There's a whole subculture for fonts smaller than 8 by 8, with real world uses for things such as small LED displays, for example. This is at the extreme end, though.
Thanks for sharing this. I enjoy seeing these cool subcultures; they evoke the hacker ethos.
JohnDeHope•49m ago
I’m not a hacker but I really appreciate their ethos. It’s like punk. I’m not punk either. But I will defend it all with my dying breathe.
hdjrudni•53m ago
> such as small LED displays
The highest DPI screen is 127,000 PPI. You could fit over 14,000 lines of 8x8 text in a single inch tall screen.
For reference, a decent monitor is 140 PPI.
I'm pretty sure we don't need to go below 8x8 if physical size is the issue.
crq-yml•25m ago
Pad grid controllers like the Novation Launchpad, and its indie, open-source counterpart, Mystrix Pro, have an 8x8 grid. At first this style of controller didn't use any lights, but as the manufacturing and features progressed, they went towards one RGB LED per pad. So, of course, you end up doing some text and graphics on the resulting grid. Mystrix uses a scrolling marquee which isn't ideal, but does get the job done.
And yeah, you could throw on more hardware to have a display nearby and use that for text. That is not the problem being solved though.
iguessthislldo•44m ago
That one is relatively easier to read, I guess because it looks like normal font that was cut into strips.
omoikane•30m ago
I wonder if there are really tiny fonts that make use of color. For example, this 2-pixel wide Picket Right font could theoretically be even thinner if we were to use sub-pixel features.
At least, I think the 2-pixel high Two Slice font can be more legible with a some anti-aliasing.
matznerd•1h ago
okay but what about "c" being nearly the same as "z", neither of which look like the character and are nearly(?) identical. Is our brain supposed to just be able to figure it out?
cal85•1h ago
yeah I can read it ok
addaon•1h ago
Capital H is cursed... unconnected pixels, indistinguishable from 'ii' or "II". The concept's cool, but for this one point the wrong choice was made.
jasonjmcghee•1h ago
I'm more concerned about V X Y all being identical.
How will I know if it's waxy or wavy?
throwaway808081•52m ago
Like all of language: context.
Why would hair be like 80s synthpop, or potatoes be in any way related to a by-product of honey?
PenguinRevolver•41m ago
Try reading "HiGh sky buys The lies" in the font. Pretty difficult to make out what it says...
kelvinquee•1h ago
Love this. Brings so much joy. Try some punctuation. Hilarity ensues.
BSOhealth•34m ago
I love this. It speaks to me in a similar ways as a lot of the AI zeitgeist—why shouldn’t we optimize for how the brain actually operates at scale versus hundreds-years-old ideas about ligatures designed for reading in candlelight? (In the AI case, a romanticism for having to learn and prove memory in such a rote way)
JdeBP•3h ago
Also https://stormgold.itch.io/picket-right-font
malnourish•1h ago
JohnDeHope•49m ago
hdjrudni•53m ago
The highest DPI screen is 127,000 PPI. You could fit over 14,000 lines of 8x8 text in a single inch tall screen.
For reference, a decent monitor is 140 PPI.
I'm pretty sure we don't need to go below 8x8 if physical size is the issue.
crq-yml•25m ago
And yeah, you could throw on more hardware to have a display nearby and use that for text. That is not the problem being solved though.
iguessthislldo•44m ago
omoikane•30m ago
At least, I think the 2-pixel high Two Slice font can be more legible with a some anti-aliasing.