GDOS recommendation for Atari Works

[6BQ5]

The topic may have been covered before ... but, let's do it again.

 

I just installed Atari Works and I was told by the installation process that I am missing GDOS. That means I don't have a lot, if any, fun fonts to play with. It turns out there are a few versions of GDOS available. There's the original GDOS, the improved SpeedoDOS, NVDI, and others.

 

I understand the format and representation of the fonts changed along the way for faster processing. Is there a format that has more fonts available for it?

 

Which one has proven the test of time that I should install?

 

Thanks!

[Zogging Hell]

Either Speedo or Nvdi will be the best choices,the last versions of both allow you to use standard Truetype fonts. NVDI has the bonus of a screen accelerator. Don't bother with original GDOS, it is a ball ache to set up, with different fonts needed for the screen and the specific printer.  They are also bitmap fonts for the original, which look great at the size they are designed for, but you can't resize them without becoming a pixelly mess.

[6BQ5]

Thanks! Do Speedo and NVDI share the same font file format? I read somewhere that NVDI only comes with two fonts. Now I can't find the page. It would be nice to have more than two fonts.

[Zogging Hell]

Both can do Truetype (as long as you get Speedo 5 - the earlier revisions don't support Truetype) so you can nick the fonts off your PC if you want. Speedo also does Speedo vector fonts (some of which come with the package), which were a very expensive font type back in the 80s/ 90s, and unsurprisingly (given the name) are pretty fast at rendering. I'm not sure if Bitstream, who made the speedo fonts is still going, and the fonts were not that widely available and cost a packet. Speedo fonts are probably better quality than Truetype but due to the cost never took on. I believe Speedo GDOS may also do another font type (postscript type 1 maybe?). Both packages will also load the old style GEM bitmap fonts as used by the original GDOS. NVDI does only come with a Times Roman u-like font called Baskerville, and a sans serif font called Franklin Gothic (iirc), which I suppose is a bit like Arial. But as I say you can pretty much use any Truetype font you can find out there.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Zogging Hell
spelling of font name