsdeejayy1y ago38 comments

38 comments

Another option in this space is Modern DOS - https://notabug.org/HarvettFox96/ttf-moderndos

I like it for its even-more-permissive license and the slashed instead of dotted zero.

Wow, thanks for Cyrillic, Armenian and Georgian, not many fonts have support for all three. Will definitely give it a shot. Iosevka doesn’t have Armenian and Georgian, for instance.

ptspts1y ago

VGA text mode displayed 8x16 fonts as 9x16, either repeating the rightmost column or displaying an empty rightmost column.

Is there a 9x16 version of this font?

theandrewbailey1y ago

> either repeating the rightmost column or displaying an empty rightmost column

I always look for the lowercase m. All the strokes should be equally thick, but on 8x16 it has a thin middle stroke.

ink_131y ago

From a different source, yes, at int10h.org

pimlottc1y ago

This seems like a bit of a hodgepodge; I'm not sure all these character sets were supported back in the DOS days and some of the character, like the runic ones, seem too big. It would be nice to know where these are all sourced from.

EDIT: without the extra letter spacing added in the character samples, you can see how some of the wider characters run into their neighbors:

   javascript:document.styleSheets[0].insertRule('.character-list { letter-spacing: normal !important }')

deejayyOP1y ago

There were multiple sources I used, first started with dosbox, checked all codepages' ascii chart, made a screenshot, went thru all characters. Then I found int10h, crosschecked a few to not miss anything. Some glyphs are result of just the combination of letters and mods (accented characters mostly).

Then I found a pixel font which has about 40k glyphs as I remember, so I checked which can be derived from it in the style of the original VGA font.

pimlottc1y ago

Thanks, you should put this info on the page!

Leynos1y ago

I wondered if the runes were taken from an Ultima game, but they don't match those in screenshots of Ultima V nor VI.

conradolandia1y ago

It's elder futhark, younger futhark and anglo-frisian runes. They are part of the Unicode spec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_(Unicode_block)

1 more reply

pimlottc1y ago

Yeah, I played a lot of Ultima back in the day and I don’t recognize those. Doesn’t match Ultima III, for sure.

1 more reply

matvore1y ago

This is the default font of my browser-based terminal emulator, http://github.com/google/werm, along with a handful of other retro fonts (uses the int10h.org ttf's--converted to bitmaps--which I suspect has all the same characters as Neue)

stonogo1y ago

Would be nice if this person collaborated with this project: https://www.inp.nsk.su/~bolkhov/files/fonts/univga/index.htm...

Each seems to have glyphs the other is missing.

atulvi1y ago

I'll pay for one of these that look good in vscode and supports ligatures. One can dream.

b3lm0nt1y ago

Fixedsys Excelsior might get you close (TTF, with ligatures).

https://github.com/kika/fixedsys

anyfoo1y ago

They never look right.

It's not just the fact that it should be 9x16 instead of 8x16, or that sometimes (often?) the aspect ratio is off, it's something fundamental about how that 9x16 VGA font was rendered on CRTs.

A really good CRT emulation on a really good flatscreen monitor can maybe simulate the VGA text mode experience of the day, but so far I haven't really seen it.

ink_131y ago

int10h.org has the 9x16 version, also with corrected aspect ratio as it would have appeared on systems with non-square pixels

anyfoo1y ago

I know, very familiar with that one, and still, it's not the same.

1 more reply

rob741y ago

Actually, I think "that" font (I don't know how it's called or if it even had a name) was originally designed to be shown 8 pixels wide and then simply reused when the 9x16 matrix was introduced (the 9th column being always blank or repeating the 8th column for block-drawing characters that required it). Which explains why the "background pattern" characters (0xB0, 0xB1 and 0xB2) look so ugly when shown 9 pixels wide. IMHO the whole font looked really ugly - back in the day I built a utility that stored a custom font in a codepage file to replace the standard font, and added (amongst others) new patterns with the pattern restricted to three 2-pixel-wide columns and two blank columns in between (2+1+2+1+2 = 8, which together with the default blank 9th column produced a nice regular pattern). Unfortunately there was no GitHub back then, otherwise I would have probably published it (or found out that someone had already done the same thing, as it often goes)...

matvore1y ago

IMO it still looks rather nostalgic. I do remember using cmd.exe or command.exe in Windows 95 and later and this being the default (but it would different if you had a different legacy code page set, IIRC). Of course cmd.exe just rendered the pixels as-is, no emulation or retro effects.

sim7c001y ago

most VGA txt mode machines have a BIOS function to dump the font out of the device to mem. easy to grab it if u want a specific one and have the hardware. (this also works in qemu if someone needs a font in early boot and dont wanna grab their own font). nice for if u wanna go to gfx mode but dont want to load ur own font / keep same style text between the stages.

fouc1y ago

Did you adjust your resolution to compare? the 15" CRT was usually 800x600 or 1024x768 in those days.

anyfoo1y ago

720x350 for the pervasive 80x25 text mode actually (a resolution which wasn’t commonly used at that time for graphics modes otherwise).

