This Hacker News discussion revolves around the design and readability of extremely small pixel fonts, particularly those pushing the boundaries of what the human eye can decipher. The conversation touches on practical applications, the psychology of reading, and the cultural appreciation for such digital craftsmanship.
The Subculture of Tiny Fonts and Their Real-World Applications
A significant theme is the existence of a niche community dedicated to creating and using minuscule fonts, often for embedded systems or displays with limited resolution. Participants highlight specific examples and the technical challenges involved.
- "There's a whole subculture for fonts smaller than 8 by 8, with real world uses for things such as small LED displays, for example," noted JdeBP, linking to an example.
- crq-yml pointed out the relevance to pad grid controllers: "Pad grid controllers like the Novation Launchpad, and its indie, open-source counterpart, Mystrix Pro, have an 8x8 grid... So, of course, you end up doing some text and graphics on the resulting grid."
- bongodongob clarified the typical use case: "No, small LED displays with like 25 ppi. Think arduino/embedded."
- synack shared another relevant project: "Iām a fan of āTom Thumbā for small OLED displays."
The Limits of Display Technology vs. Human Perception
The discussion frequently contrasts the density of modern displays with the practical limitations of human readability at extreme pixel counts. There's a debate about whether current ultra-high-resolution displays even necessitate fonts smaller than 8x8 pixels.
- hdjrudni stated, "The highest DPI screen is 127,000 PPI. You could fit over 14,000 lines of 8x8 text in a single inch tall screen. For reference, a decent monitor is 140 PPI. I'm pretty sure we don't need to go below 8x8 if physical size is the issue."
- Conversely, kstrauser expressed amazement at the achievements: "I'm blown away. I'd have sworn that wasn't possible. It's brilliant. Bravo."
The Role of Context and Brains in Deciphering Tiny Fonts
A central point of fascination is how the human brain compensates for the ambiguity inherent in extremely low-resolution fonts, often filling in the gaps through context and pattern recognition.
- jader201 observed, "Yeah, a lot of words/letters made sense, but I definitely had to use some deduction to read it. Interesting, and given the limitation, itās quite impressive. But I think āprobablyā is optimistic. Iād say āpossiblyā is more realistic."
- HarHarVeryFunny explained the psychological aspect: "I think it's partly because we recognize letters, and whole words, by glyph shape more than specific identity. Obviously a 2x2 grid can only depict 16 different patterns, but we're trying to recognize whole words, not arbitrary letter sequences, and the sequence of shapes (hence letter possibilities) is evidentially enough, a bit like reading crappy handwriting."
- Adding to this, HarHarVeryFunny elaborated, "It seems to be a typical case of human perception where top-down prediction (maybe of visual word forms?) meets bottom-up sensory input, and we've gained enough experience of this (reading different fonts, handwriting, various lighting, etc) that this particular type of impoverished input doesn't pose much challenge."
- throwaway808081 succinctly summarized this reliance on context: "Like all of language: context."
- jl6 echoed this sentiment: "I think readability is helped a lot by the low entropy of English words and sentences, i.e. if you canāt make out one letter, youāll probably get it anyway from the context. Itās not so readable if you test it with random strings."
Readability Challenges and Ambiguities
Despite the brain's capabilities, many users found specific characters and entire phrases difficult or impossible to read, highlighting the practical limitations of these designs.
- typpilol commented, "Ya literally I could make out 85% quickly. The linked one is unreadable at all to me lol."
- matznerd raised concerns about character similarity: "okay but what about "c" being nearly the same as "z", neither of which look like the character and are nearly(?) identical. Is our brain supposed to just be able to figure it out?"
- addaon found a specific character problematic: "Capital H is cursed... unconnected pixels, indistinguishable from 'ii' or "II". The concept's cool, but for this one point the wrong choice was made."
- jasonjmcghee also pointed out issues: "I'm more concerned about V X Y all being identical. How will I know if it's waxy or wavy?"
- shakna expressed a direct inability to read: "Um... Nope. I can't. I can get some of the letters, but not most of them, unfortunately."
- Cloudef stated, "Trying to read the text produced by this font makes my brain hurt."
- qmr simply put, "Thanks, I hate it."
Creative Design Choices and Potential for Future Exploration
The discussion also delves into creative approaches for enhancing readability in tiny fonts, including the use of color, asymmetry, and even conceptual extensions like Morse code.
- omoikane pondered, "I wonder if there are really tiny fonts that make use of color. For example, this 2-pixel wide Picket Right font could theoretically be even thinner if we were to use sub-pixel features."
- thfuran humorously suggested going further: "Donāt stop at colors. Just add a ligature for every string and support for animations and you have yourself a font that can render any alphanumeric string in a single pixel. Iāll need to brush up on Morse code though."
- boredhedgehog shared an example of asymmetry: "That's one of the possibilities, but one can also use asymmetry to evoke an illusion of diagonality, as in this font: [link to 3x6 pixel monospace font]"
- BSOhealth drew a parallel to AI development: "It speaks to me in a similar ways as a lot of the AI zeitgeistāwhy shouldnāt we optimize for how the brain actually operates at scale versus hundreds-years-old ideas about ligatures designed for reading in candlelight?"
- magackame envisioned future possibilities: "I wonder if it's possible to train to read text encoded as one colored pixel per letter, or even per token."
Historical Context and Analogues in Computing
Several participants drew parallels to historical computing systems and their constraints, where innovative solutions for displaying text were common.
- te0006 reminisced about the 8-bit era: "This brings back fond memories from the 8-bit era. Tasword II was a text processor for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum where the developers resorted to extra-narrow fonts to cope with the Speccy's very limited (256x192) screen resolution."
- mrspuratic mentioned another early emulator: "One of the first Spectrum emulators (JPP?) used a VGA text mode with 2 pixel high font where each character was its own ordinal, i.e. 65 was two rows of 01000001 pixels."
- reaperducer also cited a similar technique: "Similar to VIP Term on the Commodore 64, which used a 3x7 bitmap font in a 4x8 space to display 80-column text."
- wingmanjd related it to personal experience: "I wish I had this back capability when I used to program my TI graphing calculators back in highschool!"
The Hacker Ethos and Appreciation for Craftsmanship
Beyond the technical aspects, there's an underlying appreciation for the "hacker ethos" ā the spirit of tinkering, exploring boundaries, and finding ingenious solutions to challenging problems, even if the end product is niche or unconventional.
- malnourish expressed this sentiment: "Thanks for sharing this. I enjoy seeing these cool subcultures; they evoke the hacker ethos."
- JohnDeHope, while not identifying as a hacker, stated: "Iām not a hacker but I really appreciate their ethos. Itās like punk. Iām not punk either. But I will defend it all with my dying breathe."
- komali2 offered a humorous attempt to create an "unreadable sentence," demonstrating engagement with the font's limitations as a creative challenge.
- rimprobablyly summed up the ambivalent admiration: "Abomination. I love it!"