How does Wordpad "read" font Code page 437? (CP437, OEM font)

[Guest Doug Bashford]

How does wordpad "read" font Code page 437? (CP437, OEM font)

 

I copied and pasted some of the box drawing characters, and

mathematical symbols from the below URL into Wordpad, and it

worked! Saved, still ok.

 

I thought this old "font" had been lost.

How do they do that?

 

I also changed the font to

arial, Courier new, Times New Roman,

Webdings, and others, and they still

showed as box drawing characters, etc,

(but they showed as these named fonts in Wordpad).

In short, they kinda act like the old MSDOS machines

or MS-DOS edit.

 

Normally in Win, the high bit ASCII characters do NOT

show the CP437 "font". For example, character 186

in Win looks like the degree symbol, not the double-

line box vertical symbol.

 

Does anybody know how CP437 is encoded into Wordpad?

Can it be accessed and used like just another font?

Thanks!

 

=============

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437

Code page 437

 

 

IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437, often abbreviated CP437 and also

known as, DOS-US, OEM-US or sometimes misleadingly referred to as

the OEM font, High ASCII or Extended ASCII, is the original

character set of the IBM PC, circa 1981.

 

In a more strict sense, this character set was not born as a real

code page (in its present sense) but being merely the graphical

glyph repertorie available in the ROM of the IBM Monochrome

Display Adapter (MDA) and Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) video

output cards of the original IBM PC; that is, it was implemented

on hardware. The expression "Original Equipment Manufacturer"

(OEM) arises from this fact.

 

Today, is still the primary font in the core of any EGA and VGA

compatible graphic card, i.e. the text you can see on screen when

a PC reboots is rendered with this code page.

 

.....

 

In DOS and Windows, most characters from the currently active DOS

code page can be inserted by holding down the Alt key and

entering the character's three-digit decimal code on the numpad.

This technique is called Windows Alt keycodes. One can find out

which DOS code page is currently active by issuing the DOS

command mode con or chcp.

 

Difference from ASCII

 

CP437 is based on ASCII, with the following modifications:

 

* The C0 control range (00h–1Fh in hex) is mapped to graphics

characters. The codes can assume their original function as

controls, but when placed in display RAM and then viewed in text

mode, for example in a screen editor like MS-DOS edit, they show

as graphics. The graphics are various, such as smiling faces,

card suits and musical notes. Code 127 (7Fh), DEL, similarly

shows as a graphic (a house).

 

* The high-bit range, 128 to 255 (80h–FFh), is mapped to

various symbols: a few European characters (accented Latin

vowels, etc) in no particular order and not sufficient for

representation of most Western European languages, box drawing

characters, mathematical symbols and a few Greek letters commonly

used in mathematics and physics......

 

 

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

PURE Republicanism?? It's now clear.

Six years of PURE Republicanism - BOTH houses

AND the Prez. Pure as it gets.

So?

Are you better off now than seven years ago?

Are you proud with what they have done to

America and her reputation? ...To your reputation?

....all the sleaze, lies and bribery?

How about all the killing?

....Americans torture now? Proud?

 

If actions speak louder than rhetoric, then

name ONE good thing about Republicanism.

Just one.

 

Just one *real* thing.

 

Can't do it?

You have only feelsgood rhetoric?

 

So? Your Republicanism more like a bad habit then?

[Guest Uwe Sieber]

Re: How does Wordpad "read" font Code page 437? (CP437, OEM font)

 

Doug Bashford wrote:

> How does wordpad "read" font Code page 437? (CP437, OEM font)

>

> I copied and pasted some of the box drawing characters, and

> mathematical symbols from the below URL into Wordpad, and it

> worked! Saved, still ok.

>

> I thought this old "font" had been lost.

> How do they do that?

 

The internet browser copied it as Unicode into the Windows

Clipboard and Wordpad pastes and saves it in RTF files

that way. XP's Arial is a unicode font, so it just works.

 

 

Uwe

[Guest Cork Soaker]

Re: How does Wordpad "read" font Code page 437? (CP437, OEM font)

 

Under what drugs did it seem like a good idea to post this in a Linux

newsgroup?

[Guest Moshe, Goldfarb.]

Re: How does Wordpad "read" font Code page 437? (CP437, OEM font)

 

On Tue, 27 May 2008 09:29:45 +0100, Cork Soaker wrote:

> Under what drugs did it seem like a good idea to post this in a Linux

> newsgroup?

 

Windows user by day.

Linux radical by night.

 

Yet another confused LinOnut

--

Moshe Goldfarb

Collector of soaps from around the globe.

Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:

http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/