Answer: Ascii characters (kinda long)

In article <39i03e$fl...@panix.com>,
Gedaliah Friedenberg <ged...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>Some ftp sites have directories with names that include unusual
>characters (heart, club, spade, smiley, etc.).
>
>Anyone know how I generate these (Alt-###, I assume)?  Where can I
>get a list of all the Alt sequences and their resulting characters.
>
>
>Thanks for the help
>
>Gedaliah
>jerusalem.flf (Filglet font) developer

Characters 1-31 correspond to control characters ( 1-26 = Ctrl-A thru Z ),
so your results may vary quite a bit.  The four "suits," however, are:
    hearts=3    diamonds=4    clubs=5    spades=6
There are two smiley faces, characters 1 and 2.  1 is the open smiley, with
face drawn in the foreground color, and 2 is a reverse video version, with
the facial features drawn in the background color.

The rest is more or less beyond the question, but this is everything I was
able to dig up that might conceivably be helpful at some point:

--
The control codes and their names, in ascii, octal and hex for characters 1
through 127 is below, taken straight from the man page on 'ascii:'


ASCII(7)     ENVIRONMENTS, TABLES, AND TROFF MACROS      ASCII(7)

NAME
     ascii - map of ASCII character set

SYNOPSIS
     cat /usr/pub/ascii

DESCRIPTION
     /usr/pub/ascii is a map of the ASCII character  set,  to  be
     printed as needed.  It contains octal and hexadecimal values
     for each character.  While not  included  in  that  file,  a
     chart of decimal values is also shown here.

     |000 NUL|001 SOH|002 STX|003 ETX|004 EOT|005 ENQ|006 ACK|007 BEL|
     |010 BS |011 HT |012 NL |013 VT |014 NP |015 CR |016 SO |017 SI |
     |020 DLE|021 DC1|022 DC2|023 DC3|024 DC4|025 NAK|026 SYN|027 ETB|
     |030 CAN|031 EM |032 SUB|033 ESC|034 FS |035 GS |036 RS |037 US |
     |040 SP |041  ! |042  " |043  # |044  $ |045  % |046  & |047  ' |
     |050  ( |051  ) |052  * |053  + |054  , |055  - |056  . |057  / |
     |060  0 |061  1 |062  2 |063  3 |064  4 |065  5 |066  6 |067  7 |
     |070  8 |071  9 |072  : |073  ; |074  < |075  = |076  > |077  ? |
     |100  @ |101  A |102  B |103  C |104  D |105  E |106  F |107  G |
     |110  H |111  I |112  J |113  K |114  L |115  M |116  N |117  O |
     |120  P |121  Q |122  R |123  S |124  T |125  U |126  V |127  W |
     |130  X |131  Y |132  Z |133  [ |134  \ |135  ] |136  ^ |137  _ |
     |140  ` |141  a |142  b |143  c |144  d |145  e |146  f |147  g |
     |150  h |151  i |152  j |153  k |154  l |155  m |156  n |157  o |
     |160  p |161  q |162  r |163  s |164  t |165  u |166  v |167  w |
     |170  x |171  y |172  z |173  { |174  | |175  } |176  ~ |177 DEL|


     | 00 NUL| 01 SOH| 02 STX| 03 ETX| 04 EOT| 05 ENQ| 06 ACK| 07 BEL|
     | 08 BS | 09 HT | 0A NL | 0B VT | 0C NP | 0D CR | 0E SO | 0F SI |
     | 10 DLE| 11 DC1| 12 DC2| 13 DC3| 14 DC4| 15 NAK| 16 SYN| 17 ETB|
     | 18 CAN| 19 EM | 1A SUB| 1B ESC| 1C FS | 1D GS | 1E RS | 1F US |
     | 20 SP | 21  ! | 22  " | 23  # | 24  $ | 25  % | 26  & | 27  ' |
     | 28  ( | 29  ) | 2A  * | 2B  + | 2C  , | 2D  - | 2E  . | 2F  / |
     | 30  0 | 31  1 | 32  2 | 33  3 | 34  4 | 35  5 | 36  6 | 37  7 |
     | 38  8 | 39  9 | 3A  : | 3B  ; | 3C  < | 3D  = | 3E  > | 3F  ? |
     | 40  @ | 41  A | 42  B | 43  C | 44  D | 45  E | 46  F | 47  G |
     | 48  H | 49  I | 4A  J | 4B  K | 4C  L | 4D  M | 4E  N | 4F  O |
     | 50  P | 51  Q | 52  R | 53  S | 54  T | 55  U | 56  V | 57  W |
     | 58  X | 59  Y | 5A  Z | 5B  [ | 5C  \ | 5D  ] | 5E  ^ | 5F  _ |
     | 60  ` | 61  a | 62  b | 63  c | 64  d | 65  e | 66  f | 67  g |
     | 68  h | 69  i | 6A  j | 6B  k | 6C  l | 6D  m | 6E  n | 6F  o |
     | 70  p | 71  q | 72  r | 73  s | 74  t | 75  u | 76  v | 77  w |
     | 78  x | 79  y | 7A  z | 7B  { | 7C  | | 7D  } | 7E  ~ | 7F DEL|


