I hope there is a simple answer for this one,

I want to run Arev in a Window rather than full screen in Win98, however if I hit the button, the window changes the ASCII character set.

Instead of having nice corners on boxes, I get the copyright sign and the Yen etc. (Even on the command line)

Is there an easy way to get the ASCII text to display as PC8 when in a Window?

Regards

Claude

You set the screen via the shortcut properties.

Simply check the box marked Window within the Screen tab.

Regards,

Kevin Gray

email kevin@graycorp.com.au

Kebin,

I don't think I made myself clear, I know how to start Arev in a Window, but the ASCII set it uses in the window is different from the one in the DOS full screen.

How do I get the ASCII character set in the window to emulate PC8?

Claude

Claude,

I understood what you are saying. I have never seen this before so I am somewhat stumped. I tried to duplicate your problem by using every different font size that the DOS window would give me and nothing behaved in the way you are describing.

What happens if you change the font size? Does it matter whether or not the font is "bitmapped" versus "true type"? Is your copy of Windows using a special language set that might be causing the font to appear differently?

I wish I had more to go on for you. If anybody should know something about this I would guess it would be Steve Smith.

dbakke@srpcs.com

SRP Computer Solutions

On behalf of all the others here with eidetic memory, but who weren't paying attention …..

I've seen it, but unless it's the BIOS default fonts as loaded into RAM (ie country set etc.) I'm not sure where the substitute characters derive from. I had a look in NT for the same sort of thing with no success, so I think it's confined to Win 95 and half-sized screens, or I've seen it on Citrix.

I'll take an extra look once I'm on site where I know it's happening, and see if it's replicable given certain characteristics. Perhaps it's unicode, or secondary code, or in my case, kindergarten code….

I'll pursue this one for it's absolutely useless ramifications. My kinda job, really .

steve@state-of-the-art.com.au

Thanks All,

I wait for the answer with intrepid anticipation.

If any of this info helps, here are some details:

Stand Alone PC

Win 98 Second Edition 4.10.2222A

AMD-K6 500

96MB RAM

Arev 3.12

I have the following command in the Autoexec.Bat

mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)

mode con codepage select=850

but I've used 8 and 437 with no difference.

I can simply call up the Arev ASCII table, and by pressing , I can watch it change

Thanks for all your help

Claude

Claude,

A colleague of me says he's seen it too, but has no explanation.

Perhaps the Autoexec codepage setting only works for full screen DOS??? (Btw - I have a related setting (Country…850…) in Config.sys too.) Perhaps there's another setting somewhere else for DOS windows??? What about the Repository, for instance? Try to search the Windows Repository for codepage settings. I have such settings in mine. (To search the Repository, export the whole repository to a file and search that file afterwards.)

- Oystein -

Yep, it happens on Citrix a lot. And if you swap to VGA43 or VGA50 mode and are in full screen at the time - well! the results are almost unreadable. Never been able to find a solution, though. Best is to tell your users to stay in a DOS window and never go to full screen mode….

J

Oystein,

Do you mean Repository or Registry?

Either way, I need to be taken very carefully by the hand if I'm going to play with the innards of Windows.

Claude

Claude,

Sorry. I meant the Registry.

I agree with you it's best to be careful. But at least you can take a peek.

If you by any chance don't know how to browse/edit the Registry: It's done with the Regedit program. You run Regedit from Windows' Task Bar's Start | Run. To "export" the content to a text file select Registry | Export Registry (or whatever it is in English; my Windows is Norwegian). Make sure to export Everything/All/(whatever it is in English), and not just the current branch. Then exit Regedit. No harm done.

Afterwards inspect the text file with a word processor. If you discover what you think is a problematic setting, you can start worrying how to get it changed without messing up anything.

- Oystein -

I just wandered round the office to test Arev on different PCs and I get this ASCII swapping on two other PCs.

I also get the wrong ASCII characters on both full and windows screen on two other.

All four have the same autoexec.bat configuration.

Finally a new notebook downstairs gives me the correct characters on both screens - the notebook has no mode commands in the autoexec.bat file at all.

