Re: Euro sign now added to CP850 and CP857

From: Lisa Moore (lisam@us.ibm.com)
Date: Thu Aug 20 1998 - 15:04:26 EDT


Bob,

Actually my first note on the subject only covered the surface of the
situation. I was hoping to give a simple answer. Here is the longer answer.

The official registration of code page 850 has not changed. Code page 858 is
the new code page with euro support which has been registered by IBM. It is
identical to 850 except xD5 contains the euro sign instead of the dotless i.

However our OS/2 product has decided that it would be impossible to add a new
code page in time to meet Europe's euro sign requirements, so they will
continue to support Western European languages with a code page called 850, but
it will actually be what is defined by 858 - identical to 850 but with the euro
sign at location xD5 in place of the dotless i.

Code page 850 is not much used in Turkey, instead they use 857. The feedback
so far from Turkey is that they have no concern with OS/2's approach to support
the euro.

OS/2 has fix packs for the euro support. Information can be found at:
http://ps.boulder.ibm.com/pbin-usa-ps/getobj.pl?/pdocs-usa/euro.html

If the euro fix pack has been installed on OS/2, the code page will still be
identified by 850. Applications will have to be aware of the change. One
method of checking for this is to use the OS supplied Unicode converters and
check what CP850, xD5 maps to. If it maps to U+20AC, then you know this system
has been updated for euro support.

Hope this is clear. If it's not, please take your questions directly to
nltc@ca.ibm.com, as they do all the code page registrations for IBM.

Lisa

bob_verbrugge@nl.compuware.com on 08-20-98 01:25:09 AM
Please respond to unicode@unicode.org
To: unicode@unicode.org
cc:
Subject: Re: Euro sign now added to CP850 and CP857

Lisa,

When i understand correctly IBM code page 850 has replaced dotless i with
the Euro sign. But what is the difference then between code page 850 and
the new code page 858?

Do you have a reference to possible ibm web pages containing code page
info related to the Euro?

Thanks,
Bob Verbrugge

> From unicode.org!unicode@alushta.NL.net Sat Aug 15 01:18 MET 1998
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT
> X-Uml-Sequence: 5724 (1998-08-14 15:59:10 GMT)
> From: Lisa Moore <lisam@us.ibm.com>
> To: Unicode List <unicode@unicode.org>
> Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 08:59:09 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: Re: Euro sign now added to CP850 and CP857
>
> Hold on to your hats (or something!), IBM has indeed changed code page 850.
> But we have also created a new code page which is 858 (850 with the dotless i,
> 0xD5, replaced by euro). The OS/2 platform wants to stick to using 850, but
> some of our middleware products want to have the new code page to help
maintain
> data integrity. 857 is still 857 because adding the euro did not replace an
> existing character.
>
> It's a brave new world,
>
> Lisa
>
>
> fdc@watsun.cc.columbia.edu on 08-14-98 07:11:56 AM
> Please respond to unicode@unicode.org
> To: unicode@unicode.org
> cc:
> Subject: Re: Euro sign now added to CP850 and CP857
>
>
> > According to
> >
> > http://ps.boulder.ibm.com/pbin-usa-ps/getobj.pl?/pdocs-usa/euro.html
> >
> > IBM has changed code pages 850 and 857 to include the euro sign.
> >
> > Therefore I suggest to update in the mapping files
> >
> > ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/PC/CP850.TXT
> > ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/PC/CP857.TXT
> >
> > the lines
> >
> > 0xd5 0x0131 #LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I
> > 0xd5 #UNDEFINED
> >
> > which should both be replaced by
> >
> > 0xd5 0x20AC #EURO SIGN
> >
> > and the equivalent change should be made in CP857.TXT.
> >
> Not necessarily. I believe what it means to say (but doesn't) about CP850
> is that a new code page, CP858, was created by copying CP850 and replacing
> dotless i with the Euro symbol. I don't think IBM has ever changed, or will
> ever change, the definition of a code page.
>
> Similarly for CP857, but I don't know the CP number of its Euro twin.
>
> CP923 is identical to ISO 8859-15. CP924 has the same repertoire as CP923
> but with EBCDIC encoding. Other EBCDIC code page replacements include:
>
> Current New Code Countries
> 37 1140 9F USA, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Australia, NZ
> 273 1141 9F Austria, Germany
> 277 1142 5A Denmark, Norway
> 278 1143 5A Finland, Sweden
> 280 1144 9F Italy
> 284 1145 9F Spain, Latin America (Spanish)
> 285 1146 9F UK
> 297 1147 9F France
> 500 1148 9F Belgium, Canada, Switzerland
> 871 1149 9F Iceland
>
> ("Code" is the hex code point of the Euro symbol).
>
> This according to documentation shipped by IBM with OS/2 Fix Paks. I'm
> sure the info can also be found somewhere in the maze of IBM web pages.
>
> - Frank
>
>
>
>
>



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