Re: big fat shape table fonts?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

cornelio wrote:

>Why? I have a IIC monitor sitting up oer my cabier at school in the 
>hallway - a teacher said ' what are you gnna do now!?"  & thought - hmm 
>what can I do?
>
>Then I remembered Big Text machine - a scrolling app by phil shapiro - 
>so I thought - cool I will just type up a few messages for marquee 
>display!
>
>But bigger is better for the distance of this monitor to passers-by.
>
>Wher can I get some *BIG* shape table fonts (not-GS)

Actually, shape table fonts are hard to make BIG, since they
cannot be scaled and remain dense.  And if they are drawn
big (at SCALE=1) and dense, they are sizeable and slow
to draw.

Bit-mapped fonts are easier, smaller, and faster to draw for
big fonts.  Scalable fonts (a la Pointless on the IIgs) and
AppleWorks GS are about as simple as it could be to use,
but are complex in implementation, and much slower than
just blitting a big bit-mapped font (if size and speed are
issues).

A.P.P.L.E.'s Higher Text was a very nice hi-res "typewriter"
that supported single- and double-sized fonts, and color,
and was very easy to use from BASIC, but double-sized is
probably not big enough for your application.

You might also consider using lo-res to make really *BIG*
characters.  They can be drawn easily in Applesoft, but
if you want to scroll them, you'll need M/L.

-michael

Check out amazing quality sound for 8-bit Apples on my
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/