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https://github.com/wyatt8740/ibm3161-font

The monospaced bitmap font from IBM's 1985 'ASCII Display Station' (terminal), the IBM 3161. Includes versions for a multitude of devices and platforms. (Also on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wyatt8740/IBM3161-font)
https://github.com/wyatt8740/ibm3161-font

80s ascii-characters ascii-text bitmap bitmap-fonts bitmap-versions font glyphs gnu-unifont ibm retro terminal terminal-graphics truetype ttf

Last synced: 3 months ago
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The monospaced bitmap font from IBM's 1985 'ASCII Display Station' (terminal), the IBM 3161. Includes versions for a multitude of devices and platforms. (Also on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/wyatt8740/IBM3161-font)

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README 

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



# Contents

  - [Introduction](#introduction) 

  - [Formats](#formats)

  - [Installation](#installation)

    - [Windows Installation](#windows-installation)

    - [Unix/X11 Installation](#unixx11-installation)

      - [X11 OTB/PCF Installation](#x11-otbpcf-installation)

      - [X11 TrueType Installation](#x11-truetype-installation)

      - [Linux Console (TTY) Installation](#linux-console-installation)

      - [FreeBSD Console Installation](#freebsd-console-installation)

    - [Mac OS X ('MacOS') Installation](#mac-os-x-macos-installation)

    - [Minecraft Installation](#minecraft-installation)

    - [Rockbox Installation](#rockbox-installation)

    - [GNU Emacs Installation](#gnu-emacs-installation)

  - [How I Made It](#how-i-made-it)

  - [Still Not Done](#still-not-done)

  - [Licensing](#licensing)



### [Introduction](#contents)

![Screenshot of the ASCII set on my terminal](http://i.imgur.com/f2eG8H8.png)



![Photo of IBM 3161 terminal with amber CRT playing the text-based adventure gam

e, Zork](http://i.imgur.com/MkboCJs.jpg)



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 0xFF (the basic ASCII set and first 'extended' bank), while I have

extended the font to cover through about 0x17F in the bitmap versions. Beyond

these thresholds, the font more or less falls back on the glyphs from Unifont,

which *almost* match the IBM font glyphs where applicable. This also means that

I can use the font for other languages like Japanese, which is handy in a

terminal if you are from an area of the world that does not use the latin

alphabet as much or when dealing with files from users of another language

in a terminal window.



Creating the truetype to the extent I already have took a lot of effort, due to

some flawed decision making early on in the process; while I plan to do better

going forward, the fact remains that fixing/translating the bitmap glyphs to

truetype is a lot of effort – too much for something I rarely use. All of the

essentials are still in the TTF, anyway, and I expect that I may slowly

continue to improve the TrueType going forward.



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](#contents)

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.



![Photo of font on an iPod running Rockbox](https://i.imgur.com/UsE8YDw.jpg)



## [Installation](#contents)

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](#contents)

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](#contents)

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 OpenBSD and FreeBSD, where I have tried it

personally.



#### [X11 OTB/PCF Installation](#contents)

The instructions for installing the X11 PCF font are in the

[X11/README.md](X11/README.md) file.



#### [X11 TrueType Installation](#contents)

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](#contents)

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.



The `setfont` command line program should also be able to apply it on a

specific TTY on a one-off basis.



#### [FreeBSD Console Installation](#contents)

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](#contents)

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](#contents)

Instructions to install the Minecraft version of the font are under the

`minecraft/` directory.



### [Rockbox Installation](#contents)

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.



### [GNU Emacs Installation](#contents)

There are two main ways to go about this. The first is to just use the truetype

font. If I remember correctly, that spaces out everything correctly.



The regular OTB version gets all characters padded out to 16px, regardless of

their actual width. On account of this, it is not recommended.



However, the OTB file `8wide/IBM3161APL.otb` should work. This is (if I

remember correctly) named as such because it is derived from the APL variant of

Unifont. I discovered that the APL variant of Unifont does seem to render

correctly in emacs, and so I made a similar variant of it for my own font.



I am not sure if it's actually because it's the APL variant, or because maybe

emacs tries to prioritize `pcf` style fonts over `otb` ones. Or maybe something

else FreeType related. But whatever the case may be, if you install

`IBM3161APL.otb` somewhere (I have it in `~/.fonts/`), you should be able to

make it work in GNU emacs with `m-x customize`, or else manually add it to

`custom-set-faces` in your emacs initialization file (usually `~/.emacs` or

`~/.emacs.d/init.el`).



An example (from my `custom-set-faces` elisp) follows.



The most important line to focus on is the one containing the string

`IBM3161APL`. The rest is just provided for context. There's almost nothing I

dislike as much as insufficient context when looking at code samples,

especially in unfamiliar languages.



    (custom-set-faces

     ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.

     ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.

     ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.

     ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.

     '(default ((t (:family "IBM3161APL" :foundry "PfEd" :slant normal :weight normal :height 128 :width normal))))

     '(term-color-blue ((t (:background "#2272D9" :foreground "#2272D9"))))

     '(term-color-cyan ((t (:background "#06989A" :foreground "#06989A"))))

     '(term-color-green ((t (:background "#4E9A06" :foreground "#4E9A06"))))

     '(term-color-magenta ((t (:background "#A168AB" :foreground "#A168AB"))))

     '(term-color-red ((t (:background "#CC0000" :foreground "#CC0000"))))

     '(term-color-white ((t (:background "#D3D7CF" :foreground "#D3D7CF"))))

     '(term-color-yellow ((t (:background "#C4A000" :foreground "#C4A000"))))

     '(tooltip ((t (:inherit tooltip-ui :background "lightyellow" :foreground "black")))))



If someone knows why this `IBM3161APL` variant actually works when the regular

OTB doesn't, please tell me about it. I really would like to know!



## [How I Made It](#contents)

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](http://imgur.com/a/XHyDb) (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.



If you want to hack on this yourself, I'd suggest using the .hex file as a

jumping-off point if you want to be able to generate truetype versions. Merge

it with the hex sources of Unifont.



## [Still Not Done](#contents)

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](https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font).



If anyone wants to add them, I will point you to [the photos of the terminal's

screen in its 'testing' mode,](http://imgur.com/a/XHyDb) 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](#contents)

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](http://unifoundry.com/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](http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL#5667e9e4), 

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 © 2017-2023 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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