Tardis databank

[croooow]

How about this?

The TARDIS and Information system letters are made from scratch while the READY FOR ENTRY is made with a font I found called Beeb Mode Zero.

[flaming cog]

With such a small picture to compare them to they both look fine....

[Rox]

With such a small picture to compare them to they both look fine....

Believe me, croooow's is very very good.  I spent many, many hours after school in the 80's creating graphics on the Spectrum and other machines.  You had to really be inventive, and it was impossible to create rounded corners.

What we considered cutting edge graphics programs back then (Melbourne Draw was my favourite) no one would look at twice these days.

You young uns don't know yer born.     And when we wanted to load a game or programme, it look ten to fifteen minutes from a tape recorder.  And woe betide you if you knocked the wire, because you'd have to start all over again.

And the BBC Micro was a rule unto itself, as Scarfwearer so rightly says!   

[DoctorWho8]

That looks spot on.  I would probably make the orange slightly brighter as on a CRT screen and on video tape, the color would come out darker than what it would be.
Bill

[galacticprobe]

It looks like Croooow did a nice job with his version. I, too, remember those days of slow computers (how many on here remember the Commodore Vic 20, or know someone who had one?), and the rough-edged graphics - letters and shapes - they had. I just went with what my eyes could make out on my monitor (flat screen) using the screen grab (at least I think it was a grab) from the episode that started this thread. We all know the video quality back then, of what the Beeb used to record the episodes and on the TVs that showed them, wasn't the caliber it is these days. (And let's face it; I'm wearing trifocals so MY video quality isn't what it used to be!) I saw both "slightly" rounded corners on some letters, but not on others, and of all the fonts on my computer, Arial looked the closest to the "READY FOR ENTRY". After all, it was something I just threw together because I like doing that, and these days, because life is not being kind to me, I don't stray too far from the keyboard so I need to find SOMETHING different to try.

The Square-edged version looks very cool, and is probably what the actual screen looked like in person on the day the scenes were recorded. So I guess as with everything else relating to the Whoniverse, the question to ask is... (wait for it...) which version are you (that is, we Builders) looking for: the actual item created for the scene, or the "screen accurate" version we watched on our TVs? And as we all know they can be quite different. (And everyone here probably already knows this, but some - not all - Trekkies can be vicious when it comes to answering that question.) Speaking for myself, I can go either way. WITH PROPS, THAT IS!! (Erm... that didn't come out right either, did it?)

I hereby invoke the "First Rule of Holes"... when you find youself in one, STOP DIGGING!

Dino

[tescotardis]

That last one looks very close but a bit small.

Just FYI it is possible to create your own fonts using a program called Font Forge ( http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ ) for free.  It's time consuming but it does work quite well.  The easiest is to take an existing font that's close and modify it.

That way you could set up a computer running an actual database in the console to display Doctor Who info as needed. 

[dreamland fantasy]

How about this?

The TARDIS and Information system letters are made from scratch while the READY FOR ENTRY is made with a font I found called Beeb Mode Zero.

I believe that the screen was actually in the BBC Micro's Mode 7 or "teletext" mode, but I would need double check that to be 100% sure. If that's the case then the screen would have a "resolution" of 480 pixels wide by 500 pixels high.

If anyone is interested I can supply graphics for the Mode 7 text font and teletext graphic "blocks" which I made for a BBC Micro image conversion utility I wrote.

Kind regards,

Francis

[galacticprobe]

Once again quoting the late Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith: "Pray continue, sir; you interest me."

Dino.

[dreamland fantasy]

Sorry for the delay, but here are the BBC Micro's mode 7 character sets.

Normal text mode:



Graphics mode (contiguous):



Graphics mode (separated):



I hope that is of use to someone.

Kind regards,

Francis

[wayne venomous]

D'you mean the "TARDIS Information System" that appeared in the 5th Doctor era?



Crispin

I'd bet a million pounds (if I had a million pounds) that it was done using Ceefax, the BBC's Teletext system as the "READY FOR ENTRY" looks the same font as used on the Subtitles - as seen in the caps section here:

Funnily enough, as a child I used to watch most programs with the subtitles on as it helped with my reading!

I recall around the early 80's the BBC were using Ceefax graphics for pretty much everything they could. I remember watching Children's BBC I'd regularly see things like witches on broomsticks done in Ceefax inbetween programs which would've been very hi-tech for the time.

[Rassilons Rod]

Ceefax (or Teletext in general), was always done with a BBC (model B or not, I couldn't say) system anyway. But there are several variants on the main font. I think, for example that the y in SYSTEM is not quite the same as the standard font. I think that in the standard font it was a bit curlier and not so straight underneath.

So I would go with this mode 7

EDIT: I just had a look at the wiki page for teletext and discovered that "CEEFAX" was intended to be a shortening of "SEE FACTS" *facepalm* am I the only one who finds these kind of abbreviations rather bad? Its almost like a predecessor to this "text speak" that we see everywhere these days where people deliberately miss letters out, either cos its easier to type or cos it looks "kewl" or something... meh.

[wayne venomous]

Ceefax (or Teletext in general), was always done with a BBC (model B or not, I couldn't say) system anyway. But there are several variants on the main font. I think, for example that the y in SYSTEM is not quite the same as the standard font. I think that in the standard font it was a bit curlier and not so straight underneath.

So I would go with this mode 7

Interesting. Reason why I thought it wasn't a BBC computer was due to the fact that Ceefax actually predates the Acorn/BBC microcomputer by several years. Officially launched in 1976 whereas I believe the BBC micro was launched in 1981. That said, it would tie-in with the BBC micro being suddenly available to prop builders as to why it suddenly appeared around this time.

EDIT: I just had a look at the wiki page for teletext and discovered that "CEEFAX" was intended to be a shortening of "SEE FACTS" *facepalm* am I the only one who finds these kind of abbreviations rather bad? Its almost like a predecessor to this "text speak" that we see everywhere these days where people deliberately miss letters out, either cos its easier to type or cos it looks "kewl" or something... meh.

I know just what you mean! I used to work near a car tyre place called "Bujit Tyrz". The bodykitted Ford Escort in grey primer with tyres that were clearly stretched over the wheel rims that was always parked outside really gave me an insight to the "expertise" of this business establishment... 

[Rassilons Rod]

Bujit Tyres? That really has to be one of the worst I have heard of...

But yes, back to the font discussion. 

Your dates are making me question myself. I do remember that  the Model B had a "teletext adapter" for it. If not the BBC Micro, then certainly something that was on the same evolutionary ladder anyway.

Also, the section dealing with the teletext adapter seems to point to Mode 7 being a close match

[wayne venomous]

Oh yes, I know the BBC Micro definitely had a Teletext adaptor because my secondary school had one to demonstrate Teletext although at the time this was the early 90's and they were about to be replaced by Apple computers.

I made a Teletext adaptor for my Amiga computer not long after as I was fascinated with the idea of being able to download content wirelessly to my computer (!) The software also included a Teletext page maker and instructions on how to build the hardware transmit your own Teletext pages to a suitably-equipped TV, but it was a bit beyond my abilities at the time.

[Rassilons Rod]

Oh yes, I know the BBC Micro definitely had a Teletext adaptor because my secondary school had one to demonstrate Teletext although at the time this was the early 90's and they were about to be replaced by Apple computers.

I made a Teletext adaptor for my Amiga computer not long after as I was fascinated with the idea of being able to download content wirelessly to my computer (!) The software also included a Teletext page maker and instructions on how to build the hardware transmit your own Teletext pages to a suitably-equipped TV, but it was a bit beyond my abilities at the time.

Cool