Text Sprites Reference

Horizontal Sprites

Explanation

In order to create a text sprite, one must have a series of characters and each character returns a certain number of pixels in certain arrangement on the graphscreen. Each character, when displayed on the graphscreen will return certain pixels in its first column of text. For example, if one displayed the letter "J" to the graphscreen it would look like this: (0 = empty pixel, 1 = filled pixel)

001
001
001
101
111


The first column of text is therefore "00011." The value, 00011b, (in binary) is equivalent to the decimal value 3. Each character, when displayed on the graphscreen will such a number associated with it. Therefore it is easy to organize all the possible text sprites numerically.

You can create rows of text spites this way. You could then stack these rows up from bottom to top to fill large portions of the screen. An important thing to remember though, is that vertical text sprites are much faster for larger images. They can fill the entire screen in just 4 seconds on an 84!

Chart

This chart contains the best characters to use for each pixel combination when drawing a text sprite:

1. Each is at most three pixels wide (not counting the 1-pixel margin to the left of each character).
2. When possible, they are 1-byte characters, or if not, at least commonly accessible.
Char. Binary Decimal Char. Binary Decimal
space 00000b 0 ? 10000b 16
. 00001b 1 ] 10001b 17
mark 00010b 2 2 10010b 18
J 00011b 3 2 10011b 19
+ 00100b 4 x 10100b 20
í 00101b 5 $\definecolor{darkgreen}{rgb}{0.90,0.91,0.859}\pagecolor{darkgreen} \overline{\mathrm{x}}$ 10101b 21
e 00110b 6 û 10110b 22
mark 00111b 7 $\definecolor{darkgreen}{rgb}{0.90,0.91,0.859}\pagecolor{darkgreen} i$ 10111b 23
^ 01000b 8 Y 11000b 24
1 01001b 9 Î 11001b 25
: 01010b 10 $\definecolor{darkgreen}{rgb}{0.90,0.91,0.859}\pagecolor{darkgreen} \chi$ 11010b 26
none 01011b 11 X 11011b 27
º 01100b 12 ' 11100b 28
s 01101b 13 ! 11101b 29
( 01110b 14 Q 11110b 30
u 01111b 15 [ 11111b 31

Vertical Sprites

Differences with horizontal sprites

The main difference for a vertical sprite is that you need only one text( command to fill an entire horizontal line. It has a noticeable advantage on horizontal sprites when sprites are larger. It is not only faster but you are not limited to a 5x5 sprite or a 7x7 sprite. Also, you don't use a picture variable which can be more convenient in some situations. You don't need to group Pics and your program in order to send it to someone.
In order to draw a sprite, you must draw from bottom to top in order to not erase what is already written. The main disadvantage is that only ∟ , N and … don't end with a 0. But it really doesn't matter, because you can make any vertical sprite using only the ., [, and the ∟. In conclusion, if you need to draw large sprites or even to fill the graphscreen, you should use vertical sprites, otherwise horizontal sprites are for you.

:Text(9,1,"1
:Text(8,1,"Δ
:Text(7,1,"Ω
:Text(6,1,"Δ
:Text(5,1," 1
:Text(4,1,"     //5 spaces


Chart

This chart contains characters from 1 to 6 pixels wide. A 0 represents an empty pixel while a 1 is for a black pixel. If you need a character larger than 6 pixels wide, you can search in Weregoose database here.

Char. Binary Char. Binary Char. Binary Char. Binary
space 0 - 0000 00100 * 001000
: 00 4 0010 σ 01000 010000
. 10 0 0100 û 01010 w 010100
` 000 { 0110 É 01110 @ 011100
( 010 F 1000 μ 10000 m 100010
) 100 A 1010 ñ 10010 n 100100
N 101 } 1100 ß 10100 10 101110
[ 110 1 1110 È 11100 Ω 110110
111 ° 00000 z 11110 \$ 111100
Δ 111110

Also see

Text Sprite Finder - this program is a compact version of what is on this page, this page simply explains how this program fundamentally works.
Vertical Sprites Bottom Row - to have a complete database with the bottom row of all TI-83/84/+/SE characters.
Graphics - for information on using text sprites.
Binary and Hexidecimal - to understand how to read the binary format.
TI-83 Plus Large Font - for clarification on which characters are being referred to.
CHARS.8xp - A program that contains many otherwise unobtainable characters.
Text Sprite Generator - A drawing program that outputs the text sprite code to display the sprite.

.