zlacker

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1. Mister+(OP)[view] [source] 2025-10-09 21:48:11
> Is their database a 7-bit database?

Ascii is 7 bits. What people think of as 8-bit ASCII is actually code page 437, the alternate characters added to the PC BIOS in the original IBM PC. Like UTF-8 it uses the most significant bit in a 1 byte ASCII char to determine if it should use a character from ASCII if 0 or the extended 437 characters which includes ü if 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437

replies(1): >>umanwi+9i
2. umanwi+9i[view] [source] 2025-10-10 01:04:55
>>Mister+(OP)
Do people think of this as 8-bit ASCII ? I've never heard of it referred to ASCII until now. In fact, I've never heard of it at all (by the time I was old enough to know what a character encoding was, Latin-1 and Windows-1252 were totally dominant IIRC).
replies(1): >>int_19+st
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3. int_19+st[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-10-10 04:07:04
>>umanwi+9i
In DOS days, codepage 437 was commonly referred to as "ASCII" colloquially in countries where some other encoding was in use for the national script.
replies(1): >>umanwi+uw
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4. umanwi+uw[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-10-10 04:53:38
>>int_19+st
Interesting to know, thanks!
replies(1): >>Mister+Dq1
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5. Mister+Dq1[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-10-10 13:43:38
>>umanwi+uw
Yup, what the GP said. It was a common mistake for people to assume ASCII included CP 437 characters back in the DOS days. Even I made that assumption when I was a kid.
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