They are all running Win98 OSR2

It must be something like the registry… but where?

This may become my lifes work… at this rate

Thanks for any othe comments

Claude

Try creating a _default.pif in the Windows directory and setting font properties there.

Also check which font is set in Accessories -] Character Map

Check also the DOSSTART.BAT in the Windows Directory

Thanks for the ideas..

]Try creating a _default.pif in the Windows directory and setting font properties there.

Exactly what do you mean? How can I change the font properties anywhere?

]Also check which font is set in Accessories -] Character Map

Arial is the font that the Character map starts in.

]Check also the DOSSTART.BAT in the Windows Directory

Its just got a sound board driver in it

I'm now starting to trawl through various Microsft/Windows sites to see if I can find an answer.

Any further suggestions will be greatly appreciated, and if I find the answer elsewhere, I'll advise of the results.

Claude

Claude,

I am just guessing with this Registry stuff. But check the Registry (the file exported from the Registry) of each of your computers and see if there is a HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Codepage entry. What do they look like?

- Oystein -

Oystein,

Here is the file, I hope it means more to you than it does to me…

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Codepage

"1250"=CP_1250.nls"

"1251"=CP_1251.nls"

"1252"=CP_1252.nls"

"1253"=CP_1253.nls"

"1254"=CP_1254.nls"

"1257"=CP_1257.nls"

"437"=cp_437.nls"

"850"=cp_850.nls"

"737"=cp_737.nls"

"775"=cp_775.nls"

"852"=cp_852.nls"

"857"=cp_857.nls"

"855"=cp_855.nls"

"866"=cp_866.nls"

"869"=cp_869.nls"

"28597"=CP_28597.nls"

"20866"=CP_20866.nls"

"28595"=CP_28595.nls"

"28592"=CP_28592.nls"

"28591"=CP_28591.nls"

"ACP"=1252"

"OEMCP"=850"

"950"=CP_950.nls"

"949"=CP_949.nls"

"936"=CP_936.nls"

"932"=CP_932.nls"

"874"=CP_874.nls"

"28605"=CP_28605.nls"

"28599"=CP_28599.nls"

"28598"=CP_28598.nls"

"28596"=CP_28596.nls"

"28594"=CP_28594.nls"

"28593"=CP_28593.nls"

"21866"=CP_21866.nls"

"20269"=CP_20269.nls"

"1361"=CP_1361.nls"

"1258"=CP_1258.nls"

"1256"=CP_1256.nls"

"1255"=CP_1255.nls"

Regards

Claude

Claude,

Am I right in assuming you get a copyright sign instead of the following box-drawing character?

XXXXXXX

    X

XXXXXXX

    X

    X

    X

    X

The reason for your problem must be that the MS-DOS window uses codepage 850 (DOSLatin1) while MS-DOS full screen uses codepage 437 (DOSLatinUS). As you can see 850 has all the single line and double line box-drawing characters of 437, but not the "mixed" ones.

And checking again now on my own system I see the same thing happens here. When I checked earlier I didn't try any "mixed" box-drawing characters.

To get your "mixed" box-drawing characters I believe you must use codepage 437. But before you try to change you should perhaps check the tables above to see if you have any characters in your data that will be affected by the change. E.g if you have copyright signs in your data they will be shown as that mirror F box-drawing character above.

But then to the crux - where and how to change the codepage setting. The only possibly relevant Registry setting is "OEMCP"=850". I tried to change that to "OEMCP"=437", but with no effect on how MS-DOS characters displayed. (Yes, I remembered to do a re-boot.) The only other place I know of is autoexec.bat (and perhaps also config.sys). I didn't try to change that. And you said you already tried, without any luck. So I am at a loss.

Perhaps you have to do both???

Or perhaps there's an additional Registry setting none of us have got???

- Oystein -

Claude,

Here's the character I meant:

XXXXXXX
      X
XXXXXXX
      X
      X
      X
      X

- Oystein -

Code page is set from control panel -] regional settings - You want English (US).

