Hardware code page: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:45, 11 June 2016

Revision as of 11:12, 11 June 2016

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{{anchor|Fontpage|Display|Printer|Default}}In computing, a '''hardware code page''' ('''HWCP''') refers to a [[code page]] supported natively by a hardware device such as a [[display adapter]] or [[printer (computing)|printer]]. The [[glyph]]s to present the characters are stored in the [[character generator]]'s resident read-only memory (like ROM or flash) and are thus not user-changeable.<ref name="Paul_2001_CPSwitchFD"/> They are available for use by the system without having to [[upload]]load any font definitions into the device first. Startup messages issued by a [[Personal computer|PC]]'s [[System BIOS]] or displayed by an [[operating system]] before initializing its own code page switching logic and font management and before switching to [[graphics mode]] are displayed in a computer's '''default hardware code page'''.

==Code page assignments==

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Hardware code pages are also [[OEM code page]]s. The designation "OEM", for "[[original equipment manufacturer]]", indicates that the character set could be changed by the manufacturer to meet different markets.

However, OEM code pages do not necessarily reside in ROM, but include so called [[prepared code page]]s,<ref name="Caldera_1998_USER-17"/> (aka [[downloadable character set]] or [[downloadable font]]), character sets uploadedloaded as [[raster font]]s into the font RAM of suitable display adapters (like [[HGC+]] with [[RAMFONT]], [[Multi-Color Graphics Array|MCGA]], [[Enhanced Graphics Adapter|EGA]], [[VGA]], etc.) and printers as well. Hence, the group of OEM code pages is a superset of hardware code pages.

==See also==