Amiga Font Editor overhaul

[buggs]

One piece of software I was missing in my Amiga times was a convenient Bitmap font editor. Commodore shipped one with the Kickstart 1.3 Extras disk but decided to discontinue that program with the introduction of Kickstart/Workbench 2.0. As I'd like to have some extra characters in the fonts I regularly use, as well as custom fonts for my own convenience, I looked into disassembling the abandoned Commodore FED sometime in the 90s.
One of the main gripes I had with the original FED was it's ugly font requester. So I decided to add ASL font requester support. In addition, I changed the color scheme and button drawing to a nice Kickstart 2.x look'n'feel. When I recently restored an A500 to working condition, I noticed FED no longer working (at least, not with Picasso96 active). After some debugging, I found out that the drawing code was disrespecting the register conventions.

The result of my overhaul can be found on this page. As this program was discontinued more than 25 years ago with the company no longer in existence, I assume the originating software to be effectively abandoned. I don't claim any copyright or ownership and provide this partially bugfixed version AS IS.

Please be aware of one unfixed bug, though. The program occasionally garbles variable width fonts when saving, so always use the Save As option and rename the files afterwards. I presume that this bug strikes when the width of characters is reduced so that filled columns are no longer visible. Please make sure that there are no active pixels on the right border of the character when deciding to reduce the width.


Link:

http://bax.comlab.uni-rostock.de/upl...ia/FED2.02.lha


http://bax.comlab.uni-rostock.de/fil.../FED2.02.s.zip

[idrougge]

Great!

[Amiga1992]

Thanks so much for this!!!

[Minuous]

Any chance of releasing the source, maybe someone will fix the bug...?

[buggs]

Thanks for the nice feedback.

Regarding the source, I added the link. It's targeted at ASM-One with ucase=lcase.

[nobody]

nice program, i did these small 5*6 fonts with it

[daxb]

First, thanks for your work! I tried it on my A1200 040 3.1. I just was loading some fonts so far. When I load a font (e.g. topaz) I get some hits:

27-Nov-16   14:30:10
LONG READ from 00000014                        PC: 0159789E
USP : 01C574EC SR: 0010  (U0)(F)(-)  TCB: 01C4F5F8
Data: 80000001 00000000 00200020 80000001 00000000 00000000 0022FFFF 00000000
Addr: 00000014 00000000 00000000 0108C558 010A4A04 01C57680 01080630 010826EC
Stck: 00FDA5F2 01C57680 0108C568 01087EEC 00FDA62C 00000003 00000280 00000000
Stck: 00000000 00FDA136 00000003 00000280 000000C5 00000000 0022FFFF 019526AC
Stck: 01546BA8 010A4A04 01C57698 015680A8 00000003 00000280 000001E8 0022FFFF
Stck: 00000000 019526AC 00000000 01546BA8 00000000 01546BF8 0000FFD7 0004F874
Stck: 01117680 0004F874 01C575B4 01C575AC 017388DC 0004F874 00FB61DE 0004F874
Stck: 01C575B4 01C575AC 0004F874 01C575B4 FFECFFFF 0173891A 0004F054 017388DC
----> 00FDA5F2 - "ROM - graphics 40.24 (18.5.93)"  Hunk 0000 Offset 0001513A
----> 00FDA62C - "ROM - graphics 40.24 (18.5.93)"  Hunk 0000 Offset 00015174
----> 00FDA136 - "ROM - graphics 40.24 (18.5.93)"  Hunk 0000 Offset 00014C7E
----> 019526AC - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0001 Offset 0000066C
----> 015680A8 - "System:Libs/diskfont.library"  Hunk 0000 Offset 000030F8
----> 019526AC - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0001 Offset 0000066C
----> 0004F874 - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0010 Offset 00000BA4
----> 0004F874 - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0010 Offset 00000BA4
----> 0004F874 - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0010 Offset 00000BA4
----> 00FB61DE - "ROM - intuition 40.85 (5.5.93)"  Hunk 0000 Offset 0000E106
----> 0004F874 - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0010 Offset 00000BA4
----> 0004F874 - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0010 Offset 00000BA4
----> 0004F054 - "Tools:Text/Fed/Fed"  Hunk 0010 Offset 00000384
PC-8: 5681B280 66E82008 4E752241 60022050 4A88660C 20094E75 2210E789 D1C15888
PC *: 22186B0E 67EE5581 65F467E2 538167E8 5681B280 66E82010 4E754A88 67064A89
0159787e :  5681                       addq.l #$3,d1
01597880 :  b280                       cmp.l d0,d1
01597882 :  66e8                       bne.s $159786c
01597884 :  2008                       move.l a0,d0
01597886 :  4e75                       rts
01597888 :  2241                       movea.l d1,a1
0159788a :  6002                       bra.s $159788e
0159788c :  2050                       movea.l (a0),a0
0159788e :  4a88                       tst.l a0 ;extended opcode
01597890 :  660c                       bne.s $159789e
01597892 :  2009                       move.l a1,d0
01597894 :  4e75                       rts
01597896 :  2210                       move.l (a0),d1
01597898 :  e789                       lsl.l #$3,d1
0159789a :  d1c1                       adda.l d1,a0
0159789c :  5888                       addq.l #$4,a0
0159789e : *2218                       move.l (a0)+,d1
015978a0 :  6b0e                       bmi.s $15978b0
015978a2 :  67ee                       beq.s $1597892
015978a4 :  5581                       subq.l #$2,d1
015978a6 :  65f4                       bcs.s $159789c
015978a8 :  67e2                       beq.s $159788c
015978aa :  5381                       subq.l #$1,d1
015978ac :  67e8                       beq.s $1597896
015978ae :  5681                       addq.l #$3,d1
015978b0 :  b280                       cmp.l d0,d1
015978b2 :  66e8                       bne.s $159789c
015978b4 :  2010                       move.l (a0),d0
015978b6 :  4e75                       rts
015978b8 :  4a88                       tst.l a0 ;extended opcode
015978ba :  6706                       beq.s $15978c2
015978bc :  4a89                       tst.l a1 ;extended opcode
Name: "Fed"

