Unscii is a set of bitmapped Unicode fonts based on classic system fonts.Unscii attempts to support character cell art well while also being suitablefor terminal and programming use.
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The two main variants are unscii-8 (8×8 pixels per glyph) and unscii-16(8×16). There are also several alternative styles for unscii-8, as well asan 8x16 'full' variant that incorporates missing Unicode glyphs fromFixedsys Excelsior and GNU Unifont. 'unscii-16-full' falls under GPL becauseof how Unifont is licensed; the other variants are in the Public Domain.
Unscii was created by Viznut.
This commit was created on GitHub.com and signed with a verified signature using GitHub’s key.
- Unscii is a set of bitmapped Unicode fonts based on classic system fonts. Unscii attempts to support character cell art well while also being suitable for terminal and programming use. The two main variants are unscii-8 (8×8 pixels per glyph) and unscii-16 (8×16).
- The basic routine is to design your bitmap font at either SD or HD resolution. Then re-export the same font with double or half the font size. For example, when I design fonts using Glyph Designer (highly recommended), I first create the Retina font and save it as font-hd.fnt. Let's say this has a font.
- And placing monochrome bitmap image onto a canvas. Most interesting thing is an ability to export created font into a binary or text data blob acceptable for usage in an embedded system. There is a comprehensive exporting procedure with many options inside Editor.
In 2020-03-10, the new Unicode version13.0 added 214 graphics characters for 'legacy computing' (including,among all, the missing PETSCII characters, and a majority of missingTeletext/Videotex characters). Most of these were already included in Unscii1.x, but now I have been able to give them proper Unicode mappings as well.This is the main reason for the Unscii 2.0 release.
Additionally, Unscii 2.0 fixes errors in some characters, legibility insome others and adds a bunch of new ones.
A test picture representing what is currently available in Unicode (feelfree to copy-paste it to your editor to see what it looks like in otherfonts):
Here are some conversions of legacy character set art into Unscii.
Amiga ansi: Divine Stylers by Hellbeard, as rendered with unscii-16.Source
PC ansi: Ansi Love by Rad Man, as rendered with unscii-16.Source
Commodore 64 petscii pictures as rendered with unscii-8, using the256-color xterm palette: I Has Floppy by Redcrab; The First Ball byDr.TerrorZ; Gary by Mermaid.
The source code package includes a generic bitmap-to-unscii converter. Here's an example of a conversion to unscii-8 using the 256-color xtermpalette, without dithering:
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HEX and PCF are the only actual bitmapped formats here. HEX is the samesimple hexdump format as used by the Unifont project. TTF, OTF and WOFFare vectorized.
NOTE: Due to format limitations, the PCF versions lack all the charactersabove U+FFFF! However, all the new graphics characters are provided in thegood old PUA range as well. A mapping is in the file uns2uni.tr.
unscii-16: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
unscii-8: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
unscii-8-tall: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
unscii-8-thin: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
unscii-8-alt: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
unscii-8-mcr: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
unscii-8-fantasy: hexpcfttfotfwoff |
Years ago, I noticed that Unicode had a bunch of pseudographic charactersthat could be used to enrichen Ansi art. However, no one seemed to use them.Even MUDs that used the 256-color Xterm palette and had no issues withUnicode still preferred to stick to the blocks available in the MS-DOScodepage 437.
After looking into existing Unicode fonts, the reason became obvious: theimplementation of non-CP437 graphics characters was shaky at best. UnicodeConsortium doesn't even care how pseudographics are implemented. It was akind of chicken-and-egg problem: No commonly accepted Unicode graphics font,no Unicode art scene; no art scene, no font support. The idea of anart-compatible Unicode font was born.
For Unscii, I studied a bunch of classic system fonts and how theircharacters had been used in Ascii and 'extended-Ascii' art.
8×8 system fonts can be divided in two major categories according totheir line thickness: 1-pixel and 2-pixel. 2-pixel-wide lines are used inmore prominent classic systems, so I chose it. Also, 2-pixel 8×8 systemfonts are surprisingly similar to one another which made it easier to chooseneutral shapes.
The basic look of the 8×8 variant of Unscii is based on the followingsystems:
- Amiga (Topaz-8)
- Amstrad CPC
- Atari 8-bit (as in 800, XL etc.)
- Atari Arcade (the iconic ROM font)
- Atari 32-bit (as in ST etc.)
- BBC Micro (graphics mode font)
- Commodore 64
- IBM PC (the 8×8 ROM font as in CGA, or VGA 80×50)
The 8×16 variant of Unscii has been mostly derived from the 8×8 variantby using a set of transformation principles. When in doubt, the followingfonts have been looked at for additional reference:
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- Windows Fixedsys 8×15 (and its modern successor Fixedsys Excelsior)
- IBM PC VGA ROM font(s) (and their modern successor U_VGA)
- X Window System fonts 8x13(B) and 9x15(B)
- Classic Macintosh 12-point Monaco
- Digital VT420 10×16 font (used in the 80×24 mode)
- Modern monospaced vector fonts: DejaVu Sans Mono, Lucida Console,Inconsolata
In general, neutral shapes are preferred, unless art, legibility orreadability require otherwise: The characters /XY are connective because oftheir connetive use in ascii art, and the serifs in iIl are longer than inmost classic systems.
Whenever a 8×16 shape has not been defined, Unscii falls back toheight-doubled 8×8.
I also studied game fonts and thin-line system fonts. This resulted inthe variants unscii-8-thin, unscii-8-mcr and unscii-8-fantasy.
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When studying legacy character sets, I found literally hundreds ofcharacters without proper Unicode codepoints. These are mapped in the PUArange as follows:
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- U+E080..E0FF: Teletext/Videotex block mosaics.
- U+E100..: The most prominent and useful non-Unicode pseudographics:everything found in PETSCII, Videotex smooth mosaics, extra shades,round corners, X/Y doublers.
- U+E800..: Somewhat stranger but still potentially useful: junctions withborder-aligned lines, diagonal line junctions, non-straight lines, weirderfill patterns, etc.
- U+EC00..: Total oddities. Mostly game-oriented bitmaps and otherdepictive characters from Sharp MZ, Aquarius, etc.
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Since Unicode 13.0, many of these are also available in Unicode, butthe PUA mappings are retained for compatibility.
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