MSX character set

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MSX character set
Language(s)Arabic, Portuguese, German, English, Japanese, Korean, Russian
Created byMicrosoft
Based oncode page 437

MSX character sets are a group of single- and double-byte character sets developed by Microsoft for MSX computers. They are based on code page 437.

Character sets

The following table shows the MSX character set. Each character is shown with a potential Unicode equivalent if available. Control characters and other non-printing characters are represented by their names.

Character set differences exist, depending on the target market of the machine. These are the variations:

  • Arabic
  • Brazilian
  • German DIN
  • International
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Russian

The German DIN and International character sets are identical, apart from the style of zero (0) character. The international character set has a zero with a slash, while the DIN character set has a dotted zero.

The MSX terminal is compatible with VT52 escape codes, plus extra control codes shown below.

MSX International[1][2]
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
NULL graph WB[lower-alpha 1] ceol[lower-alpha 2] WF[lower-alpha 3] BEEP BS TAB LF home[lower-alpha 4] CLS RET eol[lower-alpha 5]
INS[lower-alpha 6] DL[lower-alpha 7] select[lower-alpha 8] ESC ⇨[lower-alpha 9] ⇦[lower-alpha 10] ⇧[lower-alpha 11] ⇩[lower-alpha 12]
 SP  ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . /
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^
` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o
p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~ DEL
Ç ü é â ä à å ç ê ë è ï î ì Ä Å
É æ Æ ô ö ò û ù ÿ Ö Ü ¢ £ ¥ ₧ ƒ
á í ó ú ñ Ñ ª º ¿ ⌐ ¬ ½ ¼ ¡ « »
à ã Ĩ ĩ Õ[lower-alpha 13] õ[lower-alpha 14] Ű ű IJ ij ¾ ∽ ◊ ‰ §
▂ ▚ ▆ 🮂 ▬ 🮅 ▎ ▞ ▊ 🮇 🮊 🮙 🮘 🭭 🭯 🭬
🭮 🮚 🮛 ▘ ▗ ▝ ▖ 🮖 Δ ‡ ω █ ▄ ▌ ▐ ▀
α ß Γ π Σ σ µ τ Φ Θ Ω δ ∞ ⌀ ∈ ∩
≡ ± ≥ ≤ ⌠ ⌡ ÷ ≈ ° ∙ · √ ⁿ ² ■ cursor
  1. ↑ moves the cursor to the previous word
  2. ↑ deletes the line to the right of the cursor
  3. ↑ moves the cursor to the next word
  4. ↑ places the cursor at top left of the screen
  5. ↑ moves the cursor to the end of the line
  6. ↑ insert key
  7. ↑ deletes the line where the cursor is located
  8. ↑ Special key. Its function can vary amongst applications
  9. ↑ moves the cursor one character to the right
  10. ↑ moves the cursor one character to the left
  11. ↑ moves the cursor up
  12. ↑ moves the cursor down
  13. ↑ could also be Ő
  14. ↑ could also be ő
MSX International[1][2]
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
NBSP ☺ ☻ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ • ◘ ○ ◙ ♂ ♀ ♪ ♫ ☼
⟊ ┴ ┬ ┤ ├ ┼ │ ─ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ╳ ╱ ╲ 🮯

Brazilian variants

Gradiente custom charset

The Brazilian manufacturer Gradiente have initially included a modified MSX character set on their v1.0 machines to allow writing correct Portuguese. Differences are shown boxed. The symbol at 0x9E (158) is the currency symbol for the Brazilian cruzado which is not used anymore.

MSX Brazilian
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
Ç ü é â Á à ¨ ç ê Í Ó Ú Â Ê Ô À
É æ Æ ô ö ò û ù ÿ Ö Ü ¢ £ ¥ Cz ƒ

BRASCII

Later Brazilian MSX models (v1.1 or higher) included a standardized character set named BRASCII, which solved the accentuation incompatibility problems amongst the different makers.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "MSX.TXT", L2/19-025: Proposal to add characters from legacy computers and teletext to the UCS, 2019-01-04, https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19025-terminals-prop.pdf 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "MSX font". Microcomputer & Related Culture Foundation. 2016-12-16. https://www.msx.org/wiki/MSX_font. 



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