     |  0 NUL|  1 SOH|  2 STX|  3 ETX|  4 EOT|  5 ENQ|  6 ACK|  7 BEL|
     |  8 BS |  9 HT | 10 NL | 11 VT | 12 NP | 13 CR | 14 SO | 15 SI |
     | 16 DLE| 17 DC1| 18 DC2| 19 DC3| 20 DC4| 21 NAK| 22 SYN| 23 ETB|
     | 24 CAN| 25 EM | 26 SUB| 27 ESC| 28 FS | 29 GS | 30 RS | 31 US |
     | 32 SP | 33  ! | 34  " | 35  # | 36  $ | 37  % | 38  & | 39  ' |
     | 40  ( | 41  ) | 42  * | 43  + | 44  , | 45  - | 46  . | 47  / |
     | 48  0 | 49  1 | 50  2 | 51  3 | 52  4 | 53  5 | 54  6 | 55  7 |
     | 56  8 | 57  9 | 58  : | 59  ; | 60  < | 61  = | 62  > | 63  ? |
     | 64  @ | 65  A | 66  B | 67  C | 68  D | 69  E | 70  F | 71  G |
     | 72  H | 73  I | 74  J | 75  K | 76  L | 77  M | 78  N | 79  O |
     | 80  P | 81  Q | 82  R | 83  S | 84  T | 85  U | 86  V | 87  W |
     | 88  X | 89  Y | 90  Z | 91  [ | 92  \ | 93  ] | 94  ^ | 95  _ |
     | 96  ` | 97  a | 98  b | 99  c |100  d |101  e |102  f |103  g |
     |104  h |105  i |106  j |107  k |108  l |109  m |110  n |111  o |
     |112  p |113  q |114  r |115  s |116  t |117  u |118  v |119  w |
     |120  x |121  y |122  z |123  { |124  | |125  } |126  ~ |127 DEL|

Extended characters are sometimes available, and the following is a 
qualitative description of each.  Where I knew them, names are included.
Accents are labeled as:
  aigue: a ' over a character, corresponding to the French aigue
  grave: a ` over the character, corr. to the French accent grave
  umlats: two dots over a character
  circle: a tiny o over a char, don't know the real name for it
  cedilla(sp?): a tiny squiggle at the bottom ofthe letter 'C'
  hat: a ^ over a character, I can't remember the real name for this mark
  tilde:  a ~ over the letter 'N'
  dieresis:  it's the proper name for either a circle or a hat, but I
    can't remember, and it's aggravating.

127 resembles a tiny house, or 'home plate' from baseball
128 C cedilla
129 u umlat
130 e aigue
131 a hat
132 a umlat
133 a grave
134 a circle
135 c cedilla
136 e hat
137 e umlat
138 e grave
139 i umlat
140 i hat
141 i grave
142 A umlat
143 A circle
144 E aigue
145 lowercase combination of the letters a and e
146 uppercase combination of A and E
147 o hat
148 o umlat
149 o grave
150 u hat
151 u grave
152 y umlat
153 O umlat
154 U umlat
155 c with a slash through it; the symbol for 'cents'
156 the curly L symbol for the British pound
157 a capital Y with an equals sign (=) through it, no clue what it means
158 a combination of P and t, again no clue
159 a curly lowercase f, looks like the Old English script 's'
    like something out of 'Ye Olde Book of Fpells' if you know what I mean
160 a aigue
161 i aigue
162 o aigue
163 u aigue
164 n tilde
165 N tilde
166 a superscripted and underscored a, not sure what it's for
167 same as above, only the letter is o
168 upside-down question mark
169 looks something like the upper left corner of a box, but not quite
170 same as above, only upper right corner
171 the 1/2 symbol as one character
172 same, only 1/4
173 upside-down exclamation point
174 a double <, it's used as the French open quotation mark for speech
175 double >
176-178 are boxes occupying the full character square, of differing intensity:
    176 is the lightest, and 178 is almost solid.

179-218 are the ascii 'line drawing' set.  To describe them, imagine a box:
+--+--+  The characters can occupy one of        a--b--c  'j' will be a |
|  |  |  nine places on the box, labeled,        |  |  |  type character,
+--+--+  by me, as a-i, shown at the right.      d--e--f  and 'k' will be
|  |  |                                          |  |  |  a - character,
+--+--+                                          g--h--i  for the map below.

