This is a very basic repository for my IBM 3161 ASCII terminal font.

Contents

• Introduction
• Formats
• Installation
  • Windows Installation
  • Unix/X11 Installation
    • X11 OTB/PCF Installation
    • X11 TrueType Installation
    • Linux Console (TTY) Installation
    • FreeBSD Console Installation
  • Mac OS X ('MacOS') Installation
  • Minecraft Installation
  • Rockbox Installation
• How I Made It
• Still Not Done
• Licensing

Introduction

This repository contains a bitmap version of the font as well as a (slightly less complete) truetype version created through GNU Unifont's "tracing" program which it uses to create its truetype versions. The truetype covers 0x00 through 0x7F (the basic ASCII set), where I have extended the font to cover through 0xFF in the bitmap versions (I generated the truetype before I added 0x80-0xFF into the bitmap, and I don't have access anymore to the scripts I made to convert to a truetype. They are too much effort for something I rarely use, and all of the essentials are still in the TTF anyway).

I also have included the Fontforge Spline Font Database (SFD) files, which are uncompressed text (and thus pretty big; sorry). If you just want to use the font, I therefore suggest downloading the zip on the 'releases' page instead of cloning the repo.

I used GNU Unifont as a base because it looks somewhat similar and covers a lot of Unicode above the basic ASCII set my IBM terminal supports. Additionally, its sources contained some useful tools for automatically performing transformations on fonts.

Formats

Since I first created this font, I have been finding more and more formats I can convert it to! Whenever I find another format to port to, I do so and then add a commit here. Most recently, an Amiga version (made in Workbench 1.3 on an Amiga 500), as well as Minecraft, Rockbox, and an X11 emacs-specific font (to fix strange rendering issues) have been added.

This font is also available in a Minecraft 1.11-and-up compatible resource pack. With minor tweaking it should also work for earlier and future versions. Conveniently, Minecraft uses GNU Unifont for unicode text, which is also the base for my font - this made it simple to add by modifying some tools included with the Unifont source distribution to export the font.

Installation

This depends on your platform, but I will try to lay out what works where. For some exotic formats (e.g. Minecraft, Rockbox) the directions are in the ports' respective subdirectories.

Why install both the bitmap and TrueType versions?

On Unix/Linux and Windows platforms the bitmap versions benefit from not getting any software subpixel rendering attempted on them like the TrueType font does. This is probably true in OS X as well, but I only tested the .dfont version of the font in OS X on account of not actually having regular access to OS X. (the dfont is a bitmap-only font, so it probably won't be subpixel rendered.)

Windows Installation

On Windows, you will want the windows bitmap .fon file and/or the TrueType font (.ttf). They can be copied manually to C:\Windows\Fonts, or installed from the font previewer.

Unix/X11 Installation

In (non-OS X/NextSTEP) Unix and Linux distros with X11, you'll want the OpenType bitmap (.otb) and/or the TrueType font (.ttf).

There is also a PCF font (old-school X11 font) that it may be a good idea to install for programs like xterm and the GUI version of emacs.

Installing all three versions (TTF, OTB, and PCF) lets you use the font with nearly any program on a Unix system. The TTF and OTB can be selected with most 'font chooser' GUI programs, while the PCF is useful for traditional X11 programs like xterm and is usually set through a text configuration file like ~/.Xresources or ~/.emacs.

I think this will be the same on the BSD's with X11 as it is for Linux distros, since they share a codebase for their X servers and FreeType.

It definitely is the same in FreeBSD, where I have tried it personally.

X11 OTB/PCF Installation

The instructions for installing the X11 PCF font are in the X11/README.md file.

X11 TrueType Installation

Copy the .ttf file to either a local font path (such as ~/.fonts, or to a system-wide font path (such as /usr/share/fonts/). These paths are probably distro and OS dependant.

Linux Console Installation

This only for sure applies to Debian and derivatives. It might be different on distros that I have not tried, but I bet it works there, too. Copy linux-console/IBM3161.psf to /usr/share/consolefonts/IBM3161.psf. Then, edit /etc/default/console-setup, and add/change the FONT= line to read:

FONT="IBM3161.psf"

You're done. You might have to reboot for it to show everywhere.

