I gave this some thought in the past, and, since this is more of an artistic/crafting endavor than anything else I'd say we decide on some arbitrary rules (like "only monospace fonts, no external javascript, only static content", I don't know, I'm just spitballing here) and create our own certification to display at the top of the page (like the omnipresent top-right oblique ribbon of yesterdecade or, even better, the little badges we used at the turn of the century), then we make a central list where people can add their website.
So most of the Japanese amateur internet? :V
(CJK fonts are mostly monospace.)
I think that's a great idea. You can go a long way with just Unicode these days: https://gwern.net/utext
All you need HTML/CSS for in an ordinary Gemini/gopher/Markdown-style document is clickable hyperlinks, really, and you can hack that by alternating a bit of HTML or by client-side convention.
15 space, 1 V, 3 U, 1 V
15 space, 5 U
12 space, 2 x, 5 U, 2 x
and then after 250 lines, a pic of Jordan dunking would show up once done and we could print it!
I found this https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/48753/does-the-use-of...
- > In Universal Principles of Design, the entry on legibility states: Proportionally spaced typefaces are preferred over monospaced.
- It's unclear if that book provides further evidence to this statement
- > One famous research on this is Beldie I. P., Pastoor S. & Schwarz E, 1983, “Fixed versus variable letter width for televised text”, Human Factors, 25, pp.273-277, where part of the results include: The reading time (Task 1) with the variable-matrix character design was 69.1 s on the average, and the mean reading time with the fixed-matrix character set was 73.3 s, t (8) = 2.76, p < 0.02. The difference is 4.2 s or 6.1% (related to fixed-matrix characters).
- I couldn't find a pdf of that one in particular. The difference seems small
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929021014673...
- > Comic Sans MS, Arial and Times New Roman typefaces, regardless of size, were found to be more readable (as measured by a reading efficiency score) than Courier New.
- small sample size 27 children. also the children preferred comic sans... we could pick a cooler monospace font than courier new
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10209-015-0438-8
- > It was found that larger text and larger character spacings lead the participants with and without dyslexia to read significantly faster
- unclear if those were monospaced
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/20925173_Reading_wi...
> We compared the effects of fixed and variable (proportional) spacing on reading speeds and found variable pitch to yield better performance at medium and large character sizes and fixed pitch to be superior for character sizes approaching the acuity limit.
Or maybe more resources here: https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/readability_and_accessibi...
People tend to apply results from proportional font studies to monospace fonts. I guess monospace text isn't popular enough to get its own studies.
We need more readability A/B tests in general.
I agree, monospace without color and some formatting is like giving up a sense or spatial dimension. It's pointless austerity.
Spacing is a challenge. And you lose some legibility giving up proportional fonts. I think kerning in proportional fonts makes a big difference, letting your eyes recognize the shape of different letter groupings.
Monospace text is fine if you avoid long-form text, like when it's structured and highlighted in a code editor.
But it sure is pretty! Especially with Unicode charts and ASCII art.