Randomly stumbled upon this post in the “Amiga Germany” Facebook group the other day: Zerosphere running on the Analogue Pocket!

You can also play Amiga games on the Analogue Pocket just enchantingly well. I had bought Zerosphere from polyplay as a digital version one year ago, and it’s really fun on a handheld as well

I’m taken away by how awesome this looks! And by the fact that they sell Analogue Pocket in cases that match Zerosphere’s title screen. :)

Obligatory shameless plug: Various editions of Zerosphere are available at polyplay.xyz.

This is a little addition to the evolution of the Amiga Topaz font. Surprise! The rabbit hole goes deeper…

Just nine months ago, former Commodore employee Peter Cherna wrote on Hacker News:

I worked at Commodore and was responsible (ish) for the new Topaz for OS 2.0. We had been told to replace Topaz with a sans-serif font, and we replaced it with a font originally called "Clear" that was on one of the Fred Fish disks.

Maybe the font we used was called "Clean", not "Clear".

[…]

"Clean" was the source of the interim font, not of new Topaz.

In the same thread, commenter LocalH (who also posted an extracted Topaz 1.4 font on the AmigaLove.com forums in 2021) adds:

The font "Clean" that's part of the NewFonts package on Fish disk 34 is pretty much identical to the font I've seen that was included in 1.4 prototypes.

Interesting! On a closer look, though, there is no font named “clean” in that specific package, neither in the preview picture nor in the disk contents.

NewFonts/SAMPLES.PIC

I did however find a clean.font on Fred Fish disk 256, used as an asset in a game called “NameGame”. If you look at the green text, this does look a lot like Topaz 1.4:

It’s hard to tell if this is the original version – was that font specifically created for NameGame and picked up by a Commodore dev? Or has this font has been floating around elsewhere at the time?

There are hints for that:

• DiskMaster2.guide mentions clean.font as a configuration example
• Amiga-Magazin PD 5/93 disk 2 contains an animation program called “CAGS” which comes with clean.font
• Searching for “clean.font” on discmaster.textfiles.com yields 268 results!

Phew! So it’s a mess. There are several incarnations of clean.font, in different sizes and different styles. Apparently a lot of Amiga users thought to themselves: “Let’s chop off those serifs and use it as my clean.font!”

If we look at the preview images provided by discmaster.textfiles.com, we find:

Specimen	Count
	84 occurences
	64 occurences
	21 occurences
	31 occurences
	2 occurences

Lovely!

No, really: Aren’t all these variations a charming testament to the creative do-it-yourself spirit of Amiga users back then? “I like a zero without a slash better!” – “How about a super-slim asterisk?” – “That ß isn’t wonky enough!” etc.

If we go with the most popular version, the lineage from Kickstart 1.2 to the interim 1.4 font may look like this:

A closing fun fact to this little investigation, coming back to the commentary of Peter Cherna:

As I mentioned, we used Clear, maybe with a few mods (ampersand maybe) […]

Hehe, the ampersand & is one of the few characters that hasn’t been altered in any version of clean.font – and neither has the weirdest letter of them all. :)

Little observation on the side: When someone posts a link to your website on Mastodon, you get hundreds of requests from different servers within seconds. I guess that’s expected when you think about it, Mastodon being a distributed microblogging system and all. Calling that “Masto-DDoS” might be exaggerated, but I was alarmed for a moment when I had the logs open…

