BESCII the ASCII font for Basic Engine

Willard

I have written a BE program that displays BESCII characters on the screen. I have it defaulting to the PETSCII graphic characters. I have tested it on both the NG H3 firmware and the Windows SDL firmware platforms that I use. I noticed the NG H3 displays the PETSCII graphic characters, but Windows only displays some of them. I added a save screen option to the BE code to show what is displayed from each platform.

NG H3 Screen

WindowsSDL Screen

I am thinking this is an issue with the Windows SDL firmware but can not be certian because of my limited BE platforms to test it on. Please test this on other BE platforms to see what PETSCII graphic characters are displayed.

UnicodeChr_ViewSave.BAS

The program displays a page of 400 characters on the screen. Pressing PgUp and PgDn pages through the characters. Pressing F11 will save the screen to the current directory with a filename of the starting character value and SYS(2) name. Pressing Esc will exit the program. I have tested on NG H3 and Windows SDL firmware.

I am using a dropbox for the images and program files for the first time. Let me know if you have problems accessing them.

uli

Willard I am using a dropbox for the images and program files for the first time. Let me know if you have problems accessing them.

I can see the images, but I can't download the program.
I have enabled file uploads for registered users quite some time ago, maybe you could try that...

Willard

I am able to upload the 2 jpg files to my media folder, but I get this error when I try to upload the the UnicodeChr_ViewSave.bas file:

"Uploading files of this type is not allowed."

I also get it when I try the Upload icon next to the My Media icon

NG H3 Screen

WindowsSDL Screen

Willard

I have changed the extension from .bas to .txt since that seems to be causing problems on DropBox.

UnicodeChr_ViewSave.txt

The extension will need to be changed back to .bas to run with BASIC Engine firmware.

Let me know if this runs on your BE setups.

uli

I have bisected the problem; it has been introduced with the last BESCII font update. As an immediate fix I have now reverted that update, so things should work again with the next build.

I also tried the latest version (v3) of the font, and it has the same issue.

Dmian

uli Hi Ulrich! Can you tell me what have you found?
When I updated the font to v3, there were problems with the app I'm using (Glyphs Mini), and I had to ask the devs to correct the problems. They seemed to corrects these problems, and I was able to generate the font again, but maybe there are other things that I haven't detected.
I also included the new "Symbols for legacy computing" plane, and that may have added something that's generating problems with the font?
Thanks!

Dmian

Hi @Willard

I'm sure the font is ok. When I generate the demo file, I use this tool: https://torinak.com/font/lsfont.html
It takes all the glyphs from a font and map them on a page. If you open the "demo" folder of my font, you'll see them listed there. You can also try uploading one of the files (for example, the Truetype .ttl file) and the page will show all the glyphs contained in that font. If you can't see all the glyphs on the browser, then the system may have no means of displaying those.

Just out of curiosity, I printed some of the character between F000 (61440) and F057 (61527) on an old Mac SDL version of BE Ulrich did some time ago for me. I use this as an easy and quick way to check files, as I can open this version directly from Terminal on my Mac.
Here are the screenshots:

{Main screen (to see the version)}
Main screen (to see the version)

{Printed characters}
Printed characters

Cheers.

uli

Dmian When I updated the font to v3, there were problems with the app I'm using (Glyphs Mini), and I had to ask the devs to correct the problems.

I don't think that's it because the problem already appeared in the previous version (v2.0 IIRC). I rolled back to v1.2 now.
I'm getting the exact same output as @Willard with v2.0 and up.

Dmian

uli Ok. Thanks! I’ll check to see if I find the problem. Iirc, I built the first version with the more expensive version of the program (Glyphs) that I used in trial mode, and I switched to the cheaper one (Glyphs Mini) after. I had to open the font in Fontforge to correct the leading because Mini doesn’t allow to modify that, and doesn’t generate TTF files.
So, it could be that.
I may consider buying the more expensive app, but it’s a bit expensive, so not something I can do atm. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do with Fontforge, but it’s a cumbersome app, not native and difficult to use on a Mac.

Dmian

Hi @Willard! Can you try this version and tell me if it works for you?

bescii-monottf.zip

51kB

I re-exported using the full app, as I did with the original one. If it works ok for you, I will publish a new version.
Thanks!

Willard

Hi @Dmian, I had to review loading and using fonts in BASIC Engine. I am using the Window firmware since it displays okay with the NG firmware.

I downloaded and extracted the Bescii-Mono.ttf file. I then copied it to the sys/fonts directory in the enginebasic-win32-2025-01-05 folder.

I then ran the enginebasic.exe to start BASIC Engine and CHDIR to the sys/fonts directory. I did a LISTFONTS to view the fonts and got the default fonts.

Next I did a LOAD FONT “Bescii-Mono.ttf” getting an OK and did another LISTFONTS still showing only the default fonts.

Now I did a FONT “Bescii-Mono” SIZE 8,8 getting an OK and did another LISTFONTS now showing Bescii-Mono as the 5th font in the list.

I then loaded my UnicodeChr_ViewSave.bas and edited the FONT 2 to FONT 5 and ran the program. The screen showed the same as before with only a few character displayed. I did page up and down looking at the other characters in the font.

I know this is a long way to say there was no change, but I wanted you to see my methodology and check if there is a problem with it.

We may want uli to try it also. I have my Orange Pi PC setup and can download the H3 RX and H3 LT firmware to try the font. Have you tried my UnicodeChr_ViewSave.bas program with the Mac firmware?

Dmian

Hi Willard Thanks a lot for your explanation, it’s really helpful to me. I have no idea what’s wrong with these last versions. For this one I’ve used the full app I’ve used before, but it’s a newer version of the app. So, no idea what’s different, other than the added glyphs.

