Hardware code page: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:20, 10 June 2016

Revision as of 08:58, 11 June 2016

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: <tt>DEVICE=…\PRINTER.SYS PRN=(type,(hwcp1,hwcp2,…),n)</tt><ref name="Paul_2002-12-04"/>

If multiple hardware code pages are supported in OEM issues, the first hardware code page (hwcp1) in the list specifies the default hardware code page.

If no hardware code page(s) are specified, these drivers default either to a dummy code page number 999<ref name="Paul_2001_CPSwitchFD"/><ref name="Paul_1997_NWDOSTIP"/><ref name="Paul_2001_NWDOSTIP"/> or assume the hardware code page to be equal to the [[primary code page]] (the first codepage listed in [[COUNTRY.SYS]] files for a particular country forwith the country code either specified in the CONFIG.SYS [[COUNTRY (CONFIG.SYS directive)|COUNTRY]] directive, or assumed to be the operating system's internal default, usually 1 (US) in Western issues of DOS).<ref name="Paul_2001_CPSwitchFD"/>

In many English-speaking countries, the primary code page is either 437 (f.e. in the US) or 850 (f.e. in the UK, Irland and Canada),<ref name="Paul_1997_NWDOSTIP"/><ref name="Paul_2001_NWDOSTIP"/> so that, without specifying a different codepage, the system would often assume one of these to be the corresponding device's default hardware code page as well.<ref name="Paul_2001_CPSwitchFD"/> If a hardware code page does not match one of those with official code page assignments, an arbitrary number from the range 57344-61439 (E000h-EFFFh) for [[user-definable code page]]s or 65280-65533 (FF00h-FFFDh) for [[private use code page]]s could be specified per [[IBM CDRA]] to give the operating system a non-conflictive "handle" to select that code page.