CP437 Fonts for Windows

Posted: January 26th, 2010 | Author: Jacob Hammond | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | 9 Comments »
Codepage-437

CP437, yo

In my search for a good monospaced font for coding and other fixed-width uses, I began looking for a Windows version of the original Code Page 437 “OEM font.”

Unable to find a suitable replacement, I created .FON versions of the font using Fony, a spiffy freeware tool for editing bitmap fonts.

There’s both a 9×16 and an 8×16 version. Those of you who ever knew too much about EGA will recall that it had an 8×16 character size, whereas VGA’s is 9×16. I find that both are suitable for modern use, but I like the 8×16 a bit more because it seems better suited to the aspect ratio of a modern display (9×16 feels a little too “loose”).

Download them both here (Windows .FON format): 8×16, 9×16.

Feel free to re-use and re-distribute as you see fit.

9 Comments on “CP437 Fonts for Windows”

  1. 1 Mycroft said at 1:45 pm on January 26th, 2010:

    Oh my god. You said “EGA.” I think I’m going to faint.

  2. 2 George said at 8:37 pm on June 22nd, 2010:

    Jesus christ, I swear I wanted to kill everyone until I found your site. For some reason my install of xp has the default terminal font looking thinner. I have no clue, probably a language setting or something, but now I got the original cool. thanks.

  3. 3 George said at 9:12 pm on June 22nd, 2010:

    What can I use to edit your font? I’d like to make a 10 point version. 12 it too big. Thanks.

  4. 4 Jacob Hammond said at 9:55 pm on June 22nd, 2010:

    Check out Fony at http://hukka.furtopia.org/projects/fony/

    Free and super easy to use.

  5. 5 George said at 8:07 pm on June 27th, 2010:

    I don’t quite get how this works. ok, so the font is 8×16, but it’s size 12 in a windows application. Does this mean I have to make it smaller say 6×10 or is there a way to preserve the way it looks but just shrink it a little bit so I could add an option to the font to change it to size 10 when used in an application. How would I go about doing that?

  6. 6 George said at 8:10 pm on June 27th, 2010:

    I just don’t get it. In xp the old terminal font always preserved the look no matter what size you set it to. In windows 7 for some reason it looks skewed adn thinner and there’s only size 9 then the next one that makes a difference is 12. I can’t understand why microsoft did this. I have ni clue what the difference is between the old terminal font and the newer one. I can’t find any info and it seems others have issues with this as well.

  7. 7 George said at 8:13 pm on June 27th, 2010:

    I know why, I think it’s because the old terminal font was a true type font and the new one is some total b.s. version

  8. 8 George said at 8:43 pm on June 27th, 2010:

    I figured out that it’s not the fonts. They’re all basically the same. It’s the way windows is displaying the fonts. I give up. I have no clue why windows is acting like a bitch.

  9. 9 Chris said at 10:10 am on April 7th, 2011:

    I had problems with the downloaded fonts. When loading them and using them characters 0×10 through 0×1F would not display properly (wrong character half the time, and double height).

    I opened the 9×16 font in Fony, and changed the Ascent to 12 pixels from 6 (I think) and resaved. Now there is no problem what so ever.

    Don’t know if it’s the ascent value, or if something was messed up that opening and resaving it fixed.

    Thanks for work on this.

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