Hello all,

When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
nice big almost-centered dot.

However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
keypad) than I get a different character : "�" (an 'o' with a backquote
ontop).

What is the reason of that mismatch ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"R.Wieser" <address@is.invalid> wrote

|
| When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
| nice big almost-centered dot.
| | However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
| keypad) than I get a different character : "�" (an 'o' with a backquote
| ontop).
|

I never knew about that function. In the rar cases where
I need such a character I copy it from my ASCIIcat HLP
file, which I've found soooo helpful over the years.

If I type in ALT+49 I get "1" as expected, so it seems to
work. But like you, 149 doesn't work as expected. The
only thing I can think of is that either that function has its
own codepage setting, or that the function simply isn't
intended for non-ASCII characters.

"R.Wieser" wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
> nice big almost-centered dot.
>
> However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
> keypad) than I get a different character : "�" (an 'o' with a backquote
> ontop).

stick a zero in front - alt 0149.

> What is the reason of that mismatch ?

I Don't know. The other character is alt 0242.

Newyana2,

> I never knew about that function.

:-) It exists from way-when-back DOS.

> If I type in ALT+49 I get "1" as expected, so it seems
> to work.

Yup. Plain ASCII (at least 31 thru 127) seems to work alright. It seems to
go wrong from 128 and up . ALT 128 results in a big "C" with something
dangling under it, character code 199. IOW, The difference between the
typed value and the resulting character is not even constant.

> The only thing I can think of is that either that function has
> its own codepage setting,

I was also thinking in that direction (a conversion), but that doesn't make
any sense : displaying in one codepage, but than converting an entered
character from an unknown codepage to the displayed one.

> or that the function simply isn't intended for non-ASCII characters.

DOS never had a probem with that.

> In the rar cases where I need such a character I copy it from my
> ASCIIcat HLP file

:-) I was creating a hard-copy of the first 256 characters for pretty-much
the same purpose (with their character codes below them), which was when I
noticed the discrepancy.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Apd,

> stick a zero in front - alt 0149.

That certainly does make it give the expected result. Thank you.

Now the only thing is remembering it *and* not getting confused that a
prefixed "0" /doesn't/ mean that the value is Octal ...

>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>
> I Don't know.

Thats a clear answer. :-)

> The other character is alt 0242

Yes, I saw. I printed the characters 31 ... 126, 128 ... 254, just to be
able to quickly look them up - and the reason why I noticed.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On 6/11/2023 7:13 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
> Apd,
>
>> stick a zero in front - alt 0149.
>
> That certainly does make it give the expected result. Thank you.
>
> Now the only thing is remembering it *and* not getting confused that a
> prefixed "0" /doesn't/ mean that the value is Octal ...
>
>>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>>
>> I Don't know.
>
> Thats a clear answer. :-)
>
>> The other character is alt 0242
>
> Yes, I saw. I printed the characters 31 ... 126, 128 ... 254, just to be
> able to quickly look them up - and the reason why I noticed.
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser
>
>
When entering special characters with numbers and the Alt key, you must
always enter four digits. If the character only needs three digits, you
must prefix the digits with a 0 to make four.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Ron DeSantis: Anti-gay, anti-African American, anti-women,
anti-science, anti-education.

"R.Wieser" wrote:
> Apd,
>
>> stick a zero in front - alt 0149.
>
> That certainly does make it give the expected result. Thank you.
>
> Now the only thing is remembering it *and* not getting confused that a
> prefixed "0" /doesn't/ mean that the value is Octal ...

It's something I've always been aware of and knew it wasn't octal.

>>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>>
>> I Don't know.
>
> Thats a clear answer. :-)

But I found out! Without the zero it's the OEM charset. With a zero
it's the Windows Latin-1 (CP1252) codepage.

