
Meyrin: CERN Terminal Font - bpierre
http://optional.is/required/2014/03/26/meyrin-cern-terminal-font/
======
sdkmvx
For those who don't know (apparently including the authors), this is the
standard 3270/IBM terminal font. It is available all over the web in various
formats, notably in bitmap format with
[http://x3270.bgp.nu/](http://x3270.bgp.nu/), though it is in a different
encoding (EBCDIC probably). I may look into converting it later.

There's also one a copy at
[https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font](https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font),
and you may be able to find a better copy by doing more searching.

~~~
ihuman
It looks like this project is trying to also trying to "port" how the pixels
and resolution effected the font, while the ones you linked to are just the
same shape, and rendered with a higher resolution.

~~~
rbanffy
The one provided by x3270 was originally copied by a Georgia Tech student
(IIRC), pixel by pixel, from an IBM terminal. The one I made was created by
retracing one of the x3270 bitmaps using FontForge so that it could be
comfortably used as a monospaced font in modern setups.

I wish I had a functioning IBM 3270/9, but those are incredibly rare.

Legend says the 2260 (an older terminal family) had its video signal generated
on the terminal controller (another box where you plugged your terminals) and
the font bitmap was actually visible, implemented in ferrite core memory.

------
raldi
_> This meant we needed to write a quick shell script to loop from 0 to 255
and try to output to screen the ASCII representation [...] The computer
locked-up and we needed to hard-reset it_

That sounds like you echoed a Ctrl-S character, which tells a terminal to stop
updating; the opposite command is Ctrl-Q, but since that came earlier in your
sequence rather than later, you were out of luck.

Try reversing the for-loop next time!

~~~
zokier
Or do the sensible thing and print only printable characters.

~~~
raldi
Nah; with these old machines, often an "unprintable character" would turn out
to be the only way to get a "é" or a "¢".

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donpdonp
I love the history/nostalgia in this font, but after opening a Gnome Terminal
with the .ttf font, its unusable. The characters are full of horizontal 'scan
lines' which look neat when zoomed in but make the font fade to almost nothing
on a black background. Ironically the sceenshot in the story for the terminal
shows solid characters.

~~~
Sharlin
You just have to emulate the blurring inherent in a CRT display :)

~~~
cjensen
Here's the most complete crt emulator I've seen:
[http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/01/cathode-vintage-terminal-
emu...](http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/01/cathode-vintage-terminal-emulator/)

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bhauer
Clever. Just a small nit I noticed at first glance: the tail of the lowercase
't' uses two horizontal pixels in the photo, but only one was provided in the
font.

~~~
briansuda
Good catch, I'll see what I can do about fixing that!

------
hsx
It's a pretty sweet font. I just made a little test with @font-face:
[http://hugo.sx/meyrin/](http://hugo.sx/meyrin/)

~~~
ajanuary
Definately looks better with some blur

    
    
        text-shadow: 0 0 4px rgba(0,255,0,1.0)

~~~
brodney
That does look better. How could a blur be incorporated into the ttf?

~~~
owenversteeg
I might be wrong, but I believe that Inkscape has the ability to do blurring.

~~~
taejo
The TTF format does not, however.

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zokier
Here is VT220 emulation font of similar style (complete with scanlines):
[http://sensi.org/~svo/glasstty/](http://sensi.org/~svo/glasstty/)

edit: webfont sample here:
[http://johanneshoff.com/vt220/](http://johanneshoff.com/vt220/)

~~~
rubberbandage
This font even takes into account the imprecision of analog scanlines — the
lines that make up the characters are subtly rounded. It’s a very enjoyable
font, though a bit impractical :-)

~~~
__david__
> It’s a very enjoyable font, though a bit impractical :-)

On Hi-DPI displays, it's actually pretty usable. On my retina Macbook at 14
points it looks pretty much how I remember my old vt-220 looking. IE, very
readable.

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chli
For those who don't know "Meyrin" is the name of the municipality that hosts
part of the CERN.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyrin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyrin)

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owenversteeg
Wow, I didn't realize it was this easy to make a font from SVG files. Thanks!

~~~
briansuda
I have written about how to make your own fonts. Both regular and symbol
fonts.

You can see a short online video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ltm-
psNPxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ltm-psNPxI)

The short eBook is also available:
[https://gumroad.com/l/FpfR](https://gumroad.com/l/FpfR)

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jlgaddis
I don't have my MBP nearby to try it out, but this font + "Cathode" [0] seems
like it'd be pretty neat.

[0]:
[http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/](http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/)

~~~
nwh
Cathode doesn't let you use custom fonts sadly.

~~~
rubberbandage
Yes it does! Preferences -> Font, and under “Modern”, it will let you use any
monospaced font.

------
Create
lack of an element of social responsibility in the contract policy is
unacceptable. Rather than serve as a cushion of laziness for supervisors, who
often have only a limited and utilitarian view when defining the opening of an
IC post, the contract policy must ensure the inclusion of an element of social
justice, which is cruelly absent today.

[http://staff-
association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-...](http://staff-
association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-contract-policy)

~~~
pinko
I'd actually welcome a new post about this issue, which I haven't known much
about before. However, this is the wrong thread. Good luck.

~~~
Create
_However, this is the wrong thread_

This thread is about a branding exercise on CERN. Which is a pity, because
trendy retro hipster feel-good sugar-coat marketing propaganda will do more
harm to CERN and its cause than good on the long run. Ask Herwig Schopper if
in doubt.

Just to illustrate my point, here is a quote:

­­ _After digging and digging, we came to the conclusion that the font
rendered on screen wasn’t going to be a font-file, it was probably C code in
the drivers for the screen. This was disheartening since there was no easy
template to build from or convert._

The guy and his audience has apparently very little notion on how a terminal
works (let alone how it is built), never mind about the computer itself. For
educational purposes, here is a better way to go about a similar digging:

[http://www.nycresistor.com/2012/08/21/ghosts-in-the-
rom/](http://www.nycresistor.com/2012/08/21/ghosts-in-the-rom/)

Which would actually lead to the old character map in the ROM that would be
seen glowing on a CRT.

Case in point about XOFF:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7587088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7587088)

And again, right on topic, however only accessible for those who do not suffer
from functional analphabetism:

Strangely, not only has it forgotten how to fly, it also seems to have
forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Legend has it that a seriously
worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it
flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground.

ps: the post is old, because the issue is old and recurring. It is a reminder
against the memory hole.

