As you might know, graphical drivers for Windows 1/2/3 are _complicated_. They are expected to implement a huge chunk of Windows GDI, the graphical abstraction library. This means they're responsible for drawing parts of the window decorations, and so on.

You also might remember that Windows 1 had window decorations _completely_ different from Windows 2, as it was using tiled windows instead of overlapping ones. But for some reason, Windows 1 video drivers can render floating windows just fine, and even can draw minimize and maximize buttons.

However, Windows 1 drivers handle fonts in a different way. Windows 2 is supposed to offer a new Font API, but most apps are using the legacy entry point for ExtTextOut. The font format is completely different, though. So, imagine you transplant a Windows 1 driver to the Windows 2 system. The second screenshot is what you get.

(🧵2/? continue)

All my previous experiments with Windows 2 running on Windows 1 drivers ended here. But I had a stray thought: if fonts for Windows 1 and Windows 2 are different, maybe I can just bring fonts from Windows 1?

Turns out, I can! Windows 2 with Windows 1 video driver and fonts seems to work as expected - I can run Word, I can run little games, I probably should be able to run most, if not all, programs this way.

The fonts are different from the regular Windows 2, but who cares if it works, right?

So... circling back to the beginning of the thread: for my Windows 2 on Apricot PC port, I can just use the existing Windows 1 driver!

...Except I can't. Windows 1&2 use a thing called "fast boot"; the SETUP tool links all the drivers together in WIN100.BIN and WIN100.OVL files. The only Apricot PC video driver available is hard-linked to the Windows kernel.

So, my next task is to unlink the driver from the kernel. But this is far easier than writing a new driver.

🧵 3/3 fin~

@nina_kali_nina you say "fonts" … but are we talking "outline" scalable fonts? Or just preset size bitmap fonts?

Hmm wow I've never seen that interface on WordWin before … is that, yikes, installation within a Word macro? No wonder the viruses broke out here first.

@whophd preset bitmap fonts. Windows 1/2 doesn't support scalable fonts out of the box (there's Adobe extension for Windows 2 that enables Type 1 fonts in some programs).

And yes, that's Word For Windows macros installer, fascinating stuff :)

@nina_kali_nina Do you see the fonts named 'Roman', 'Modern', or 'Script'?

You wouldn't believe (actually, you would) how hard these are to google.

Anyway they're a dumpster fire but they totally work … if you are into non-intersecting polygons. This is when Adobe Type Manager was hella expensive, and TrueType was a liberating dream coming soon, from two enemies joining forces f.f.s.finally.

BTW, yes this screenshot is from Windows 3.0 Runtime (or something like that … CONTROL.EXE not found haha) but they are the fonts that Windows 3 inherited, I swear

#Windows2 #Windows3 #outlinefonts #Modern #Roman #Script