Talk:Code page 850

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Only the upper half (128–255) of the table is shown, the lower half (0–127) being the same as ASCII.

Hm, is that really true? Look at code page 437, you will find characters like ☺ and ☻ and ♥ on the positions 1, 2, 3, respectively, instead of control codes. cp 850 contains them, too, in my eyes. --Abdull 14:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the following paragraph from our code page 437 article also applies here. unfortunately i don't have access to an old dos manual to check

"The C0 control range (0x00-0x1F hex) is mapped to graphics characters. The codes can assume their original function as controls (as they still do—typing "echo", space, control-G and then Enter causes the PC speaker to emit a beep—even on the command prompt on Windows XP), but in display, 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)." Plugwash 15:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your quick response. I just found a IBM datasheet on Code page 850: http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/software/globalization/pdf/cp00850z.pdf

You can see graphical characters in this data sheets instead of C0 control codes. I therefore changed the table accordingly. Still, your aforementioned comment on the graphical characters responding the same way as the control codes hold. I'll at this comment to the article. --Abdull 19:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

It may be best, as in the CP862 article, to say that the lower half is the same as CP437. --Shlomi Tal ☜ 21:28, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Obsolete?

Does Microsoft really say that 850 is obsolete and unsupported? Even Vista uses 850 for OEM (console) output: [1]

Code pages supported by Windows (including 850): [2]

Code page 850 in Microsoft.com: [3]

-- Talamus 15:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)