2018-03-19 00:14:48 +02:00
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An oldschool fixed-width pixel font / v1.00
1. What's this?
2. Contents
3. Sizes & display
4. Formats & encodings
5. 'Plus' version notes
6. Bonus DOS stuff
7. Credits & acknowledgements
8. Contact
9. Legal stuff
---------------
1. WHAT'S THIS?
===============
BigBlue Terminal is a monospaced pixel font, designed for use in fixed-
width textual environments (consoles/terminals, text/code/hex editors and
so on). It follows the metrics and dimensions of Windows' old Terminal
font (at the 9pt/12px size), but the appearance is closer to the classic
IBM PC text mode character sets.
At 8x12 pixels, Terminal is nicely compact and useful, but also kind of
ugly. Instead, BigBlue Terminal is closely based on IBM's 8x14 EGA/VGA
charset -- I just like it better. Basically, that font has been squeezed
and modified to fit into a 8x12-pixel cell. For the extended 'Plus'
version, many additional Unicode characters have been added to support
international scripts and symbol sets.
-----------
2. CONTENTS
===========
BigBlue_TerminalPlus.TTF BigBlue TerminalPlus
TrueType font
Multi-language Unicode character set
BigBlue_Terminal_437TT.TTF BigBlue Terminal 437TT
TrueType font
Codepage 437 (DOS/OEM-US) mapped to Unicode
Bigblue_Terminal_437BM.FON BigBlue Terminal 437BM
Windows bitmap format
Code page 437 (DOS/OEM-US)
BLUETERM.F12 Raw bitmap font data
BLUETERM.COM TSR font loader for DOS/VGA
README.TXT This file
LICENSE.TXT CC-BY-SA 4.0 license terms
------------------
3. SIZES & DISPLAY
==================
3.1. Pixel and point sizes
--------------------------
The native font size is 8x12. Since this is a pixel font, it'll look
best at a size of 12 pixels (or integer multiples of 12), whether you're
using the bitmap or TrueType versions. Otherwise you *will* get fugly
artifacted scaling.
On Windows, this translate to 9 pt (at the default screen density of 96
PPI); on Mac, you'll want 12 pt (72 PPI). Do the math for other screen
densities. On newfangled super-high-PPI displays, scaling artifacts
become less apparent, so you may be able to get away with arbitrary
sizes.
3.2. Rendering
--------------
Current operating systems usually have subpixel anti-aliasing enabled by
default: ClearType on Windows, FreeType on Linux, Core Text on Mac OS X.
This is less than ideal for TrueType pixel fonts, since it may introduce
a sort of "color fringing" effect in some cases.
In practice I don't find it *that* noticeable, but it bothers you, you
can get rid of it. On Windows, turn ClearType off or use the bitmap
(.FON) version. On Linux, there are ways to disable anti-aliasing for
specific fonts with FreeType. You'll have to see your docs/the web on
how to pull that off though.
----------------------
4. FORMATS & ENCODINGS
======================
4.1. BigBlue Terminal 437TT (TrueType, CP437 charset)
------------------------------------------------------
This version features the Codepage 437 character set (DOS/OEM-US). Since
any TrueType font can (and should) include a Unicode character map, this
is still a Unicode font, and has multi-platform support as such.
CP437 can be problematic to map to Unicode, due to characters 00h-1Fh and
7Fh: they can be interpreted either as control codes, or as graphical
symbols. Thus there are two 'canonical' Unicode maps for CP437, and
software that expects one of them may not play nice with the other one.
This font covers both bases in the same mapping: the problem characters
are duplicated so that your program will find them at either placement.
Windows detects the font as an "OEM/DOS" one, and you can use it in any
program/environment that understands this charset (including the Command
Prompt). The same will be true on other platforms, as long as your
software is properly configured -- RTFM, GIYF, etc.
4.2. BigBlue TerminalPlus (TrueType, extended charset)
-------------------------------------------------------
This is more of a "Unicode font" as most people grok the term. On top of
the CP437 range, this version supports extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic
and Hebrew scripts plus a bunch of additional glyphs and Unicode symbols.
There are 782 characters in total (more than the Windows Glyph List 4 --
in fact the entire WGL4 range is there). Some were based on various
international codepages, others were drawn entirely by hand to match the
visual style. A handful of the cp437 characters had to be remapped (see
the next section), but they're all still around as well.
4.3. BigBlue Terminal 437BM (Windows bitmap, CP437 charset)
------------------------------------------------------------
A straight bitmap version of the DOS/CP437 charset. This may still be
more useful than 437TT in certain situations:
* You don't need to modify the registry to use it in the Command Prompt
(or any console window).
* .FON isn't Unicode, so this version can force the CP437 encoding on
programs like Notepad, which insist on failing miserably otherwise.
* Bitmap fonts aren't subject to ClearType subpixel anti-aliasing.
-------------------------------------
5. 'PLUS' VERSION CHARACTER MAP NOTES
=====================================
If you care about this sort of thing, you can use your favorite font
viewer to see the full character range. Windows has charmap.exe (I like
SIL ViewGlyph better), OS X has Font Book, etc. A few things that may be
of interest about the expanded 'Plus' character mapping:
* Alternate number forms: there's a flat-top "3" mapped to U+01B7
('Latin capital letter Ezh'), which is more easily distinguished from
the Cyrillic letter Ze. Also, two alternative zeroes (dotted and
slashed) are mapped to U+2299 ('circled dot operator') and U+2300
('diameter symbol') respectively.
* Cursor shapes: Unicode character U+2581 ('lower one eight block') can
be used to mimic the classic text-mode cursor appearance. U+2584
('lower half block') and U+2588 ('full block') could also stand in for
those respective cursor forms, too.
