diff --git a/src/servers/app/DrawState.cpp b/src/servers/app/DrawState.cpp
index 8ada423602..e9dbb40ceb 100644
--- a/src/servers/app/DrawState.cpp
+++ b/src/servers/app/DrawState.cpp
@@ -496,6 +496,18 @@ DrawState::PenSize() const
 }
 
 
+//! returns the unscaled pen size
+float
+DrawState::UnscaledPenSize() const
+{
+	// NOTE: As documented in the BeBook,
+	// pen size is never smaller than 1.0.
+	// This is supposed to be the smallest
+	// possible device size.
+	return max_c(fPenSize, 1.0);
+}
+
+
 //! sets the font to be already scaled by fScale
 void
 DrawState::SetFont(const ServerFont& font, uint32 flags)
diff --git a/src/servers/app/DrawState.h b/src/servers/app/DrawState.h
index ad81ba0936..6b70d28203 100644
--- a/src/servers/app/DrawState.h
+++ b/src/servers/app/DrawState.h
@@ -108,6 +108,7 @@ class DrawState {
 
 		void				SetPenSize(float size);
 		float				PenSize() const;
+		float				UnscaledPenSize() const;
 
 							// font
 		void				SetFont(const ServerFont& font,