Show HN: My self-written hobby OS is finally running on my vintage IBM ThinkPad

Re:Show HN: My self-written hobby OS is finally running on m... by JdeBP on Saturday April 26, 2025 @02:12PM (#43805846)

One can really get bogged down in fonts. (-:

http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/terminal-resources.htm...

If you want a quick improvement over that 8by8 IBM ROM font, I suggest two things:

1. Switch to a 16by16 square.

2. For the ASCII range, go with one of the old home computer fonts, rather than IBM ROMs. Viznut has .hex files for Commodore PET and BBC Micro graphics modes squirrelled away inside Unscii.

I've done the work of upscaling the 8by8 PET font to 16by16, and it works quite nicely as a monospace square font. These old home computer fonts were of course designed to. Whereas in the world of VGA you're soon in trouble with glyphs designed for 9by16.

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Re:Show HN: My self-written hobby OS is finally running on m... by joexbayer on Saturday April 26, 2025 @02:18PM (#43805900)

Appreciate your response! Will have a look at 16by16 fonts.

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Re:Show HN: My self-written hobby OS is finally running on m... by ahefner on Saturday April 26, 2025 @03:44PM (#43806493)

The 8x16 font from the Atari ST's hi-res mode is pretty slick if you like something bold and a little futuristic. https://github.com/ntwk/atarist-font (or rip it directly from the ROM)

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Re:Show HN: My self-written hobby OS is finally running on m... by stuaxo on Friday May 02, 2025 @04:12AM (#43867354)

There are some bigger BDF fonts you can try in the Linux console, I assumed these were used on non x86 machines originally.

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