Charts here:
https://www.irongeek.com/alt-numpad-ascii-key-combos-and-chart.html

"David E. Ross" <nobody@nowhere.invalid> on Sun, 11 Jun 2023 08:06:30
-0700 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
>On 6/11/2023 7:13 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
>> Apd,
>>
>>> stick a zero in front - alt 0149.
>>
>> That certainly does make it give the expected result. Thank you.
>>
>> Now the only thing is remembering it *and* not getting confused that a
>> prefixed "0" /doesn't/ mean that the value is Octal ...
>>
>>>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>>>
>>> I Don't know.
>>
>> Thats a clear answer. :-)
>>
>>> The other character is alt 0242
>>
>> Yes, I saw. I printed the characters 31 ... 126, 128 ... 254, just to be
>> able to quickly look them up - and the reason why I noticed.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>>
>>
>When entering special characters with numbers and the Alt key, you must
>always enter four digits. If the character only needs three digits, you
>must prefix the digits with a 0 to make four.

What he said.

--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
Next Month's Panel: Having eliminated the old Them(tm)
Selecting who insufficiently Woke(tm) as to serve as the new Them(tm)

David,

> When entering special characters with numbers and the Alt key, you
> must always enter four digits.

No, you don't have to.

You do get output when you enter "special" characters (128 and above) - just
not any kind of output that you can match to the input.

However, I remembered that your "must be four (or above) digits" likely has
to do with indicating to the computer that the entered ALT code is an UTF-8
codepoint rather than an (extended) ASCII character.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Apd,

> But I found out! Without the zero it's the OEM charset. With a zero
> it's the Windows Latin-1 (CP1252) codepage.
>
> Charts here:
> https://www.irongeek.com/alt-numpad-ascii-key-combos-and-chart.html

Thank you. :-)

And it looks like I have to eat my words in regard to a conversion from an
unknown codepage to the displayed one.

Looking at the columns in that webpage did make me realize that the 149 I
entered is taken from the first two, "DOS" columns and than translated to
the last two, "Windows" columns.

IOW, the ALT 149 is accepted /as if/* coming from a DOS environment (where
its that "o" with backtick) and than translated to the same-looking
character in the Windows environment - where it has got another "ascii"
value.

*/even though/ I'm entering the ALT sequence in notepad or wordpad. Weird.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

pyotr,

>> you must prefix the digits with a 0 to make four.
>
> What he said.

In that case You must accept that, as /some/ output is generated when
entering just three digits, the OS malfunctions - or that something happens
we simple do not recognise.

.... and Apd has shown that its the latter.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On 6/11/2023 12:14 PM, R.Wieser wrote:
> Apd,
>
>> But I found out! Without the zero it's the OEM charset. With a zero
>> it's the Windows Latin-1 (CP1252) codepage.
>>
>> Charts here:
>> https://www.irongeek.com/alt-numpad-ascii-key-combos-and-chart.html
>
> Thank you. :-)
>
> And it looks like I have to eat my words in regard to a conversion from an
> unknown codepage to the displayed one.
>
> Looking at the columns in that webpage did make me realize that the 149 I
> entered is taken from the first two, "DOS" columns and than translated to
> the last two, "Windows" columns.
>
> IOW, the ALT 149 is accepted /as if/* coming from a DOS environment (where
> its that "o" with backtick) and than translated to the same-looking
> character in the Windows environment - where it has got another "ascii"
> value.
>
> */even though/ I'm entering the ALT sequence in notepad or wordpad. Weird.
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser

Start : run : charmap is available in Windows 10, for some charts.

I don't know how long they've been doing that.

Paul

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 14:32:11 +0200, "R.Wieser" <address@is.invalid>
wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
>nice big almost-centered dot.
>
>However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
>keypad) than I get a different character : "ò" (an 'o' with a backquote
>ontop).
>
>What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>
>Regards,
>Rudy Wieser
>

When I try it 149 gets that o with a hat.
0149 gets the dot.

