Confusing Chr$ explanation

[SagaraS]

I'm able to see characters for all the Alt values, but I'm unable to produce the Copyright (and some others). The Alt table says it should be Alt 0169,
but Alt + 0169 only produces the ┌ symbol (or something very similar).
When I enter  Alt + 0169  here, on the Forum, I get the © ok. Why not in my program?

The copyright character does not exist in the DOS ASCII character set of code page 437.

All characters from 128 to 255 are different characters than what you have in Windows + those of other countries.

e.g.:
Code page 437 = English https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codepage_437
Character 169 / &HA9
MS DOS characters: ⌐
MS WIN Character: ©

Code page 850 = Western European https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codepage_850
Character 169 / &HA9
MS DOS characters: ®
MS WIN Character: ©

You must use a Unicode set for that.

Create the following file
CP850.CSV

Code: (Select All)

' Microsoft_pc_cp850

199,252,233,226,228,224,229,231,234,235,232,239,238,236,196,197

201,230,198,244,246,242,251,249,255,214,220,248,163,216,215,402

225,237,243,250,241,209,170,186,191,174,172,189,188,161,171,187

9617,9618,9619,9474,9508,193,194,192,169,9571,9553,9559,9565,162,165,9488

9492,9524,9516,9500,9472,9532,227,195,9562,9556,9577,9574,9568,9552,9580,164

240,208,202,203,200,**305**,205,206,207,9496,9484,9608,9604,166,204,9600

211,223,212,210,245,213,181,254,222,218,219,217,253,221,175,180

173,177,8215,190,182,167,247,184,176,168,183,185,179,178,9632,160

The character numbered 305 in the table (which is bracketed with asterisks) is the euro character. Simply remove the stars to have the euro sign in the set.

Then you can use the following in QB64:

Code: (Select All)

SCREEN 0

_FONT _LOADFONT("C:\Windows\Fonts\Cour.ttf", 20, "MONOSPACE") 'select monospace font

FileName$ = "CP850.CSV" '              <<<<<<< Enter Unicode CSV data text file name you created here!**

f = FREEFILE

OPEN FileName$ FOR INPUT AS #f

INPUT #f, CodePage$ '                  read code page ID on first line of file

IF NOT EOF(f) THEN PRINT CodePage$ '    display code page number



FOR ascii = 128 TO 255 '                assign unicode values to ascii 128 to 255 only

  IF EOF(f) THEN EXIT FOR

  INPUT #f, unicode&

  IF unicode& = 0 THEN unicode& = 9744 'make undefined characters look like a box

  _MAPUNICODE unicode& TO ascii '      replace ascii with unicode value

NEXT

CLOSE #f



FOR code = 128 TO 255

  PRINT code; CHR$(code); '            display unicode characters

NEXT



END

And this would be your output:
Character 169 is now ®


Here a QB64 code for the complete table

Code: (Select All)

' instructs the compiler to require variable declaration

OPTION _EXPLICIT



' Control function off to set all characters

_CONTROLCHR OFF



' dimension variables

DIM winX AS _UNSIGNED INTEGER

DIM winY AS _UNSIGNED INTEGER

DIM i AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE

DIM x AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE

DIM y AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE

DIM selx AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE

DIM sely AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE

DIM keyin AS STRING



' variables for codepages

DIM Filename AS STRING

DIM CodePage AS STRING

DIM ASCII AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE

DIM UNICODE AS _UNSIGNED LONG

DIM F AS _UNSIGNED _BYTE



' Load codepage 850 from UNICODE

_FONT _LOADFONT("C:\Windows\Fonts\Cour.ttf", 20, "MONOSPACE") 'select monospace font

Filename = "CP850.CSV" '              <<<<<<< Enter Unicode CSV data text file name you created here!**

F = FREEFILE

OPEN Filename FOR INPUT AS #F

INPUT #F, CodePage '                  read code page ID on first line of file

IF NOT EOF(F) THEN PRINT CodePage '    display code page number



FOR ASCII = 128 TO 255 '                assign unicode values to ascii 128 to 255 only

  IF EOF(F) THEN EXIT FOR

  INPUT #F, UNICODE

  IF UNICODE = 0 THEN UNICODE = 9744 'make undefined characters look like a box

  _MAPUNICODE UNICODE TO ASCII '      replace ascii with unicode value

NEXT

CLOSE #F



' Create window area with colors

COLOR 4, 7

winX = 14

winY = 4

FOR y = winY + 0 TO winY + 16

  FOR x = winX + 0 TO winX + 16 * 3

    LOCATE y, x: PRINT SPACE$(2);

  NEXT x

NEXT y



' Create table info

FOR i = 0 TO 15

  LOCATE winY, winX + (i * 3) + 3: PRINT "0" + HEX$(i);

  LOCATE winY + i + 1, winX: PRINT HEX$(i) + "0";

NEXT i



' Create ASCII characters

' Init values for the table of ASCII chars

COLOR 0, 7

winX = winX + 1

winY = winY + 1



DO

  ' Output of all ASCII characters in the table

  x = 0

  y = winY

  FOR i = 0 TO 255

    IF selx = x AND sely = y - winY THEN COLOR 7, 2 ELSE COLOR 0, 7

    LOCATE y, winX + (x * 3) + 3: PRINT CHR$(i);

    x = x + 1

    IF x = 16 THEN

      x = 0

      y = y + 1

    END IF

  NEXT i



  ' Output of decimal and hex value of current char

  COLOR 0, 7

  LOCATE winY + 16, winX - 1: PRINT SPACE$(25);

  LOCATE winY + 16, winX - 1: PRINT "ASCII:  DEC(" + LTRIM$(STR$(sely * 16 + selx)) + ")  HEX(" + HEX$(sely * 16 + selx) + ")";



  ' Key Input

  DO

    keyin = INKEY$

  LOOP WHILE keyin = ""



  ' Arrowkeys to select the current char

  IF keyin = CHR$(0) + CHR$(77) THEN IF selx >= 15 THEN selx = 0 ELSE selx = selx + 1

  IF keyin = CHR$(0) + CHR$(75) THEN IF selx <= 0 THEN selx = 15 ELSE selx = selx - 1

  IF keyin = CHR$(0) + CHR$(80) THEN IF sely >= 15 THEN sely = 0 ELSE sely = sely + 1

  IF keyin = CHR$(0) + CHR$(72) THEN IF sely <= 0 THEN sely = 15 ELSE sely = sely - 1



  ' ESC to end the program

LOOP WHILE keyin <> CHR$(27)

Output is this:



When you use the DOSBox you must change the keyboard + character set.
KEYB gr 850   <- It's for german keyboard layout + codepage 850

Then have the same result in the DOSBox with the characters:


In both cases you then have your copyright char in the set.
Character 169 - ®
Character 184 - ©



If you are looking for a suitable DOS TrueType font on the Internet, you can also make the characters look original. (QB64)
e.g.: https://archive.org/details/ultimate_old..._pack_v1.0

The output then looks like this:
("PxPlus_IBM_VGA9.ttf", 16, "MONOSPACE")