{"id":18146,"date":"2026-05-31T21:51:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T01:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=18146"},"modified":"2026-06-02T07:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T11:02:10","slug":"new-font-a73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/31\/new-font-a73\/","title":{"rendered":"New font: A73"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Based on <a href=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/29\/new-font-e73\/\">E73<\/a> from a couple of days ago, this is extended for full ASCII coverage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"651\" src=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/A73-sample.png\" alt=\"Fixed width dot matrix font sample\" class=\"wp-image-18147\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/A73-sample.png 736w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/A73-sample-320x283.png 320w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/A73-sample-160x142.png 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-03667599-2bd3-4784-9732-f962cfa7d708\" href=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Regular.zip\">A73-Regular<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Regular.zip\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-03667599-2bd3-4784-9732-f962cfa7d708\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Design Size<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 12 point design size is meant to reproduce 10 characters per inch horizontally, and six lines per inch vertically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Variants<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The ECMA 42 standard states (\u00a7 4.2):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The dots &#8230; are circles of 0.4 mm diameter nominal or polygons of equivalent area.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I went <em>slightly<\/em> overboard on the dot shapes:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code \"><pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\n   A73      Circles\n   A73D     Diamonds\n   A73L     Lozenges\n   A73P     Pentagons\n   A73S     Squares\n   A73T     Triangles\n   A73St    Stars\n   A73H     Hearts(!)\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Shapes-Sample-1024x675.png\" alt=\"font sample of a dot-matrix font where each character is made up of dots that are circles, diamonds, lozenges, pentagons, squares, triangles, stars or hearts\" class=\"wp-image-18154\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Shapes-Sample-1024x675.png 1024w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Shapes-Sample-320x211.png 320w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Shapes-Sample-160x105.png 160w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Shapes-Sample-768x506.png 768w, https:\/\/scruss.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/A73-Shapes-Sample.png 1176w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Source<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While this font is produced entirely by one Python <a href=\"https:\/\/fontforge.org\/\">FontForge<\/a> script, the code is too ugly to include here. The included <code>a73.json<\/code> is likely more useful: it contains all of the pin definitions keyed by character name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Licence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a9 2026 &#8211; Stewart Russell, scruss.com with Reserved Font Names A73, A73D, A73L, A73P, A73S, A73T, A73St and A73H.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font Licence, Version 1.1. <br><a href=\"https:\/\/openfontlicense.org\/\">https:\/\/openfontlicense.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[I do not agree with SIL&#8217;s missionary work in any way, and the use of this licence is in no way an endorsement of SIL.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reference<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ecma-international.org\/publications-and-standards\/standards\/ecma-42\/\">ECMA-42: Alpha-numeric character set for 7&#215;9 matrix printers; 1st edition, December 1973<\/a> (withdrawn): \u201cThis Standard defines the printed image and the nominal dimensions of a font for 7\u00d79 matrix printers. The characters have been designed for both human and machine readability.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/29\/new-font-e73\/\">E73<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Based on E73 from a couple of days ago, this is extended for full ASCII coverage: Design Size The 12 point design size is meant to reproduce 10 characters per inch horizontally, and six lines per inch vertically. Variants The ECMA 42 standard states (\u00a7 4.2): The dots &#8230; are circles of 0.4 mm diameter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3375],"tags":[2409,1374,2958,3376,2123],"class_list":["post-18146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-type","tag-dotmatrix","tag-font","tag-otf","tag-type","tag-typography"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-4IG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18146"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18157,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146\/revisions\/18157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}