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Tandy 1000-series ROM font?

Trixter said:
I noticed that too but I was unfamiliar with Tandy's reasons for changing fonts that I didn't mention it. Glad to know I wasn't nuts.

Was the picture wrong, or is the font data provided also wrong?
Click to expand...

Of course, picture wrong.
It is emulation problem of MESS, not font.
Font is from Tandy BIOS.
 
Trixter said:
I noticed that too but I was unfamiliar with Tandy's reasons for changing fonts so I didn't mention it.
Click to expand...
Probably when they added MDA/Hercules support to the RL/SL/TL series, they also modified the CGA font to be more "MDA-like".
 
vwestlife said:
Probably when they added MDA/Hercules support to the RL/SL/TL series, they also modified the CGA font to be more "MDA-like".
Click to expand...

Indeed.
I've checked the font as following system configlation.

Tandy 1000/1000A (01.01.00) <-- Font 1
Tandy 1000SX (01.02.00) <-- Font 1

Tandy 1000HX (02.00.00) <-- Font 2
 
I've run this on GWBASIC (Tandy 1000H Emulation / Font 1)

10 SCREEN 1:KEY OFF:CLS
20 FOR A=0 TO 7
30 FOR I=A*32 TO (A*32)+31
40 IF (I>6 AND I<14) OR (I>27 AND I<32) THEN PRINT " ";:GOTO 60
50 PRINT CHR$(I);
60 NEXT I
70 PRINT:NEXT
80 IF INKEY$="" THEN 80

Except Code 7-13 and 28-31, all character is shown.

P.S. Hey vwestlife, if you have 01.00.00 BIOS image of Tandy 1000, can you show me checksum (CRC32/SHA1) of it?

01-X-00-FONT.jpg
 
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vwestlife said:
Probably when they added MDA/Hercules support to the RL/SL/TL series, they also modified the CGA font to be more "MDA-like".
Click to expand...
One distinguishing feature of the MDA font vs. CGA is the location of the blank pixel column that separates the alphanumeric characters - generally, MDA has it on the left of the character cell, CGA on the right. Curiously, the first Tandy revision appears to be more "MDA-like" in that regard.

(and yeah, I'm fully aware that I'm taking nitpicking to the extreme here -- it's just that ROM fonts are such a prominent visual aspect of dealing with vintage systems, yet nobody ever seems to discuss them much... would be neat to pick the brains of whoever designed the original IBM fonts, etc.)
 
I found MESS's emulator used 50146 (european) font ROM with Tandy 1000 emulation.
It must be wrong emulation.

This is screenshot between mess(non original) and tandy(original) font.

Each Original character font is located on System BIOS area.

Character Code (000-127) : F000:FA6E ~ F000:FE6D
Character Code (128-255) : various from each system


1.Mess's 50146 font on Tandy 1000TX BIOS(01.03.00)

http://www.mediafire.com/?hivktjphn9km2cj


2.Tandy's Oiginal font(rev.1) on Tandy 1000HX BIOS(01.03.00)

http://www.mediafire.com/?5dgfgledl3crr4i


3.Mess's 50146 font on Tandy 1000SL2 BIOS(02.00.00)

http://www.mediafire.com/?16w9i1wz0dxjj58


4.Tandy's Oiginal font(rev.2) on Tandy 1000SL2 BIOS(02.00.00)

http://www.mediafire.com/?1ehi5q0sa5egghb



Font (Rev.1) : Tandy 1000 / 1000A / 1000HD / 1000EX / 1000SX / 1000TX / 1000HX

Font (Rev.2) : Tandy 1000SL / 1000SL2 / 1000TL / 1000TL2 / 1000TL3 / 1000RL or later

Here are tandy font files from system bios.


01-0X-00-FONT(2KB).ROM
--> Original Tandy 1000 Font (Rev.1)
(http://www.mediafire.com/?ujsor1kumragie4)

01-0X-00-FONT(4KB).ROM
--> Original Tandy 1000 Font (Rev.1) for MESS emulator
--> Rename this file as 50146 to use font correctly.
(http://www.mediafire.com/?b338v80bq7pnquc)

02-0X-00-FONT(2KB).ROM
--> Original Tandy 1000 Font (Rev.2)
(http://www.mediafire.com/?bb4m5b3q19uvns1)

02-0X-00-FONT(4KB).ROM
--> Original Tandy 1000 Font (Rev.2) for MESS emulator
(http://www.mediafire.com/?ieg7nf9gie5q9a7)

I reported this bug on MESS's forum.
 
Okay, the next one replying to an old thread...

I am in the middle of dumping hundreds of ROM-fonts from collected ROMs. I have dumped the fonts that are in "50146" (european character ROM). I am having a small problem.

The two fonts in there (8x8 and 8x14) are stored on word-boundaries (every 2 bytes, like a 8x16 font). For the 8x8 font only the lower byte for every char is font data, the upper byte is zero. For the 8x14 font the last two bytes of every char are zero.

The 8x14 font is fine, in the 8x8 font I have a problem, see here:
tandycharbroken.jpg
The line below the most left character shouldnt be there.

Here are the two charsets in full:
zoomed_50146chareuro_8x8in8x16.jpgzoomed_50146chareuro_8x14in8x16.jpg

In a hex editor a good line looks like this:
Code: 
00 cc 66 33 66 cc 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Every "good" line ends with 8 zero bytes.
This is the line in question:
Code: 
22 88 22 88 22 88 22 88 00 FF 00 00 00 00 00 00
The FF is wrong for displaying this char.
Where does this come from? Is it a broken romdump (50146 rom) or is it also in Tandy computers? What to do? Should I keep the zero bytes or generate a new bin, that only uses 8bytes per 8x8 character instead of 16byte per char?
If I keep the zero bytes, I want this 0xff away, but in that case I want to know where it comes from and what is it doing there.
 
>"01-0x-00-font(2kb).rom" has a bug with the 128-255 charsets. it was dumped (it seems) from the "correct_offset - 1"

Oops, I really didn't find the bug.

I also re-uploaded it.


01-0X-00-FONT(2KB).ROM
--> Original Tandy 1000 Font (Rev.1) for Tandy 1000/1000A/1000HD/1000HX/1000SX/1000TX
(http://www.mediafire.com/file/r6edhp0w5sofrbt/)
(https://mega.nz/file/751XVIQY#dmR91PUEZt8n91wkp6OGGgEkRItjcZVtLMcCOuERrik)

SHA1:f0c359b9a7a2e4ca9cb103f862f60ef7f019f6b7


This is BASIC program to show Tandy 1000 Font.

10 SCREEN 0:WIDTH 80:KEY OFF:CLS
20 A=0 : DEF SEG=&HB000
30 FOR B=0 TO 3
40 FOR I=&H8150+(B*160) TO &H81CE+(B*160) STEP 2
50 POKE I,A:A=A+1
60 NEXT I,B
70 LOCATE 22,1
80 IF INKEY$="" THEN 80
 
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