Stem is an attractive and highly readable gothic bitmap font, designed for
high-resolution square pixel screens (specifically for Super72: High Res
Laced). It is mostly sans-serif, but a few of the characters have serifs
(I,i,J,j,l,1). Stem also features old-style ranging numerals, which seems to
be almost unheard-of in bitmap fonts, and rare even in outline fonts.
Nearly all character positions have been defined, except for those which I
was unable to find available in other bitmap fonts. One of my goals for this
version was to make the font as compatible as possible to text saved from
various word processor packages, including those of Wintel machines. I've
also created graphical characters for several characters positions which are
usually invisible, including BELL (007), BACKSPACE (008), VERTICAL TAB
(011), FORM FEED (012) and CARRIAGE RETURN (013), so it is easy to tell when
they are present in a file. In addition, all other control characters which
should not normally be present in text files have been given a "blank but
visible" graphical character.
A number of character designs have been enhanced since the previous version,
and some characters have been eliminated and replaced with others, after
looking more closely at the characters available in other bitmap fonts.
***NOTE***: If anyone has any reliable information that contradicts or
clarifies the characters I've included in this font, please pass it along to
me.
The vast majority of characters have a leading column of blank pixels, so
that the first character on each line in a Shell window or text reader, for
example, is not plastered to the left window border (which is always a major
annoyance for me with most fonts).
There are both proportional and fixed-width versions. The characters in the
fixed-width version are seven pixels wide. An ILBM snapshot of all graphic
characters in the fixed-width version is included in the archive.
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