SoundGammon Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 Can anyone do a semi complete text/font with an editor to make all the alphabet and numbers match the ones at the bottom of the screen in Star Raiders? I would like to burn into an eprom/hack and put it into my 400 computer so that ALL the text on the top part of the screen matches the bottom! Thanks, Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asommer Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 It may be in this repo: https://github.com/TheRobotFactory/EightBit-Atari-Fonts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 How complete is the font in the original ROM? I guess it's highly likely to only contain the needed characters, numbers & symbols, probably not even a full 1K. There's a lot of the "Computer" or "MICR Ink" type fonts that are "close", but not quite, especially when comparing the "K" character in the screensot above... Here's a quick reference catalogue I made up in the past from the github repo as per @asommer: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 46 minutes ago, Nezgar said: How complete is the font in the original ROM? I guess it's highly likely to only contain the needed characters, numbers & symbols, probably not even a full 1K. There's a lot of the "Computer" or "MICR Ink" type fonts that are "close", but not quite, especially when comparing the "K" character in the screensot above... Here's a quick reference catalogue I made up in the past from the github repo as per @asommer: The character set is about 1K in both the 8-bit and the 5200. Best to replace it as a "set" so everything is in the right place. I saw a couple of interesting fonts from the link above, but surprised there was no TRON set! I have a Compute disk in my collection that lets one make their own character/font set that has it. I believe it has a view mode that lets you see what it will look like in different graphic modes. Here's a screen shot of my custom 5200 font: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 Just now, SoundGammon said: The character set is about 1K in both the 8-bit and the 5200. Indeed it is exactly 1K. 1024 bytes. But when used in the Graphics 1/2 modes it only uses half of it, 512 bytes... hence my pondering if there's actually 1KB of character set in the 8KB star raiders ROM - there's not much wiggle room in that ROM. ROM space could be saved by copying only certain characters out to a RAM location for CHBAS.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 I think the programmer did custom characters for the letters. The same way the guys that did the 5200 version of Baseball, note the 0! Also holds the same for Centipede. In my custom rom for the 5200, River Raids far right 0 is actually eye-candy! It's just put there to make the score look bigger! I got M.U.L.E. on cart for the 5200 and only some of the character set is used from the original system rom! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 I agree it's probably not a full set. The main screen has only 22 unique characters. Other screens use the standard set for text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 It's the text on top, messages like Red Alert, that I want to look like the bottom text. So the standard set in the OS that has to be changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Right, so you would have to build that set. I think only the letters V, K, E, T, R, numerals, and those few symbols are already defined. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 I'm almost sure I've seen another game that uses practically the same font. But regardless, the game should contain sufficient characters that you could get the style right for the remainder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsom Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 The custom font is defined in the source code here: https://github.com/lwiest/StarRaiders/blob/2c7741941f2f821ead8f1f3025fce8c95f73b446/StarRaiders.source.asm.txt#L2641 There's only a handful of redefined characters. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 4 hours ago, tsom said: The custom font is defined in the source code here: https://github.com/lwiest/StarRaiders/blob/2c7741941f2f821ead8f1f3025fce8c95f73b446/StarRaiders.source.asm.txt#L2641 There's only a handful of redefined characters. Ah yep! cool. Loading the ROM into Omnivore, we can see those defined characters at the beginning of the binary. Also, we can see in the code where CHBASE is set to use it: Symbols: 02270 CHBASE = $D409 ; Character set base address (high byte) 02274 ROMCHARSET = $E000 ; ROM character set 02683 CHARSET ;*** Custom character set ****************************************************** VBI Handler: 04048 LDA #>ROMCHARSET ; Switch character set to ROM character set 04049 STA CHBASE ; In the DLI Handler: 04097 ; This subroutine is executed during the Display List Interrupt (DLI). It 04098 ; switches the character set to the ROM character set if the DLI occurs at ANTIC 04099 ; line 96 (video line 192), otherwise to the custom character set. The former 04100 ; happens in the Galactic Chart view where the ROM character set is used in the 04101 ; Galactic Chart Panel Display. 04114 LDA #>ROMCHARSET ; Switch to ROM charset if ANTIC line counter = 96 04115 LDY VCOUNT ; ...else switch to custom character set 04116 CPY #96 ; 04117 BEQ SKIP047 ; 04118 LDA #>CHARSET ; 04119 SKIP047 STA CHBASE ; So.... I guess you could simply load your "replacement" character set into some other 1K-aligned location in RAM, and repoint the symbol for "ROMCHARSET" wherever it occurs. Looks like it's at offset 0x0573 in the binary: 99 ee 00 ( STA $00ee,Y ) 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 My idea is to make a custom OS rom with the character set that matches the characters at the bottom. As a bonus, all the games that use the standard character set would have text like Star Raiders! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krenath Posted February 12, 2021 Share Posted February 12, 2021 (edited) The font in Star Raiders is based on the E-13B MICR font used on bank checks. You might be able to start with this font and build an 8-bit font from that. https://fontsgeek.com/fonts/Micr-Font-Regular I'm considering doing it now just for fun Edited February 12, 2021 by Krenath 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivop Posted February 12, 2021 Share Posted February 12, 2021 (edited) Just a few hours ago I was thinking about firing up Envision again, and do a font. Just for fun Should I try this one? Edit: OK, started working on it. Upper case is done. Working on lower case now. Stay tuned Edited February 12, 2021 by ivop 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivop Posted February 12, 2021 Share Posted February 12, 2021 Version 5 already Top two lines are done, and all lower case characters. Rest is left alone. Kept as close to the Micr-Font-Regular as possible, except for the X. That one really looked horrible. Like an H. Now there's 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 I would like to upgrade, too micrreg5.fnt 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted February 12, 2021 Author Share Posted February 12, 2021 1 minute ago, ivop said: Version 5 already Top two lines are done, and all lower case characters. Rest is left alone. Kept as close to the Micr-Font-Regular as possible, except for the X. That one really looked horrible. Like an H. Now there's 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 I would like to upgrade, too micrreg5.fnt 1 kB · 1 download Like it! Thanks! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivop Posted February 12, 2021 Share Posted February 12, 2021 Version 6. Not 100% true to the original anymore, but better numerals IMHO, and still in the same style. The # and * were not defined in the original font. Not sure about the asterisk, but I like my slanted hash sign Also note that the only difference between () and [] is the height of the bracket, as per the original font. micrreg6.fnt 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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