[buggs]

Originally Posted by daxb

First, thanks for your work! I tried it on my A1200 040 3.1. I just was loading some fonts so far. When I load a font (e.g. topaz) I get some hits:

<snip>

I feel haunted by MMULib.

Seriously, thanks for the feedback. It looks like an unitialized pointer in a diskfont call. I'll keep it in mind and will try to locate the source of it, once I've got some spare time to debug. It doesn't surprise me, considering that the program predates even Kick 2.0.

I was just glad that I could make it work (at all) on more recent AmigaOS versions.

[Minuous]

I should point out that the leaked AmigaOS source code contains full source code for Commodore FED, I can zone the relevant files if that would help.

[idrougge]

I think the ban hammer would hit you with full force if you upload parts of Workbench to the zone.

[daxb]

Sorry buggs, I`ve MuForce running in the background but I think you like it. The hit seems not to be critical and Fed also seems to work.

Btw. if I remember right I used >20 years ago a font editor on my A500 that wasn`t Fed. However, someone knows a working font editor for A1200 3.1 040 that can be used alternatively? If it isn`t better or hasn`t more features then Fed it isn`t important.

[buggs]

Originally Posted by Minuous

I should point out that the leaked AmigaOS source code contains full source code for Commodore FED, I can zone the relevant files if that would help.

I appreciate the offer but I must decline. I regard the leaked sources as can of poison. As long as there are commercial interests in AmigaOS prior to 4.x, I won't touch the sources.

[buggs]

Originally Posted by daxb

Sorry buggs, I`ve MuForce running in the background but I think you like it. The hit seems not to be critical and Fed also seems to work.

Btw. if I remember right I used >20 years ago a font editor on my A500 that wasn`t Fed. However, someone knows a working font editor for A1200 3.1 040 that can be used alternatively? If it isn`t better or hasn`t more features then Fed it isn`t important.

No need to be sorry (actually, I would be instead -- if I'd gotten you unexpectedly on the wrong foot).

There were several font editors, IIRC. TypeSmith comes to mind. Also, Cloanto was selling a PPaint derivative for font editing but I don't remember its name right now.

I always liked FED for being clean and simple. And it came for free with my first A500.

[daxb]

Thanks for the hint. Because of this I found Typeface ( http://aminet.net/package/text/font/Typeface124 ) on my HD that seems to similar easy as Fed.

[idrougge]

Personal Fonts Maker was Cloanto's alternative.

[nobody]

made another 2, more elegant fonts, one smaller for icons and one bigger for screen text

[TroyWilkins]

This is fantastic, thank you. It has reminded me that I have no skill when it comes to this sort of thing (font design, pixel art), hahaha

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Personal Fonts Maker was Cloanto's alternative.

Are you sure it wasn't http://aminet.net/package/gfx/edit/ColorType?

[idrougge]

No, I'm talking about this: https://www.amigaforever.com/classic/pfm/
But thanks for the tip.

[Predseda]

I have tried this FED2 today and I was quite surprised what happened. I have two monitors attached to my Amiga - LCD through Indivision and CRT through video port. When I started the program, it switched the screen resolution to this - displayed upscaled on LCD and nearly killed my 1084. Has it some hardcoded resolution inside? I normally use 640x256, but this is totally out of range for my poor C= monitor.

What is strange - this doesnt happen under WinUAE.

This is the only program in my system that behaves like this, even the old FED1 is displayed normally. Amiga 1200, KS3.1.