08:39:57 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://chaos.social/) Bot"
08:39:59 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.pub.solar/) Bot"
08:40:00 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://norden.social/) Bot"
08:40:02 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://waldvogel.family/) Bot"
08:40:02 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://phpc.social/) Bot"
08:40:04 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://hostux.social/) Bot"
08:40:04 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.world/) Bot"
08:40:06 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://rstokes.uk/) Bot"
08:40:06 "Mastodon/4.4.0-alpha.1+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://inductive.space/) Bot"
08:40:07 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.gamedev.place/) Bot"
08:40:07 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.tchncs.de/) Bot"
08:40:08 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://gruene.social/) Bot"
08:40:10 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://toot.martyn.berlin/) Bot"
08:40:10 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.meenzen.net/) Bot"
08:40:11 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.ffmuc.net/) Bot"
08:40:11 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://techhub.social/) Bot"
08:40:11 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://burningboard.net/) Bot"
08:40:11 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://flownative.social/) Bot"
08:40:11 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://linux.social/) Bot"
08:40:12 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://det.social/) Bot"
08:40:13 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.netz.org/) Bot"
08:40:13 "Mastodon/4.3.0+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://fedifreu.de/) Bot"
08:40:14 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.online/) Bot"
08:40:14 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.social/) Bot"
08:40:15 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://patashnik.club/) Bot"
08:40:15 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://d-64.social/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://floss.social/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.caserio.de/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.raspinerd.de/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.3.1+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://scalie.zone/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.4.0-alpha.1+mementomods-2024-10-16 + Mastodon Bird UI 2.0.3 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mementomori.social/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.adlerweb.info/) Bot"
08:40:16 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://lohmann.social/) Bot"
08:40:19 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://fosstodon.org/) Bot"
08:40:20 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://nrw.social/) Bot"
08:40:21 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodonczech.cz/) Bot"
08:40:21 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.green/) Bot"
08:40:22 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://fabulous.social/) Bot"
08:40:22 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mathstodon.xyz/) Bot"
08:40:23 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.vtubers.place/) Bot"
08:40:23 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://rtsn.dev/) Bot"
08:40:23 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://digitalcourage.social/) Bot"
08:40:23 "Mastodon/4.3.0 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://fidget.place/) Bot"
08:40:24 "Mastodon/4.4.0-alpha.1+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://dragonscave.space/) Bot"
08:40:24 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://social.tollofsen.se/) Bot"
08:40:24 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://mastodon.scot/) Bot"
08:40:25 "Mastodon/4.4.0-alpha.1+tom (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://tomkahe.com/) Bot"
08:40:25 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://livellosegreto.it/) Bot"
08:40:26 "Mastodon/4.3.0-nightly.2024-10-01+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://tweesecake.social/) Bot"
08:40:26 "Mastodon/4.3.0-nightly.2024-09-07+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://catlang.social/) Bot"
08:40:27 "Mastodon/4.3.0-rc.1+glitch (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://soc.saiyajin.space/) Bot"
08:40:28 "Mastodon/4.3.1 (http.rb/5.2.0; +https://planetearth.social/) Bot"
...

Still, when I want to search for that URL to find the post containing it, the search yields nothing?!

I thought I kinda understood how Mastodon works (“You see, it’s a whole fediverse of self-hosted nodes communicating using ActivityPub…”, zzzZZZ) – but how do I search for posts there?

Edit: Found the post! The trick was to omit the protocol part of the URL because, um, of course! Anyway, thanks for the shout-out! :)

PS: Not to shit on Mastodon, though – I’m as happy as the next person when everyone hangs out at a Musk-free microblogging service. Depends on who you expect as “everyone” of course. For now, BlueSky feels a bit nicer to use, and I think those starter packs are a nifty feature to add whole chunks of “everyone” to your feed.

Sherlock Horse returns in Teletext form for this week’s #WeeklyTeletextArt prompt, “horsepower”.

Source code as editor link. I like how the thick Teletext borders around the eyes make him look more unhinged. :)

Edit: If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s an update to this little saga.

The other day, I was browsing Cloanto’s collection of Kickstart ROMs (as one does), and the screenshots of the in-between Kickstart version 1.4 Alpha 18 caught my eye. The font looked interesting: it was already a sans-serif version, but also didn’t quite look like the 2.0 version of Topaz. Was I hallucinating, or was it an artifact of really bad JPEG compression?

To recap, if you’re not familiar with the Amiga’s system font, Topaz: There’s a serif version in older Kickstart versions and a sans-serif Topaz in the newer Kickstart ROMs (“new” as in 1990):

Classic vs modern Workbench

I whipped up a test program and sure enough, it’s a different font! It even feels like an actual mix of the 1.2 and 2.0 Topaz versions – look at the As, the G and the lowercase f:

Edit: While this was news to me, Topaz 1.4 has been unearthed before – AmigaLove.com user “LocalH” already extracted this “interesting hybrid between 1.3 and 2.x” in a post from February 2021.

On a whim, I turned to other “exotic” Kickstart versions, and a whole rabbit hole opened. Kickstart versions 0.7 and 1.0 also had different Topaz versions, with missing glyphs, weird replacement characters, and accents pointing in the wrong direction!