G,

> When I try it 149 gets that o with a hat.
> 0149 gets the dot.

Yes, Apd mentioned that last part.

It looks like that the "without zero prefix" takes from one codepage, and
the "with zero prefix" from another.

I noticed that when I tried ALT 181 , which exists in the "DOS"
characterset, but not in the "Windows" one. I expected to get an "doesn't
exist" rectangle, but (in notepad) got the "dos" character. After that I
tried ALT 0181 and got the "windows" character next to the first one.

IOW, I thought it translated from one codepage to another (see previous post
to Apd), but instead notepad displays characters from (at least) two
codepages at the same time.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message <u650ha$2p1d7$1@dont-email.me> at Sun, 11 Jun 2023 13:33:30,
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> writes
[]
>Start : run : charmap is available in Windows 10, for some charts.
>
>I don't know how long they've been doing that.
>
> Paul
>
>
Since at least XP, and I think earlier: it's the "Character Map" utility
that's under "Accessories" in the Start Menu, like Calculator and
Notepad. (Actually it's under Accessories\System Tools in 7.)

I remembered some codes from DOS days, and some of them still work -
ALT-230 gives μ, mu, micro. It's also there with a leading 0 - Alt-0181.

I notice Character Map gives the U+ code for all characters, and the
Keystroke code for the upper 128 or so. I know no way to actually _use_
the U+ code, though. The Keystroke ones it gives are always the ones
with the leading zero. If I've got charmap open anyway, I can select and
copy characters - though it has a tendency to add a newline, and if I'm
in something that supports font sizes, they tend to come out different
to what I'm using (unless I remember to use Paste Special in Word for
example), both of which are irritating.

While I was using a laptop without a numeric keypad (OK, you can
simulate one using some of the letter keys, but using that to enter
character codes is a vale of tears!), I used a utility called IIRR
AllChars, which used easy-to-remember character pairs to generate odd
characters, after you tapped _and released_ the Ctrl key: for example,
+- for ±, 'e for é, "o for ö, and so on. I thought it was good. Since
I've now got a numpad, I just use that - I remember a lot of the codes
like ± 0177, ß 0223, × 0215, or just open charmap, or (as I have UK
keyboard layout) the Alt Gr key (the right Alt key) for áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

While no one was paying attention, weather reports became accurate and the
news became fiction. Did not see that coming. - Scott Adams, 2015

On 11/06/2023 13:32, R.Wieser wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
> nice big almost-centered dot.
>
> However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
> keypad) than I get a different character : "ò" (an 'o' with a backquote
> ontop).
>
> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser
>
>

I've always used
Alt 7 for a bullet point ie •

--
Regards
wasbit

On 11/06/2023 16:06, David E. Ross wrote:
> On 6/11/2023 7:13 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
>> Apd,
>>
>>> stick a zero in front - alt 0149.
>>
>> That certainly does make it give the expected result. Thank you.
>>
>> Now the only thing is remembering it *and* not getting confused that a
>> prefixed "0" /doesn't/ mean that the value is Octal ...
>>
>>>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>>>
>>> I Don't know.
>>
>> Thats a clear answer. :-)
>>
>>> The other character is alt 0242
>>
>> Yes, I saw. I printed the characters 31 ... 126, 128 ... 254, just to be
>> able to quickly look them up - and the reason why I noticed.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>>
>>
> When entering special characters with numbers and the Alt key, you must
> always enter four digits. If the character only needs three digits, you
> must prefix the digits with a 0 to make four.
>

E.g. I've used the following for years in Notepad

Alt 7 = bullet point
Alt 64 = @
Alt 248 = degree symbol

--
Regards wasbit

In message <u66o9g$32qam$1@dont-email.me> at Mon, 12 Jun 2023 10:25:07,
wasbit <wasbit@nowhere.invalid> writes
[]
>E.g. I've used the following for years in Notepad
>
>Alt 7 = bullet point

• Wow - that's useful! Thanks.

