I released 6809 Chargen on April 10, 1998. It was a tribute to the dot matrix fonts that shaped early computing and video game aesthetics. I wasn’t copying any one source; it was a general homage to the bitmap lettering that defined that era.

The name comes from CHARGEN, the first font editing software I ever used. It ran on the TRS-80 Color Computer, which had a Motorola 6809 processor. The typeface itself wasn’t based on the CHARGEN system font; the link was in the name, since the program was where I first experimented with creating bitmap letters.

At the time, there weren’t many vector fonts that mimicked the amateur, techno-styled lettering of home computers. I saw it as filling an unserved niche. The font turned up on a lot of late-1990s websites — the kind with black backgrounds, starfields, garish colors, and glow effects — but I don’t recall any especially notable uses.

I first released it with a free commercial-use desktop license. In November 2022, I placed 6809 Chargen in the public domain, where it now stands as a small link between 1980s home computing and the late-1990s digital design scene.