It is possible Microsoft or an OEM has changed the default definitions in different versions or one or more of the different systems has a grey market international version of Win9x installed on it.

Find command.com in Windows Explorer, right click on it to create a shortcut/pif. Rename it to _default and move it to the Windows directory. Edit the properties to change the working directory and path. Click on the font tab and make sure settings are correct. When ever you create a new shortcut for a DOS program or open the command prompt it will default to these values.

Setting the CodePage in Autoexec.bat does effect the way it looks in DOS full screen, but there has to be an internal setting somewhere in Windows that allows for the Window display to show as 437.

I haven't changed the regional settings as Warren mentioned, as I am in the UK and feel it may upset other applications I use.

The thing that really annoys me, is that we had a notebook in for a few days to load our software on. It had the correct display in both DOS full screen and in a Window - the Autoexec.bat only had one line in it and it had nothing to do with codepages. Unfortunately we had to supply it to our client, otherwise I would be playing with it now to find where the difference lies.

The Search continues……….

Claude,

Setting the CodePage in Autoexec.bat does effect the way it looks in DOS full screen, but there has to be an internal setting somewhere in Windows that allows for the Window display to show as 437.

What about (re)setting the codepage in the DOS window? It seems to work here. Start Arev from a bat file and include the codepage commands in that bat file.

What I did was to run the following two commands:

mode con codepage prepare=((437) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)

mode con codepage select=437

I do get an error message on the second command, something like "the current keyboard does not support this code page", but it doesn't seem to matter.

I have not done any thorough testing, though.

I haven't changed the regional settings as Warren mentioned, as I am in the UK and feel it may upset other applications I use.

In the Regional Settings window you select a language on the first tabbed page. That makes values change in all the other pages. What if you change to English (US) on the first tabbed page, and then change back to British values on the other pages? That should take care of much of what those other applications need.

There could of course be other, undesirable effects of the English (US) setting.

But the only thing I discovered during (after) my own, brief experiment, was that some display settings in MS software got reset. E.g, bookmarks/folders in IE no longer were sorted alphabetically. E.g, folders in Explorer were shown as web pages. (I'm not 100% sure about that second change, however. That could be something else's fault.)

- Oystein -

Since you are in the UK:

Setting the code page in a BAT file is probably the best bet.

According to my Visual Foxpro documentation 437 is US MS-DOS, 850=International MS-DOS. MSFT recommends changing the code page on application basis rather than a system basis.

Changing the region settings could affect the sorts in other applications. Test carefully.

What happens if you change the International settings in ARev?

Warren,

Since you are in the UK:

Who? Me?

Setting the code page in a BAT file is probably the best bet. According to my Visual Foxpro documentation 437 is US MS-DOS, 850=International MS-DOS. MSFT recommends changing the code page on application basis rather than a system basis.

I'm convinced. So is probably Claude. So I really should keep my gob shut now…

Changing the region settings could affect the sorts in other applications. Test carefully.

I would assume US and British sort is exactly the same. But it should be easy to test. Just make a file with all relevant characters, one character per line, and sort the lines with Word. Then compare the results.

Possible pitfall 1: Sorting in Windows may be more advanced than a plain character by character sort. E.g with a Norwegian setting "Å" and "AA" are sorted equally. Reason: In many names the old-fashioned spelling "AA" is used for "Å". (But it can be a real PITA when sorting other stuff, like file names, hex numbers, etc.) But I cannot really think of similar things in English.

Possible pitfall 2: For all I know there might be other kinds of data (than text) that are sorted differently with US vs British setting. But you would think most of them are covered by the various detailed settings (currency, measurements, time, date) and therefore would not cause any problem if explicitly set.

What happens if you change the International settings in ARev?

Who? Me? What am I doing in the Arev category anyway?

- Oystein -

Thanks Oystein for playing around with your version of Arev.

For the record,

Setting the codepage only affects the full screen DOS view, the Window still changes the ASCII characters every time I change to it by pressing .

I've tried setting the codepage at the Autoexec.bat and in a batch file calling Arev with the same result as above.

I'm almost certain it has something to do with the registry, but where what and how? I don't know.