>Alt 64 = @

Are you using a keyboard layout that doesn't have an @ then? I know
they're in different _places_ on UK/US keyboards (shift-2 in US,
shift-the-key-two-to-the-right-of-L in UK), but I didn't know any of
them didn't have an @ at all. (Or maybe you're using a laptop keyboard
that's missing it? In these days of email, I'd have thought that a poor
design!)

>Alt 248 = degree symbol
>
° One less keystroke than Alt-0176. Though I'll still have difficulty
remembering them/it!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark
to read." - Groucho Marx

"R.Wieser" wrote:
> I noticed that when I tried ALT 181 , which exists in the "DOS"
> characterset, but not in the "Windows" one. I expected to get an
> "doesn't exist" rectangle, but (in notepad) got the "dos" character.
> After that I tried ALT 0181 and got the "windows" character next to the
> first one.

The "DOS" chart is code page 437. Windows appears to be using 850 in
Notepad and 1250 in Wordpad. I've noticed before some of the box
drawing characters showing as accented letters, especially at a
command prompt.

Open a command prompt and change the font (if necessary) from "Raster
Fonts" to "Lucida Console". Then type: chcp
It should respond: "Active code page: 850"
Type: chcp 437
It should set it to 437.
Now type: [alt]181
It should show the box drawing character instead of an accented upper
case A.

(BTW, this was done on XP)

Apd,

> Windows appears to be using 850 in Notepad and 1250 in Wordpad.

Yes, I noticed they where different.

> It should respond: "Active code page: 850"

Here its 437. Which suits me fine, as the range 179 ... 218 shows the whole
set of single, double and combinations thereof border characters (and I'm no
stranger to commandline stuff).

Hmmm... I can't remember having ever changed the codepage though.

> (BTW, this was done on XP)

"You're using an OS /that/ old ? And you can still access the internet with
that ?"

That was what someone told me when I mentioned that I'm using XP myself.
:-)

And by the way, I'm still reading newsgroups and handle email using OE6 -
though quite recently I had to add an SSL tunnel for the email part (my ISP
dropped its non-SSL access for it).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
Thanks for the info.

"R.Wieser" wrote:
> Apd,
>
>> Windows appears to be using 850 in Notepad and 1250 in Wordpad.
>
> Yes, I noticed they where different.

I should say they're only different on entering the alt codes. If
given a file with high-bit characters they show the same thing, that
is characters from CP 1252 (I meant 1252 before, rather than 1250 but
they're similar).

>> It should respond: "Active code page: 850"
>
> Here its 437.

That's odd because 850 is the default OEM for Western Europe, whereas
437 is for the US.

> Hmmm... I can't remember having ever changed the codepage though.

I don't know how you'd make a permanent change. A reg entry, no doubt.

>> (BTW, this was done on XP)
>
> "You're using an OS /that/ old ? And you can still access the internet
> with that ?"
>
> That was what someone told me when I mentioned that I'm using XP myself.
> :-)

I'm used to such remarks. It's a shame we can't have a lean NT based
OS like Win2k or XP that has modern features without the bloat and
tracking. BTW, I do have Win7 on a laptop but there's no numeric
keypad to play with.

> And by the way, I'm still reading newsgroups and handle email using OE6 -

Same here.

> though quite recently I had to add an SSL tunnel for the email part (my
> ISP dropped its non-SSL access for it).

No problems in that area - yet.

On 6/12/23 04:15, wasbit wrote:

[snip]

> I've always used
> Alt 7 for a bullet point ie •

How does that work in email sent to non-Windows systems?