I’ve mentioned in another comment what I think may be missing for it to look right.

And I’m not really being nitpicky I think. It really evokes rather little about what this era looked like with “just” the right pixels at the right place.

2 more replies

cowsaymoo1y ago

Here is a more extensive font resource (and awesome website): https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/

qwertox1y ago

Thank you, great site!

An apparently less extensive resource is

https://www.programmingfonts.org/

and

https://www.nerdfonts.com/

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

38 comments

hakfoo1y ago

Another option in this space is Modern DOS - https://notabug.org/HarvettFox96/ttf-moderndos

I like it for its even-more-permissive license and the slashed instead of dotted zero.

untech1y ago

Wow, thanks for Cyrillic, Armenian and Georgian, not many fonts have support for all three. Will definitely give it a shot. Iosevka doesn’t have Armenian and Georgian, for instance.

ptspts1y ago

VGA text mode displayed 8x16 fonts as 9x16, either repeating the rightmost column or displaying an empty rightmost column.

Is there a 9x16 version of this font?

theandrewbailey1y ago

> either repeating the rightmost column or displaying an empty rightmost column

I always look for the lowercase m. All the strokes should be equally thick, but on 8x16 it has a thin middle stroke.

ink_131y ago

From a different source, yes, at int10h.org

pimlottc1y ago

EDIT: without the extra letter spacing added in the character samples, you can see how some of the wider characters run into their neighbors:

   javascript:document.styleSheets[0].insertRule('.character-list { letter-spacing: normal !important }')

deejayyOP1y ago

Then I found a pixel font which has about 40k glyphs as I remember, so I checked which can be derived from it in the style of the original VGA font.

pimlottc1y ago

Thanks, you should put this info on the page!

Leynos1y ago

I wondered if the runes were taken from an Ultima game, but they don't match those in screenshots of Ultima V nor VI.

conradolandia1y ago

It's elder futhark, younger futhark and anglo-frisian runes. They are part of the Unicode spec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_(Unicode_block)

1 more reply

pimlottc1y ago

Yeah, I played a lot of Ultima back in the day and I don’t recognize those. Doesn’t match Ultima III, for sure.

1 more reply

matvore1y ago

stonogo1y ago

Would be nice if this person collaborated with this project: https://www.inp.nsk.su/~bolkhov/files/fonts/univga/index.htm...

Each seems to have glyphs the other is missing.

atulvi1y ago

I'll pay for one of these that look good in vscode and supports ligatures. One can dream.

b3lm0nt1y ago

Fixedsys Excelsior might get you close (TTF, with ligatures).

https://github.com/kika/fixedsys

anyfoo1y ago

They never look right.

It's not just the fact that it should be 9x16 instead of 8x16, or that sometimes (often?) the aspect ratio is off, it's something fundamental about how that 9x16 VGA font was rendered on CRTs.

A really good CRT emulation on a really good flatscreen monitor can maybe simulate the VGA text mode experience of the day, but so far I haven't really seen it.

ink_131y ago

int10h.org has the 9x16 version, also with corrected aspect ratio as it would have appeared on systems with non-square pixels

anyfoo1y ago

I know, very familiar with that one, and still, it's not the same.

1 more reply

rob741y ago

matvore1y ago

sim7c001y ago

fouc1y ago

Did you adjust your resolution to compare? the 15" CRT was usually 800x600 or 1024x768 in those days.

anyfoo1y ago

720x350 for the pervasive 80x25 text mode actually (a resolution which wasn’t commonly used at that time for graphics modes otherwise).

I’ve mentioned in another comment what I think may be missing for it to look right.

And I’m not really being nitpicky I think. It really evokes rather little about what this era looked like with “just” the right pixels at the right place.

2 more replies

cowsaymoo1y ago

Here is a more extensive font resource (and awesome website): https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/

qwertox1y ago

Thank you, great site!

An apparently less extensive resource is

https://www.programmingfonts.org/

and

https://www.nerdfonts.com/

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse