PET Graphics Chars?

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:30 pm

PETSCII Robots reminded me, yet again, of how nice and clear the PET's graphic characters looked.

And... well it made me want a hybrid character ROM for the X16: one with the C64's letter font, but the PET's graphics.

Is it wrong to want that?

DusanStrakl · Post by **DusanStrakl** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:03 pm

Haha nothing wrong with that. So far I built a skinny (light) font combined with original PETSCII fat graphics but might throw together other combinations as well, and of course the same combinations are possible also with Upper/Lower font and reduced graphics set.

https://www.8bitcoding.com/p/fonts.html

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:35 pm

Dusan, I wanted to thank you for your web pages -- the tutorials are really well written.

Greg King · Post by **Greg King** » Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:39 am

I prefer the VIC-20's fonts. The C64 (fat) fonts were designed for televisions, not monitors. The VIC-20 gives us (thin) fonts that are better suited for VGA. They are the Pet fonts except for the backslash (a British pound sterling sign on the VIC-20).

DusanStrakl · Post by **DusanStrakl** » Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:47 am

I just uploaded PET font to my Fonts library.

DusanStrakl · Post by **DusanStrakl** » Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:48 am

3 hours ago, rje said:

Dusan, I wanted to thank you for your web pages -- the tutorials are really well written.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

jjgignac · Post by **jjgignac** » Fri Jan 08, 2021 8:17 pm

On 10/20/2020 at 3:30 PM, rje said:

PETSCII Robots reminded me, yet again, of how nice and clear the PET's graphic characters looked.

And... well it made me want a hybrid character ROM for the X16: one with the C64's letter font, but the PET's graphics.

Is it wrong to want that?

I'd like to second this. According to this source (warning: PDF) the c64 graphic characters were made wider in order to look better on TVs. (Maybe this is still relevant for the x16?) The problem is that it often messes up continuity from one character box to the next. For example, this is why the famous "old-school maze demo" has weird gaps along diagonal lines on the c64 but not on the PET or VIC-20. For another example, if you want to draw a gradual slope using the vertical line graphics, it can move over by one pixel most of the time, but it has to move by two pixels when it reaches the character boundary.

I wouldn't be broken-hearted if this request is denied, but I think it's worth considering. How do we get this in front of the right decision-maker?

SlithyMatt · Post by **SlithyMatt** » Sat Jan 09, 2021 3:14 am

6 hours ago, jjgignac said:

How do we get this in front of the right decision-maker?

You be the decision maker. Create your own character set and load it into VRAM yourself. Ain't nothing stopping you.

jjgignac · Post by **jjgignac** » Sat Jan 09, 2021 4:32 am

1 hour ago, SlithyMatt said:

You be the decision maker. Create your own character set and load it into VRAM yourself. Ain't nothing stopping you.

Sure, obviously. But the suggestion is to make it the X16 default. Specifically, I'm suggesting (as I think @rje was too) that the default font should include the PET graphic characters and the C64 non-graphic characters.

rje · Post by **rje** » Sat Jan 09, 2021 5:10 pm

12 hours ago, jjgignac said:

Sure, obviously. But the suggestion is to make it the X16 default. Specifically, I'm suggesting (as I think @rje was too) that the default font should include the PET graphic characters and the C64 non-graphic characters.

If the ROM is flashable, then it's not much of an issue.

But it seems completely reasonable to me to revert to the PETSCII graphics chars since monitors are so crisp.