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"We are convinced the masses of evidence render the application of the
concept of evolution to man and the other primates beyond serious
dispute."[Pontifical Academy of Sciences]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 14:32:11 +0200, R.Wieser wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
> nice big almost-centered dot.
>
> However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
> keypad) than I get a different character : "��an 'o' with a backquote
> ontop).
>
> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser

Alt-nnn inputs raw character code byte. It will show as a character
belonging to non-OEM character set with the same character code based on
current active code page. Since Windows don't use OEM character set for
single-byte characters. e.g. ANSI if for U.S. English code page, or
Shift-JIS for Japanese code page. e.g. Alt+171 for the fraction one-half
character.

Non-OEM single-byte characters which don't exist in OEM character set, can
be inputted using Alt+0nnn. `nnn` is a decimal character code. e.g. Alt+0128
for the Euro sign character. The fraction one-half character would be
Alt+0189 for ANSI.

For Unicode applications, to input a Unicode character, use
Alt+NumpadPlus+xxxx. `xxxx` is a hexadecimal character codepoint. e.g.
Alt+NumpadPlus+262e for the Peace symbol character (Symbols & Dingbats
Unicode subrange). The `e` in the character codepoint, is simply typed using
the keyboard's `E` key. Numbers can be typed from the main keyboard keys
(non Numpad keys). For the Euro sign character, it would be
Alt+NumpadPlus+20ac.

On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 08:06:30 -0700, "David E. Ross"
<nobody@nowhere.invalid> wrote:

>On 6/11/2023 7:13 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
>> Apd,
>>
>>> stick a zero in front - alt 0149.
>>
>> That certainly does make it give the expected result. Thank you.
>>
>> Now the only thing is remembering it *and* not getting confused that a
>> prefixed "0" /doesn't/ mean that the value is Octal ...
>>
>>>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>>>
>>> I Don't know.
>>
>> Thats a clear answer. :-)
>>
>>> The other character is alt 0242
>>
>> Yes, I saw. I printed the characters 31 ... 126, 128 ... 254, just to be
>> able to quickly look them up - and the reason why I noticed.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>>
>>
>When entering special characters with numbers and the Alt key, you must
>always enter four digits. If the character only needs three digits, you
>must prefix the digits with a 0 to make four.

Not true. I entered all the following characters without the leading
zero.

ò–ùÿÖÜ¢£¥Pƒá¡

In message <1bgs9ch08ln8$.ul6pwunaj3mq$.dlg@40tude.net> at Tue, 13 Jun
2023 00:38:28, JJ <jj4public@outlook.com> writes
>On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 14:32:11 +0200, R.Wieser wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> When I open a file (notepad or write) with the character 149 in it I get a
>> nice big almost-centered dot.
>>
>> However, when I try to edit the file and type ALT 149 (using the numeric
>> keypad) than I get a different character : "0 >> ontop).
>>
>> What is the reason of that mismatch ?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>
>Alt-nnn inputs raw character code byte. It will show as a character
>belonging to non-OEM character set with the same character code based on
>current active code page. Since Windows don't use OEM character set for
>single-byte characters. e.g. ANSI if for U.S. English code page, or
>Shift-JIS for Japanese code page. e.g. Alt+171 for the fraction one-half
>character.
[]
Another thing from the ark - even before extended character sets at all!

I occasionally use a very old text editor: it's the one that came with
XTREE GOLD (and possibly earlier versions of Xtree) - I think it's
called 1word, and is "(c) 1985-1993"! I've noticed when using it (it may
not be exclusive to it, it may be a function of using any DOS utility of
similar nature), the current keyboard layout is forgotten, at least for
the characters " and @: they revert to the US positions (@ on shifted 2,
" near the enter key).

I've just done the sum and realised I'm thus using software that's 30
years old! Not only does that remind me how long I've been in computers
(probably in common with many here - actually longer, just that's
"PC-compatible" as it used to be called - actually "IBM-compatible" I
think!), but also it's amazing that (OK, with the keyboard funny) it
still works at all.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni, Vidi, VO5 (I came, I saw, I washed my hair) - Mik from S+AS Limited
(mik@saslimited.demon.co.uk), 1998