Information about 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,^[1][2] is the original character set of the IBM PC, circa 1981.

Characters

The following is a table representing CP437 using the equivalent Unicode characters:

	.0	.1	.2	.3	.4	.5	.6	.7	.8	.9	.A	.B	.C	.D	.E	.F
0.	NULL 0 0	☺ 263A 1	☻ 263B 2	♥ 2665 3	♦ 2666 4	♣ 2663 5	♠ 2660 6	• 2022 7	◘ 25D8 8	○ 25CB 9	◙ 25D9 10	♂ 2642 11	♀ 2640 12	♪ 266A 13	♫ 266B 14	☼ 263C 15
1.	► 25BA 16	◄ 25C4 17	↕ 2195 18	‼ 203C 19	¶ 00B6 20	§ 00A7 21	▬ 25AC 22	↨ 21A8 23	↑ 2191 24	↓ 2193 25	→ 2192 26	← 2190 27	∟ 221F 28	↔ 2194 29	▲ 25B2 30	▼ 25BC 31
2.	0020 32	! 0021 33	" 0022 34	# 0023 35	$ 0024 36	% 0025 37	& 0026 38	' 0027 39	( 0028 40	) 0029 41	* 002A 42	+ 002B 43	, 002C 44	- 002D 45	. 002E 46	/ 002F 47
3.	0 0030 48	1 0031 49	2 0032 50	3 0033 51	4 0034 52	5 0035 53	6 0036 54	7 0037 55	8 0038 56	9 0039 57	: 003A 58	; 003B 59	< 003C 60	= 003D 61	> 003E 62	? 003F 63
4.	@ 0040 64	A 0041 65	B 0042 66	C 0043 67	D 0044 68	E 0045 69	F 0046 70	G 0047 71	H 0048 72	I 0049 73	J 004A 74	K 004B 75	L 004C 76	M 004D 77	N 004E 78	O 004F 79
5.	P 0050 80	Q 0051 81	R 0052 82	S 0053 83	T 0054 84	U 0055 85	V 0056 86	W 0057 87	X 0058 88	Y 0059 89	Z 005A 90	[ 005B 91	\ 005C 92	] 005D 93	^ 005E 94	_ 005F 95
6.	` 0060 96	a 0061 97	b 0062 98	c 0063 99	d 0064 100	e 0065 101	f 0066 102	g 0067 103	h 0068 104	i 0069 105	j 006A 106	k 006B 107	l 006C 108	m 006D 109	n 006E 110	o 006F 111
7.	p 0070 112	q 0071 113	r 0072 114	s 0073 115	t 0074 116	u 0075 117	v 0076 118	w 0077 119	x 0078 120	y 0079 121	z 007A 122	{ 007B 123	| 007C 124	} 007D 125	~ 007E 126	⌂ 2302 127
8.	Ç 00C7 128	ü 00FC 129	é 00E9 130	â 00E2 131	ä 00E4 132	à 00E0 133	å 00E5 134	ç 00E7 135	ê 00EA 136	ë 00EB 137	è 00E8 138	ï 00EF 139	î 00EE 140	ì 00EC 141	Ä 00C4 142	Å 00C5 143
9.	É 00C9 144	æ 00E6 145	Æ 00C6 146	ô 00F4 147	ö 00F6 148	ò 00F2 149	û 00FB 150	ù 00F9 151	ÿ 00FF 152	Ö 00D6 153	Ü 00DC 154	¢ 00A2 155	£ 00A3 156	¥ 00A5 157	₧ 20A7 158	ƒ 0192 159
A.	á 00E1 160	í 00ED 161	ó 00F3 162	ú 00FA 163	ñ 00F1 164	Ñ 00D1 165	ª 00AA 166	º 00BA 167	¿ 00BF 168	⌐ 2310 169	¬ 00AC 170	½ 00BD 171	¼ 00BC 172	¡ 00A1 173	« 00AB 174	» 00BB 175
B.	░ 2591 176	▒ 2592 177	▓ 2593 178	│ 2502 179	┤ 2524 180	╡ 2561 181	╢ 2562 182	╖ 2556 183	╕ 2555 184	╣ 2563 185	║ 2551 186	╗ 2557 187	╝ 255D 188	╜ 255C 189	╛ 255B 190	┐ 2510 191
C.	└ 2514 192	┴ 2534 193	┬ 252C 194	├ 251C 195	─ 2500 196	┼ 253C 197	╞ 255E 198	╟ 255F 199	╚ 255A 200	╔ 2554 201	╩ 2569 202	╦ 2566 203	╠ 2560 204	═ 2550 205	╬ 256C 206	╧ 2567 207
D.	╨ 2568 208	╤ 2564 209	╥ 2565 210	╙ 2559 211	╘ 2558 212	╒ 2552 213	╓ 2553 214	╫ 256B 215	╪ 256A 216	┘ 2518 217	┌ 250C 218	█ 2588 219	▄ 2584 220	▌ 258C 221	▐ 2590 222	▀ 2580 223
E.	α 03B1 224	ß 00DF 225	Γ 0393 226	π 03C0 227	Σ 03A3 228	σ 03C3 229	µ 00B5 230	τ 03C4 231	Φ 03A6 232	Θ 0398 233	Ω 03A9 234	δ 03B4 235	∞ 221E 236	φ 03C6 237	ε 03B5 238	∩ 2229 239
F.	≡ 2261 240	± 00B1 241	≥ 2265 242	≤ 2264 243	⌠ 2320 244	⌡ 2321 245	÷ 00F7 246	≈ 2248 247	° 00B0 248	∙ 2219 249	· 00B7 250	√ 221A 251	ⁿ 207F 252	² 00B2 253	■ 25A0 254	00A0 255 || !.0||.1||.2||.3||.4||.5||.6||.7||.8||.9||.A||.B||.C||.D||.E||.F