I didn’t notice any subtle changes between the other versions, though (i. e. from 1.2 to 1.3, etc.), so this little animation should™ be complete – the evolution of the Topaz font:

Interactive version (JavaScript required, hover to change):

Version	Topaz 8	Topaz 9
Kickstart 0.7 Kickstart 1.0 Kickstart 1.2 Kickstart 1.4 Kickstart 2.0

ASCII artists will be happy to notice that /, \ and _ are fixtures across all versions! :)

PS: Interesting side note: I ran into an error when trying to load the Workbench under Kickstart 1.4, and would you look at that: A green recoverable alert! And it still said “Guru medititation” while the real guru already used the “Error: x Task: y” scheme! Stunning, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole for now…

Everyone on the interwebs:

“Whaaat, Windows has terrible UI elements?! You don’t say!”

But there’s always room for another laugh. If we focus an usability alone – ignoring things like incompatible UI toolkits from three different centuries and conspiracy-themed advertisements dressed as news items in your task bar – the builtin symbol/Emoji picker was my favorite. You press Win + . and you you can easily pick a specific typographic quote character or apostrophe. Those can be hard to distinguish, so they are rendered with three pixels.

Yes, that’s the actual size on the left

But today I encountered this beauty when I wanted fiddle with the audio balance real quick. Normally I would assume this is coming from one of those deliberately hellish UI threads on Reddit. But no, it’s real:

Are you okay, Windows audio settings?

There’s a final version and a lengthy write-up for our latest 3D demo now:

• new-art-final.zip
  • Runs in a loop
  • Fixes problems for specific disk drives and faster Amigas
  • HD version (one-filer) included
• new art (the page)
  • Technical background of all the things
  • Pretty pictures

Where’s Waldo, erm, Tweasy?

Reading time: 20 minutes – if you’re into oldschool tech-tech :)

On Hoffman’s recent hacking stream he was running Rink a dink REDUX and it ran into a crash, presumably because of a bad disk. Curious, I’ve triggered a crash myself by disabling fast-ram halfway through the demo:

I really dig the level of detail that went into this. Even the dead-end crash screen that nobody would ever see under normal conditions has a stylish design! There are nice background colors for different error conditions, the sound is properly muted and all sprites are reset:

; Disassembled from $c00ca4

; Color 0 move in crash copperlist:
; 000033f8: 0180 0xxx
CRASH_COLOR0    = $33fa

deadend_red:
        move.w  #$0804,CRASH_COLOR0
        bra.b   deadend_screen

deadend_green:
        move.w  #$0084,CRASH_COLOR0
        bra.b   deadend_screen

deadend_blue_or_override:
        move.w  #$0048,CRASH_COLOR0
        move.w  override_color(pc),d0
        beq.b   deadend_screen
        move.w  d0,CRASH_COLOR0

deadend_screen:
        moveq   #0,d0
        move.w  #$7fff,d1
        lea     $dff000,a6
        move.w  d1,dmacon(a6)
        move.w  d1,intena(a6)
        move.w  d1,intreq(a6)
        move.w  d1,adkcon(a6)

        moveq   #4-1,d2
        lea     aud0vol(a6),a0
.mute   move.w  d0,(a0)
        lea     $10(a0),a0
        dbf     d2,.mute

        moveq   #8-1,d2
        lea     spr0data(a6),a0
.sprdat move.l  d0,(a0)
        addq    #8,a0
        dbf     d2,.sprdat

        move.l  #deadend_copper,cop1lc(a6)
        move.w  d0,copjmp1(a6)
        move.w  #$83c0,dmacon(a6)

.loop   bra.b   .loop

override_color:
        dc.w    0

Of course this attitude extends to the whole production, the details, the style, the pixel-perfect transitions… I extend a very belated hats-off to Paradroid! :)

PS: “But the colors are just red, green and blue?” No! Other coders would have used, well, coder colors, but these have style! Compare: RGB vs the colors used here: RGB

Finnish TV station Yle shows a Teletext exhibition celebrating the 50th Teletext anniversary. Check it out on your TV (if in Finland) or on their Teksi-TV website starting at page 840. It’s a vast showcase of amazing, clever, glitchy, cute and experimental Teletext art, so take your time to explore it all!

Teletext50 Exhibition on Yle

I’m very glad I could take part in this exhibition with my Golf and Musique Non Stop pieces! (Page 846)

In other news, I’m also extremely glad I’ve won the 3D competition at the Deadline demoparty last weekend. I’m still busy with preparing a little write-up, but in the mean time you may check out the live recording on YouTube.

Or, even better, check out AmigaBill checking out our demo, and see the magic of angaglyph 3D in action! :)

So much praise :)