* The 'Plus' version includes a full Greek alphabet, which takes over
the code points that Unicode assigns to the Greek/Math characters from
DOS codepage 437. Instead of just dropping the CP437 originals, I
tried to preserve them at remapped code points that make *some* sense.
Here's what's changed:
CP437 Canonical mapping from Modified 'Plus' mapping
Char CP437 to Unicode from CP437 to Unicode
------- ---------------------------- --------------------------
� (E0h) U+03B1 'Greek small Alpha' U+0251 'Latin small Alpha'
� (E1h) U+00DF 'Latin small Sharp S' U+03D0 'Greek Beta symbol'
� (E2h) U+0393 'Greek capital Gamma' U+1D26 'Small capital Gamma'
� (E3h) U+03C0 'Greek small Pi' U+1D28 'Small capital Pi'
� (E4h) U+03A3 'Greek capital Sigma' U+2211 'N-ary Summation'
� (E5h) U+03C3 'Greek small Sigma' U+01A1 'Small o with horn'
� (E7h) U+03C4 'Greek small Tau' U+1D1B 'Small capital T'
� (E8h) U+03A6 'Greek capital Phi' U+0278 'Latin small Phi'
� (E9h) U+0398 'Greek capital Theta' U+03F4 'Capital Theta symbol'
� (EAh) U+03A9 'Greek capital Omega' U+2126 'Ohm symbol'
� (EBh) U+03B4 'Greek small Delta' U+1E9F 'Latin small Delta'
� (EDh) U+03C6 'Greek small Phi' U+2205 'Empty set'
� (EEh) U+03B5 'Greek small Epsilon' U+2208 'Element of'
------------------
6. BONUS DOS STUFF
==================
Yes, you can get BigBlue Terminal working in actual DOS too, because you
are just THAT oldschool! The following files will let you do that on any
VGA-compatible DOS machine (or in DOSBox, PCEm and so on).
* BLUETERM.COM: a TSR program (courtesy of ripsaw8080) that gives you
a 640x480 text mode with the 8x12 font -- 80 rows by 40 columns. It
persists across mode changes, and I find it nice to use in DOSBox,
since 640x480 is a square-pixel resolution and doesn't get mangled by
aspect correction.
* BLUETERM.F12: the raw bitmap font data, usable with any font-loading
program such as Yossi Gil's LOADFONT (from the widespread FNTCOL16
archive). You'll typically get the standard 400-line text mode, and
with a 12-scanline font this gives you 33 rows of text.
-----------------------------
7. CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
=============================
- Fonts, documentation and ASCII logo by VileR.
THANKS TO:
----------
- ripsaw8080, for providing the code for the TSR DOS version (and for
granting permission to include it here)
- Rebecca G. Bettencourt/Kreative Korp, for responding to my inquiries
with a surprise open-source release of the awesome Bits'n'Picas bitmap-
to-outline converter
TOOLS USED:
-----------
- Bitmap font editing: Fony 1.4.7 by hukka < http: // hukka . ncn . fi /? fony >
- Bitmap-to-outline vectorization: Bits'n'Picas by Kreative Korp
< https: / / github . com / kreativekorp / bitsnpicas >
- TrueType font editing, fine-tuning, re-encoding etc.: FontForge by
George Williams and the FontForge Project < http: / / fontforge . github . io / >
- Windows .TTF testing/viewing: SIL ViewGlyph v1.81.0 by Bob Hallissy/
SIL International < http: / / scripts . sil . org / ViewGlyph_home >
----------
8. CONTACT
==========
I can be reached at: email - viler -AT- int10h -DOT- org
www - http://int10h.org
blog - http://8088mph.blogspot.com
Spam and/or excessive dumbness will be ignored, deleted, spindled and
mutilated.
--------------
9. LEGAL STUFF
==============
BigBlue Terminal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
You should have received a copy of the license along with this work. If
not, see < http: / / creativecommons . org / licenses / by-sa / 4 . 0 / > .
(c) 2015 VileR
## Which font?
### TL;DR
2023-04-30 21:05:46 +02:00
* Pick your font family:
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* If you are limited to monospaced fonts (because of your terminal, etc) then pick a font with `Nerd Font Mono` (or `NFM` ).
* If you want to have bigger icons (usually around 1.5 normal letters wide) pick a font without `Mono` i.e. `Nerd Font` (or `NF` ). Most terminals support this, but ymmv.
* If you work in a proportional context (GUI elements or edit a presentation etc) pick a font with `Nerd Font Propo` (or `NFP` ).
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2019-07-09 08:39:17 +02:00
### Ligatures
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Ligatures are generally preserved in the patched fonts.
Nerd Fonts `v2.0.0` had no ligatures in the `Nerd Font Mono` fonts, this has been dropped with `v2.1.0` .
If you have a ligature-aware terminal and don't want ligatures you can (usually) disable them in the terminal settings.
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### Explanation
Once you narrow down your font choice of family (`Droid Sans`, `Inconsolata` , etc) and style (`bold`, `italic` , etc) you have 2 main choices:
#### `Option 1: Download already patched font`
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* For a stable version download a font package from the [release page ](https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases )
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* Or download the development version from the folders here
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#### `Option 2: Patch your own font`
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* Patch your own variations with the various options provided by the font patcher (i.e. not include all symbols for smaller font size)
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For more information see: [The FAQ ](https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/wiki/FAQ-and-Troubleshooting#which-font )
[SIL-RFN]:http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web_fonts_and_RFNs#14cbfd4a