Difference from ASCII

It is based on ASCII, with the following modifications:

• The C0 control range (0x00–0x1F 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 0x7F, DEL, similarly shows as a graphic (a house).
• The high-bit range, 0x80–0xFF, 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.

The repertoire of CP437 was taken from the character set of Wang word-processing machines, according to Bill Gates in an interview with Gates and Paul Allen that in the 2^nd of October 1995 edition of Fortune Magazine:

"… we were also fascinated by dedicated word processors from Wang, because we believed that general-purpose machines could do that just as well. That's why, when it came time to design the keyboard for the IBM PC, we put the funny Wang character set into the machine—you know, smiley faces and boxes and triangles and stuff. We were thinking we'd like to do a clone of Wang word-processing software someday."

CP437 is inadequate for internationalisation, as it lacks characters necessary for some languages, such as À (capital A with grave) for French and Catalan, and has only a few Greek letters. Later MS-DOS character sets, such as CP850 (DOS Latin-1), CP852 (DOS Central-European) and CP737 (DOS Greek), filled the gaps for international use with some compability to with CP437 by retaining the single and double box-drawing characters, while discarding the mixed ones (e.g. horizontal double/vertical single). All CP437 characters are in Unicode and in Microsoft's WGL4 character set, therefore in most of the fonts on Microsoft Windows, and also in the default VGA font of the Linux kernel, and the ISO 10646 fonts for X11.

Implementors of mapping tables to Unicode should note that CP437 unifies some characters that look almost the same (to the eyes of its implementors, not to the eyes of a typographer): 0xE1 is both the German sharp S (U+00DF, ß) and the Greek lowercase beta (U+03B2, β); 0xE4 is both the n-ary summation sign (U+2211, ∑) and the Greek uppercase sigma (U+03A3, Σ); 0xE6 is both the micro sign (U+00B5, µ) and the Greek lowercase mu (U+03BC, μ); 0xEA is both the ohm sign (U+2126, Ω) and the Greek uppercase omega (U+03A9, Ω) (note that in Unicode as well, the ohm sign is canonically equivalent to the capital omega, and its use is discouraged in favor of capital omega[1]); and 0xEE is both the element-of sign (U+2208, ∈) and the Greek lowercase epsilon (U+03B5, ε).

In DOS and Windows, most characters from the currently active can be inserted by holding down the Alt key and entering the character's three-digit decimal code on the numpad. Which DOS code page is currently active can be found out by querying mode.com. This technique is called Windows Alt keycodes.

See also

• ASCII
• ASCII art
• ANSI art
• Western Latin character sets (computing)

External links

• Microsoft Code Page 437 reference chart

References