I’ll try to use your program with my Orange Pi and the SDL2 Mac version I have. I have no idea how to use the newer Mac firmware with my Apple Silicon Mac Mini. What I tried didn’t work, so the only one I can use is the SDL2.

I’ll keep trying to find why it’s not working. I’m a bit at a loss, because I’m doing the same as the first versions. And the font works as a regular font in my Mac. I’ll keep investigating. With a bit of luck and patience I’ll find what’s going on.

Thanks again.

Dmian

Ok, I have done a little test. This is using the SDL2 Mac version Ulrich did for me some time ago (v0.91-214-g190b9-dirty).
I loaded the font using LOAD FONT "Bescii-Mono.ttf" and then FONT "Bescii-mono" SIZE 8,8.
The font changes to Bescii-Mono.
To be sure, I checked with LISTFONTS, and font #5 "Bescii-Mono" is there.
Then I run a program I made:

CLS
FONT 5
PRINT "PUA"
FOR h = 57344 TO 57360
PRINT CHR$(h);
NEXT h
PRINT:PRINT
FOR i = 61440 TO 61527
PRINT CHR$(i);
NEXT i
PRINT:PRINT
PRINT "Symbols for Legacy Computing"
FOR j = 117760 TO 118009
PRINT CHR$(j);
NEXT j
PRINT:PRINT
PRINT "Symbols for Legacy Computing 2"
FOR k = 118016 TO 118451
PRINT CHR$(k);
NEXT k
PRINT:PRINT
PRINT "Symbols for Legacy Computing 3"
FOR l = 129792 TO 130041
PRINT CHR$(l);
NEXT l
PRINT:PRINT
END

This program prints the new code blocks I incorporated in the font.
And this is what I get:

Which is exactly what I was expecting. So, I have no idea why it doesn't show in your system. I'll check with my Orange Pi later, to see what results I get. But my guess at the moment is that is not something in the font. Maybe is something in the system? What comes out of the OPi will give us a better clue, as I have that one with the latest version.
Cheers!

Dmian

Ok. I tested with my OPi Lite, using the RX version:

I then decided to switch to the LT version, because it was really strange that my SDL2 version could see the font, and I got this:

Clearly, it's something in the RX branch. But I have no idea what. 🤷‍♂️

Dmian

I could finally try the latest Mac version (v0.91-241-g6318-dirty) and no problems there:

Dmian

Meditating about it, could it be possible that the RX version can’t handle the font because it has characters over the FFFF codepoint?
The PUA, it can handle without a problem, but those are in the basic plane (under FFFF).
But the new characters are way over it, starting at 1CC00 to 1CEBF, and the other from 1FB00 to 1FBFF, so maybe that’s why it shows nothing?
No idea, that’s the only thing I can think about.

Willard

I had some time so I decided to do some more testing. Looking back at previous posts, I noticed your Post #9 Thursday, May 20, 2021 2:35 PM above. I decided to modify your code with the labels and values in your posting that should print the PETSCII characters. Below is the modified code:
UnicodePETSCII-Chr_List.bas

CLS FONT 5 PRINT "Direct PETSCII PUA mapping" FOR h = 57376 TO 57599 PRINT CHR$(h); NEXT h PRINT:PRINT PRINT "Inverted Ones" FOR j = 57888 TO 58111 PRINT CHR$(j); NEXT j PRINT:PRINT PRINT "Secondary PUA mapping" FOR k = 60960 TO 61150 PRINT CHR$(k); NEXT k PRINT:PRINT END

To test it, I ran it on the Windows firmware with your code and the modified code. In Windows, your code seems to print all the characters correctly and the PETSCII characters values have problems displaying in the modified code. This leads me to think the problem may be limited to the range of the PETSCII characters in your previous post.

Next, I tried the Bescii-Mono.ttf font with the H3 NG firmware and it displayed with no problem as expected.

Friday night there was a meeting of the retro computer group in the area and I attended it. One of the members has a Raspberry Pi 400 that he let me use. Before the meeting, I downloaded the RPi firmware and flashed a micro SD card with it. Using the Mac PPC computer, I was able to copy the Bescii-Mono.ttf file and the BASIC Engines test files to it. At the meeting the RPi firmware ran without problems and I was able to load the Bescii-Mono.ttf font and run the test programs without any issues. Surprising, both programs displayed the characters. I am very impressed with my experience using BASIC Engine in the limited time I had on the Raspberry Pi 400.

As they say in mystery stories, the plot thickens, more suspects and we still don’t know who done it.

I am thinking we should test all the different BE firmware with the 2 test programs and see what gets displayed. We may need help from others that have the hardware to run all the different firmware. I am limited to Windows and H3 hardware with limited access to the Raspberry Pi 400.

I think we should title the mystery story, “The Case of the Missing PETSCII Characters”

Dmian

Willard Hahaha! That’s a nice name. 😄
In any case, i have no idea if this problem will ever be fixed or not. At this point it seems a bit irrelevant, but I still wanted to make the font work. It was my small contribution, and I felt bad that it wasn’t working as expected. 😔

At least I have a confirmation that the firmware runs pretty well in a RPi 400, that’s something I wanted to know, so I thank you for that experiment.

I wanted to assemble what I envisioned as a modern BASIC computer, and the RPi 400 with BASIC Engine seems to fit the bill (I have a 500, but it seems to be too different and many of the other retro projects won’t run on it). So I’ll probably get a 400 and that will be that. My idea fulfilled, finally. 😝

That being said, I’ll keep visiting here from time to time. I still think this is the best BASIC related modern project out there and feel sad that it didn’t got traction to generate a larger community. This kind of things happen. Nothing to complain about. I’m just happy to have been part of it in some way.

Thanks for your tests. Cheers!

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