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Matt Sarnoff
msarnoff.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2009
Matt Sarnoff builds homebrew computers and electronics projects and writes up the hardware, PCB design, and display tricks involved.
What HN saysHN commenters link it mainly for Millitext, a tiny-text technique that uses subpixel rendering, and one calls it only visible with a magnifier or macro lens.
18HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
16stories submitted
179story points
3 months agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Subpixel Text Encoding14 people · 25 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 2A Homebrew 8-Bit Computer1 people · 98 points · first shared 2010 · 20 comments on HN
- 3Oscilloscope doubles as a serial terminal1 people · 41 points · first shared 2010 · 5 comments on HN
- 4The Binary Keypad1 people · 5 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 5Quick-and-Dirty ROM Dumping1 people · 4 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 6X-Y Monitor and Vector Generator1 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 7An oscilloscope as a bidirectional serial terminal1 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 8How To Make Kickass PCBs1 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 9Search Engine for Integrated Circuit Pinout References1 people · 1 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 10Millitextgen1 people · first shared 2010
What HN people wrote when they linked it
FelipeCortez · 2026-04-22
1x5 can also work if you take advantage of subpixel rendering https://www.msarnoff.org/millitext/
ludicrousdispla · 2024-11-14
The rationale is that you can control the position of the visual parts that make a letter by changing the color of the larger pixel.
http://www.msarnoff.org/millitext/
https://millitext.gk.wtf/
msarnoff · 2010-11-24
I "discovered" this about 2 years ago. It's really only visible with a magnifying glass or camera with a good macro lens.
http://msarnoff.org/millitext
I also made a web-based generator:
http://msarnoff.org/millitextgen
Cthulhu_ · 2025-09-14
Direct link: https://www.msarnoff.org/millitext/
rafabulsing · 2023-12-29
See Millitext: http://www.msarnoff.org/millitext/
kragen · 2023-12-29
this is actually 4×4 if you're counting pixels needed on the output device instead of rom space needed; another, more comprehensive font of the same size is https://simplifier.neocities.org/4x4
the same problem happens with the public-domain 'tom thumb' font pushfoo linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38800409. it is actually 4×6 (24 output pixels) but claims to be 3×5
it can be accessed despite tls problems at http://web.archive.org/web/20230828193815/https://robey.lag.net/2010/0… but says 'Please do not post this article to Hacker News.'
my own 4×6 font is demonstrated at http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dofonts-1k.html, where it fits into a 1024-byte web page along with all the logic needed to render ascii text with it; but the proportional font i used in http://canonical.org/~kragen/bible-columns (rendered with http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/netbook-misc-devel/propfontrender.py) is at http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/netbook-misc-devel/6-pixel-1-bit-propo… and is slightly smaller; it averages 21.5 pixels per character. this is more than anders de flon's so-called 3×3, which is 16 pixels per character, but it supports the full character set, if you think ascii is the full character set anyway. so does simplifier's 4×4 font
i think you could do better by using grayscale for antialiasing, and as rafabulsing pointed out, matt sarnoff's millitext http://www.msarnoff.org/millitext/ uses subpixel antialiasing to get…