The Atari ST character set is the

character set Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values tha ...

of the Atari ST personal computer family including the

Atari STE The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, TT and

Falcon Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons ...

. It is based on code page 437, the original character set of the IBM PC, and like that set includes

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

codes 32–126, extended codes for accented letters (

diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

), and other symbols. It differs from code page 437 in using other

dingbat In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or a ...

s at code points 0–31, in exchanging the

box-drawing character Box-drawing characters, also known as line-drawing characters, are a form of semigraphics widely used in text user interfaces to draw various geometric frames and boxes. Box-drawing characters typically only work well with monospaced fonts. ...

s 176–223 for the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...

and other symbols, and exchanging code points 158, 236 and 254–255 with the symbols for sharp S, line integral, cubed and macron. The Atari ST family of computers contained this font stored in

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

in three sizes; as an 8×16 pixels-per-character font used in the high-resolution graphics modes, as an 8×8 pixels-per-character font used in the low- and medium-resolution graphics modes, and as a 6×6 pixels-per-character font used for icon labels in any graphics mode. All 256 codes were assigned a graphical character in ROM, including the codes from 0 to 31 that in ASCII were reserved for non-graphical control characters.

Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and Gr ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

-based original

GEM A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, a ...

for IBM compatible PCs utilized the similar

GEM character set The GEM character set is the character set of Digital Research's graphical user interface GEM on Intel platforms. It is based on code page 437, the original character set of the IBM PC, and like that set includes ASCII codes 32–126, extended co ...

. It has swapped ¢ and ø and has also swapped ¥ and Ø (meaning GEM is more similar to code page 865 by placement of Ø and ø). It also has the currency sign (¤) at codepoint 158, “ at codepoint 169, ” at codepoint 170, ‹ at codepoint 171, › at codepoint 172, section sign (§) at codepoint 184, double dagger (‡) at codepoint 185, „ at codepoint 192, horizontal ellipsis (…) codepoint 193, per mille sign (‰) at codepoint 194, bullet (•) at codepoint 195, en dash (–) at codepoint 196, em dash (—) at codepoint 197, degree sign (°) at code point 198, the S with caron (uppercase and lowercase) and various uppercase Latin accented letters (in codepoint order, they are Á, Â, È, Ê, Ë, Ì, Í, Î, Ï, Ò, Ó, Ô, Š, š, Ù, Ú, Û, and Ÿ) at codepoints 199-216, sharp s (ß) at codepoint 217, various spaces at codepoints 218-223, bullet operator (∙) at codepoint 249, black square (■) at codepoint 254 (as in code page 437), empty set (∅) at code point 255, GEM-specific characters at codepoints 5, 6, and 7, various black triangles (in codepoint order, they are ▴, ▾, ▸, ◂, ►, ◄) at codepoints 12-17 (codepoints 16 and 17 match code page 437), ⧓ at codepoint 18, ▂ at codepoint 19, ¶ (which is not filled in the system font) at codepoint 20, § (duplicate) at codepoint 21, ↕ at codepoint 22, ↨ at code point 23, and codepoints 24-31 match code page 437.

Character set

The following table shows the Atari ST character set. Each character is shown with a potential

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

equivalent if available. Differences from code page 437 are shown boxed. Although the ROM provides a graphic for all 256 different possible 8-bit codes, some APIs will not print some of these code points, in particular the range 0–31 and the code at 127. Instead they will interpret them as control characters.

Alt codes

Utilizing the Alt Numpad input method, users can enter a character by holding down the

Alt key The Alt key (pronounced or ) on a computer keyboard is used to change (alternate) the function of other pressed keys. Thus, the Alt key is a modifier key, used in a similar fashion to the Shift key. For example, simply pressing ''A'' will t ...

and entering the three-digit decimal code point on the

Numpad A numeric keypad, number pad, numpad, or ten key, is the palm-sized, usually-17-key section of a standard computer keyboard, usually on the far right. It provides calculator-style efficiency for entering numbers. The idea of a 10-key n ...

. This provides a way to enter special characters not provided directly on the keyboard.

Euro variants

The Atari ST character set long pre-dates the introduction of the euro currency and thus does not provide a code point for the euro sign (U+20AC, €). However, some software (such as

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) utilized code point 238 (0xEE) for this purpose. This code point is normally assigned to the mathematical element-of sign (U+2208, ∈), and to the Greek lowercase epsilon (U+03B5, ε) in code page 437. Alternatively, the rarely used

logical conjunction In logic, mathematics and linguistics, And (\wedge) is the truth-functional operator of logical conjunction; the ''and'' of a set of operands is true if and only if ''all'' of its operands are true. The logical connective that represents this ...

sign (U+2227, ∧) at code point 222 (0xDE) could be replaced by the euro sign.

References

{{Character encoding Character sets Computer-related introductions in 1985

Character set Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values tha ...

Character set

Alt codes

Euro variants

See also

References