I've put the question to a number of other forums on the net, and as yet I have no answer.

I've spent many hours asking, trying etc. and I'm not about to give up now. As always, I'll try out any ideas from this and other forums, and if I succeed, you can bet I'll post the definitive solution.

Thanks for all your help, Oystein, Warren etc..

Claude

Claude,

(I don't use Arev. For my tests I just key in a problematic character - the mirror F character "alias" the copyright sign - with Alt-184 from the numeric keyboard.)

You're right. Setting codepage in a DOS window doesn't help. It helps in full screen.

I realize I have the opposite problem as you (except it isn't a real problem for me, since I don't run Arev or other DOS programs with box-drawing chars). I get the copyright sign in full screen. Which can be cured with setting the codepage in a bat file. In a DOS window I get the mirror F, like you desire.

One final try:

I have an entry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MS-DOS Emulation

"Font"=Lucida Console"

"DisplayParams"=hex:0e,01,cb,00,00,04,00,03,60,00,60,00,24,00,24,00,20,00,4c,\

75,63,69,64,61,20,43,6f,6e,73,6f,6c,65,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\

00,00,00,00,00,00

in my registry. Perhaps that Font setting has something to do with it. Or perhaps this setting is for full screen only, because to me it seems the Lucida Console font has got a copyright char and no box drawing chars.

But it could be interesting to know what you've got in your HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MS-DOS Emulation entry.

- Oystein -

Oystein,

That part of the registry has a 13 page printout, but the relevant lines are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MS-DOS Emulation

"Font"=Lucida Console"

"DisplayParams"=hex:d3,00,9e,00,20,03,58,02,60,00,60,00,0a,00,0a,00,10,00,4c,\

75,63,69,64,61,20,43,6f,6e,73,6f,6c,65,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\

00,00,00,00,00,00

From my review of the character maps of all the fonts I have, not one of them has the approriate corners I am looking for.

Maybe thats the answer… find a font that emulates codepage 437 - but how do I make it my default font?

It seems this thread creates more questions than answers…

Claude

Claude,

I give up.

And I've been unable to find anything on the web about this problem. Like you I've searched.

- Oystein -

Oystein,

Thanks for trying - I haven't given up yet, but I have certainly stumped a number of "Experts" in various Windows forums/help sites.

I suppose it will have to become my crusade….. for this week

Claude

Claude,

I said I gave up, but I couldn't let go. And now I suddenly managed to change the codepage in an MS-DOS window, so it became the same as the codepage in MS-DOS full screen.

As you might remember my system ought to show characters according to codepage 850. And so it's been all the time in my full screen MS-DOS. In full screen the int 184 character shows as a copyright sign, which is the correct glyph according to 850. The strange thing with my system is that the MS-DOS window showed int 184 as a box drawing character (mirror F).

Until now.

What I did was the following. I ran an MS-DOS window and clicked the Font button (the one with the character "A"). Then in the dialog box that came up I tried to select something else in the Available types radio group on the Font tab (the second tab). When I selected the middle option (TrueType only) that somehow triggered a change. Back in the MS-DOS window the mirror F became a copyright sign. I tried to redo the setting, but 850 just seemed to stick. No matter which of the Available types options I chose the copyright sign stayed.

To see how far the change went, I brought up another MS-DOS window. That hadn't changed. But when I rebooted my system, and again brought up an MS-DOS window, I saw the 850 codepage had stuck. Farewell, 437. Farewell box drawing characters.

Now it would be interesting to know if you could do the same. I.e, in your case get codepage 437 everywhere.

There is one thing, however. I don't know where my MS-DOS window finally got its 850 codepage from. Remember you have some 850 settings in your own system (Autoexec.bat).

- Oystein -

I'm afraid it doesn't work for me Oystein.

I've probably got 850 inbedded somewhere in the registry

I shall continue to play

Regards

Claude

While rooting around in my Win98SE cd-rom I came a across a program call chgdoscodpage or something like that which suspiciously looked like it might do something you want it to. I don't know if Win95 has something similar, I never noticed it before.

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