User avatar
Mixel

Posted Mon Feb 10, 2020 7:21 pm

This is a weird one!

The fonts that come with WB3 (and probably earlier, I’m not sure!) are they free to use in projects? I know a lot of games used them on the Amiga and nobody cared back then, but is it okay to use them now, in (potentially commercial) projects on platforms other than the Amiga? I have a soft spot for opal and diamond at low point sizes.

I realise they’d be pixelly - I’m thinking about making very low res game/s here. :)

I’m guessing nobody would care at all, so it’s probably a silly question, but attribution and font fees are a big thing now and I’d hate to try using them to find out I have to redesign things later? Do people own prehistoric fonts? Or are they public domain now? Did C= make them or license them from somewhere else?

I’ve found people recreating lots of old game fonts on https://fontstruct.com/search?q=Amiga&page=2 and listing them with Creative Commons licenses, which.. idk! I’m grateful for and may end up using them but is that okay?

Then again I doubt whoever made the original font for Bart vs the space mutants (or whatever) is likely to mind someone using it again now, it just feels weird?

I’m probably overthinking it. :lol:

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:19 pm

Probably not a big deal at all at this point, but I went ahead and posted a condensed version of your question on the Commodore International Historical Society Facebook group. Might be interesting to see what answers come out of the woodwork.

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about it.

Incidentally, I also ran across this relevant page, which is kind of neat, since I think you might be using an emulator.

User avatar
Mixel

Posted Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:15 am

intric8 wrote:
Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:19 pm
Probably not a big deal at all at this point, but I went ahead and posted a condensed version of your question on the Commodore International Historical Society Facebook group. Might be interesting to see what answers come out of the woodwork.

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about it.

Incidentally, I also ran across this relevant page, which is kind of neat, since I think you might be using an emulator.
Ahhh! Thanks for that, will be interesting to hear their thoughts.

And what a great page and I really like the section on making new Amiga bitmap fonts! (And the fact he included a tool for it in his adf!) I might dabble in that also. I could upload a font to aminet I guess. :shock: I’ve made a couple of .TTFs for comic work, would be nice to have home made bitmap versions too.

I am using an emulator about 80% of the time now, as I’m downloading and experimenting with so many things it’s nice to be able to do it without risking messing up my A1200. The recent excavation of old projects is a lot easier under emulation, too. I’ve installed so many weird tools and art apps the last couple of weeks I’ll only move over the ones I decide I need. (Brilliance is a lot better than I remember it being!)

It’s amazing to me that things like https://sourceforge.net/projects/javaamosabk/files/abk/ exist.. Java based AMOS sprite bank viewer?! I’d think that was so niche as to not exist, but it’s proving really useful!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:52 am

According to someone on Facebook, the creator of those fonts (at least most of them?) is Bob "Kodiak" Burns.

Now, he would have been an Amiga employee - pre-Commodore I imagine - so "who owns them" is probably mired in ridiculous legal horse shit. But Bob likely created them back in the day.

I've sent him a message to see if he is indeed the creator of those "precious stone fonts." I'll let you know if he responds.





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