For variety and flexibility, each character can be single or double lines,
of a combination, with one in the horizontal direction and the other in the
vertical direction.  Make sense?  Probably not, but each number below is 
followed by three letters.  The first indicates position, from the chart
above, the second is 's' or 'd' for single or double lines in the horizontal
direction, and the third letter is for single/double in the vertical
direction.  A quick example: 'fdd' looks like:
  ||
--+|
--+|
  ||
while 'fds' looks kinda like:
   |
---|
---|
   |
These characters are probably much better actually seen, but this was the
best I could come up with to describe them as without actually drawing them
all out like the above.

179 j-s   180 fss   181 fds   182 fsd   183 csd   184 cds   185 fdd
186 j-d   187 cdd   188 idd   189 isd   190 ids   191 css   192 gss
193 hss   194 bss   195 dss   196 k-s   197 ess   198 dds   199 dsd
200 gdd   201 add   202 hdd   203 bdd   204 ddd   205 k-d   206 edd
207 hds   208 hsd   209 bds   210 bsd   211 gsd   212 gds   213 ads
214 asd   215 esd   216 eds   217 iss   218 ass

Hope that's somewhat clear.  Probably much better to just go find a table
and look at them.

219 is a solid block, filling the entire space for a character.
220 is a solid fill of the lower half of a space
221 is a solid fill, left half of the space
222 is a solid fill, right half
223 is a solid fill, top half

224-240 is a partial set of letters from the Greek alphabet:
224 lowercase alpha
225 lowercase beta
226 capital gamma
227 lowercase pi
228 capital sigma
229 lowercase sigma
230 lowercase mu
231 lowercase tau
232 capital phi
233 lowercase theta
234 capital omega
235 lowercase delta
236 doesn't look like much of anything on my monitor.  It's sort of a 'c'
    with a single vertical line inside, kind of reminds me of the Montreal
    Canadiens' logo more than anything else.  Ideas?
237 lowercase phi
238 lowercase epsilon
239 again, not sure what this is exactly.  It's an upside-down capital 'U.'
240 capital xi

The remainder of the characters are just a few random things, mostly
mathematical:
241 a plus/minus sign ( + underscored )
242 greater than or equals to ( > underscored )
243 less than or equals to ( < underscored )
244 top half of an integral sign, looks like an upside-down 'J'
245 bottom half of an integral sign, looks like that 'J' right side up
246 a division sign, a hyphen with dots above and below
247 a double tilde, just two wavy lines
248 the degrees symbol, a tiny superscripted 'o'
249 a small solid square in the center of the character space
250 an even smaller square, barely more than a speck
251 the square root symbol, check mark with a little line at the top
252 a superscripted 'n'
253 a superscripted '2'
254 is a square like 249, only larger, probably fills about 1/4 of the whole
255 is a hard space.  There's a term for it, but I can't remember it.  It
    looks like a space, but it isn't.  I recommend you not use it for much.

I hope that's useful.  Just bear in mind that this stuff isn't constant,
even the base 32-127 characters change depending on where you are, in some
instances.  The best place to look for a table is probably in the back of
a printer manual, although I've seen tables like this in manuals for 
everything from ms-dos to basic.  Best source I can think of is the book that
came with the HP Laserjet ( think it was IIP ) that a former employer once
bought, which had about thirty pages of charts for different character sets,
and even a conversion for 32-127 characters that change for things like 
Danish/Norwegian keyboards.

Your mileage may vary.

In article <39prv5$qt...@usenet.rpi.edu> lev...@cortez.its.rpi.edu (charcoal grey) writes:
>Extended characters are sometimes available, and the following is a 
>qualitative description of each.  Where I knew them, names are included.
>Accents are labeled as:
>  aigue: a ' over a character, corresponding to the French aigue
>  grave: a ` over the character, corr. to the French accent grave
>  umlats: two dots over a character
>  circle: a tiny o over a char, don't know the real name for it
>  cedilla(sp?): a tiny squiggle at the bottom ofthe letter 'C'
>  hat: a ^ over a character, I can't remember the real name for this mark
>  tilde:  a ~ over the letter 'N'
>  dieresis:  it's the proper name for either a circle or a hat, but I
>    can't remember, and it's aggravating.
>
>127 resembles a tiny house, or 'home plate' from baseball
>128 C cedilla
>129 u umlat
>130 e aigue
>131 a hat
[Long list deleted.]

There are several sets of extended character sets. The most common is
the iso-8859-1 or Latin1.

That is not the one you are listing here. I would have prefered if you
would have given the name of the extended character set you are
describing. It seems to me like something that IBM or Microsoft has
invented.

Most mail and www software uses mime and defaults to iso-8859-1
(Latin1). I don't know if it even works with the strange set you are
describing. It certainly requires a name for it to do so.

/Linus