FreeBSD Console Installation

To-do: write up the FreeBSD console installation. I currently haven't gotten it to change in every terminal, just the primary one that you watch the boot process in. I am hoping I don't have to recompile the kernel to get it everywhere.

I assure you, it does work in FreeBSD, though.

Mac OS X ('MacOS') Installation

On Apple systems (OS X), you'll want to use the '.dfont' file. If that fails, try the .ttf or the .pt3 (PS type 3). IIRC, the installation process was relatively intuitive.

I don't yet know how it would be installed on "classic" Mac OS. If anyone has a System 7 or lower floppy which I can use to start up my Mac Plus, please let me know about it (Or you could send me a better classic mac!)

Minecraft Installation

Instructions to install the Minecraft version of the font are under the minecraft/ directory.

Rockbox Installation

Rockbox is an alternative firmware for many mp3 players. It has been tested on my iPod Classic. Instructions are of course in the rockbox/ directory.

I cannot support this port anymore until I can get a new CompactFlash card, as the one in my iPod just failed and the hard drive failed many years ago. Feel free to shoot me a question, but I might not be able to answer it.

How I Made It

I screen-scraped the font from my IBM 3161 by hand via its built-in "test" mode, where it prints out its entire ASCII character set on a single screen. As a result, I cannot guarantee it to be 100% accurate in terms of spacing between characters, but I can say that I personally have yet to notice anything wrong with it. I have used it in my terminal emulator exclusively for five months now.

You can find some of the images I used here (though I have others that I did with a different amber CRT; I still need to dig those files up).

As such, I am as confident as one can be when using guesswork and (to an extent) tracing the letters in CAD and transforming my photos of the screen to correct for the CRT's curvature. I am certain that the vertical pixels are accurate, as I can make out individual scans of the electron beam in my photos. I am relatively certain that the horizontal pixels are accurate based on common sense, the fact that most characters would look wildly incorrect if shifted over a pixel, and from some trigonometry I did using the CAD tracings. Character 0x7F is a checkerboard pattern, which made it easy for me to find out what the aspect ratio of each 'pixel' is on the CRT near the center of the display.

If I had a ROM dumper, I could also dump the ROM's within the terminal, as they are all socketed. This may happen in the future, but I have been using this font within my terminal emulators and in other places for the last year and not yet found any problems.

Still Not Done

My font does not currently supply most of the non-ASCII "Extended" characters that are in the real 3161 (characters above 0x7F). Even those characters that have unicode equivalents do not have them associated with the same 'numbers' as they have in the terminal, and I am not clever/talented/obsessive enough to map those all out since I never use them. Additionally, some characters do not have a unicode equivalent that I am aware of at all.

I would also like to try to turn the 3161 part of it (not the whole of Unifont) into a proper TTF font, meaning one that doesn't look pixellated but is made using vectors for the various angles in the typeface. If you want an example of somebody who has done this for a similar (but not identical!) font, see rbanffy/3270font.

If anyone wants to add them, I will point you to the photos of the terminal's screen in its 'testing' mode, which contains a full printout of all of the characters the terminal is capable of displaying. Feel free to send me a pull request!

Licensing

These font files are licensed under the GNU General Public License (where applicable), either version 2 or (at your option) a later version, with the exception that embedding the font in a document does not in itself constitute a violation of the license. The full terms of the license are in GNU Unifont's LICENSE.txt. This license is inherited because I have based my font on GNU Unifont for nearly all non-ASCII characters.

If you wish to use only the glyphs that I created (0x00-0x7F in the truetype, or 0x00-0xFF plus unicode superscript and subscript numerical digits in the bitmap), those glyphs are licensed (at your option) under the GNU GPL version 2 or later (with the aforementioned exception regarding embedding), the SIL Open Font License, version 1.1, or the 3-Clause BSD License, which is reproduced below. Additionally, contact me if you wish to use it in another project or product under incompatible terms and I promise I'll be accommodating/not a jerk about it. It might even be free.

Copyright © 2017-2020 Wyatt Ward

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

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