[gentoo-user] More than 256/512 glyphs on a Linux console

[gentoo-user] More than 256/512 glyphs on a Linux console

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Gentoo.

For the past few weeks, I've been working on enhancing the Linux console
to display more than 256/512 glyphs.

This afternoon, I finally succeeded in loading the font gsans16.psfu
(the source is available in a tar ball from the maintainer of psftools's
website).  This font has 810 glyphs, and with it, I can at last see the
names of East European posters correctly displayed.  It also has Greek
and Cyrillic characters, amongst many others.

My new code is intended to handle Unicode values over 0xffff, though it
can't do so at the moment since setfont passes the Unicode value in a
16-bit field.  This program could be modified easily enough to handle
general Unicode values.

The code isn't currently in a state to publish as a patch, but I could
bring it into such a state reasonably soon if there is any interest in
it.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] More than 256/512 glyphs on a Linux console

[Viorel Munteanu]

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La 11.02.2025 21:10, Alan Mackenzie a scris:
> Hello, Gentoo.
>
> For the past few weeks, I've been working on enhancing the Linux console
> to display more than 256/512 glyphs.
>
> This afternoon, I finally succeeded in loading the font gsans16.psfu
> (the source is available in a tar ball from the maintainer of psftools's
> website).  This font has 810 glyphs, and with it, I can at last see the
> names of East European posters correctly displayed.  It also has Greek
> and Cyrillic characters, amongst many others.
>
> My new code is intended to handle Unicode values over 0xffff, though it
> can't do so at the moment since setfont passes the Unicode value in a
> 16-bit field.  This program could be modified easily enough to handle
> general Unicode values.
>
> The code isn't currently in a state to publish as a patch, but I could
> bring it into such a state reasonably soon if there is any interest in
> it.
>
Wow, awesome!

I always thought the 256/512 glyphs was a hardware limitation, does this 
only work with a framebuffer?

I stopped using the bare console, so my interest in this is purely 
historical, but I'm glad someone out there is still doing this kind of 
stuff.


Viorel


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Re: [gentoo-user] More than 256/512 glyphs on a Linux console

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Viorel.

On Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 21:36:31 +0200, Viorel Munteanu wrote:
> La 11.02.2025 21:10, Alan Mackenzie a scris:
> > Hello, Gentoo.

> > For the past few weeks, I've been working on enhancing the Linux console
> > to display more than 256/512 glyphs.

> > This afternoon, I finally succeeded in loading the font gsans16.psfu
> > (the source is available in a tar ball from the maintainer of psftools's
> > website).  This font has 810 glyphs, and with it, I can at last see the
> > names of East European posters correctly displayed.  It also has Greek
> > and Cyrillic characters, amongst many others.

> > My new code is intended to handle Unicode values over 0xffff, though it
> > can't do so at the moment since setfont passes the Unicode value in a
> > 16-bit field.  This program could be modified easily enough to handle
> > general Unicode values.

> > The code isn't currently in a state to publish as a patch, but I could
> > bring it into such a state reasonably soon if there is any interest in
> > it.

> Wow, awesome!

> I always thought the 256/512 glyphs was a hardware limitation, does this 
> only work with a framebuffer?

Yes, this is for the framebuffer only.  The hardware limitation dates
from the 1980s.  I don't know how many people still use this sort of
hardware, but it surely can't be all that many, apart from displaying
boot messages before the framebuffer kicks in.

> I stopped using the bare console, so my interest in this is purely 
> historical, but I'm glad someone out there is still doing this kind of 
> stuff.

Thanks!  My view of the console is that it's a speedboat, specially
adapted for text work.  Doing that work in X Windows is like a speedboat
encrusted with barnacles.  Obviously other people see it differently.

> Viorel

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).