Multinational Character Set

The Multinational Character Set (DMCS or MCS) is a character encoding created in 1983 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for use in the popular VT220 terminal. It was an 8-bit extension of ASCII that added accented characters, currency symbols, and other character glyphs missing from 7-bit ASCII. It is only one of the code pages implemented for the VT220 National Replacement Character Set (NRCS).[1][2] MCS is registered as IBM code page 1100 (Multinational Emulation) since 1992.[3]

Such "extended ASCII" sets were common (the National Replacement Character Set provided sets for more than a dozen European languages), but MCS has the distinction of being the ancestor of ECMA-94 in 1985[4] and ISO 8859-1 in 1987.[5]

The code chart of MCS with ECMA-94, ISO 8859-1 and the first 256 code points of Unicode have many more similarities than differences. In addition to unused code points, differences from ISO 8859-1 are:

MCS code point Unicode mapping Character
0xA8 U+00A4 ¤
0xD7 U+0152 Œ
0xDD U+0178 Ÿ
0xF7 U+0153 œ
0xFD U+00FF ÿ

Codepage layout

In the following table, code points that differ from ISO/IEC 8859-1 are shown boxed.

Legend:

  Alphabetic
  Control character
  Numeric digit
  Punctuation
  Extended punctuation
  Graphic character
  International
  Undefined

DEC Multinational Character Set[6][7][3]
_0 _1 _2 _3 _4 _5 _6 _7 _8 _9 _A _B _C _D _E _F
 
0_
 		 NUL
0000
0		 SOH
0001
1		 STX
0002
2		 ETX
0003
3		 EOT
0004
4		 ENQ
0005
5		 ACK
0006
6		 BEL
0007
7		 BS
0008
8		 HT
0009
9		 LF
000A
10		 VT
000B
11		 FF
000C
12		 CR
000D
13		 SO
000E
14		 SI
000F
15
 
1_
 		 DLE
0010
16		 DC1
0011
17		 DC2
0012
18		 DC3
0013
19		 DC4
0014
20		 NAK
0015
21		 SYN
0016
22		 ETB
0017
23		 CAN
0018
24		 EM
0019
25		 SUB
001A
26		 ESC
001B
27		 FS
001C
28		 GS
001D
29		 RS
001E
30		 US
001F
31
 
2_
 		 SP
0020
32		 !
0021
33		 "
0022
34		 #
0023
35		 $
0024
36		 %
0025
37		 &
0026
38		 '
0027
39		 (
0028
40		 )
0029
41		 *
002A
42		 +
002B
43		 ,
002C
44		 -
002D
45		 .
002E
46		 /
002F
47
 
3_
 		 0
0030
48		 1
0031
49		 2
0032
50		 3
0033
51		 4
0034
52		 5
0035
53		 6
0036
54		 7
0037
55		 8
0038
56		 9
0039
57		 :
003A
58		 ;
003B
59		 <
003C
60		 =
003D
61		 >
003E
62		 ?
003F
63
 
4_
 		 @
0040
64		 A
0041
65		 B
0042
66		 C
0043
67		 D
0044
68		 E
0045
69		 F
0046
70		 G
0047
71		 H
0048
72		 I
0049
73		 J
004A
74		 K
004B
75		 L
004C
76		 M
004D
77		 N
004E
78		 O
004F
79
 
5_
 		 P
0050
80		 Q
0051
81		 R
0052
82		 S
0053
83		 T
0054
84		 U
0055
85		 V
0056
86		 W
0057
87		 X
0058
88		 Y
0059
89		 Z
005A
90		 [
005B
91		 \
005C
92		 ]
005D
93		 ^
005E
94		 _
005F
95
 
6_
 		 `
0060
96		 a
0061
97		 b
0062
98		 c
0063
99		 d
0064
100		 e
0065
101		 f
0066
102		 g
0067
103		 h
0068
104		 i
0069
105		 j
006A
106		 k
006B
107		 l
006C
108		 m
006D
109		 n
006E
110		 o
006F
111
 
7_
 		 p
0070
112		 q
0071
113		 r
0072
114		 s
0073
115		 t
0074
116		 u
0075
117		 v
0076
118		 w
0077
119		 x
0078
120		 y
0079
121		 z
007A
122		 {
007B
123		 |
007C
124		 }
007D
125		 ~
007E
126		 DEL
007F
127
 
8_
 		 IND
0084
132		 NEL
0085
133		 SSA
0086
134		 ESA
0087
135		 HTS
0088
136		 HTJ
0089
137		 VTS
008A
138		 PLD
008B
139		 PLU
008C
140		 RI
008D
141		 SS2
008E
142		 SS3
008F
143
 
9_
 		 DCS
0090
144		 PU1
0091
145		 PU2
0092
146		 STS
0093
147		 CCH
0094
148		 MW
0095
149		 SPA
0096
150		 EPA
0097
151		 CSI
009B
155		 ST
009C
156		 OSC
009D
157		 PM
009E
158		 APC
009F
159
 
A_
 		 ¡
00A1
161		 ¢
00A2
162		 £
00A3
163		 ¥
00A5
165		 §
00A7
167		 ¤
00A4
168		 ©
00A9
169		 ª
00AA
170		 «
00AB
171
 
B_
 		 °
00B0
176		 ±
00B1
177		 ²
00B2
178		 ³
00B3
179		 µ
00B5
181
00B6
182		 ·
00B7
183		 ¹
00B9
185		 º
00BA
186		 »
00BB
187		 ¼
00BC
188		 ½
00BD
189		 ¿
00BF
191
 
C_
 		 À
00C0
192		 Á
00C1
193		 Â
00C2
194		 Ã
00C3
195		 Ä
00C4
196		 Å
00C5
197		 Æ
00C6
198		 Ç
00C7
199		 È
00C8
200		 É
00C9
201		 Ê
00CA
202		 Ë
00CB
203		 Ì
00CC
204		 Í
00CD
205		 Î
00CE
206		 Ï
00CF
207
 
D_
 		 Ñ
00D1
209		 Ò
00D2
210		 Ó
00D3
211		 Ô
00D4
212		 Õ
00D5
213		 Ö
00D6
214		 Œ
0152
215		 Ø
00D8
216		 Ù
00D9
217		 Ú
00DA
218		 Û
00DB
219		 Ü
00DC
220		 Ÿ
0178
221		 ß
00DF
223
 
E_
 		 à
00E0
224		 á
00E1
225		 â
00E2
226		 ã
00E3
227		 ä
00E4
228		 å
00E5
229		 æ
00E6
230		 ç
00E7
231		 è
00E8
232		 é
00E9
233		 ê
00EA
234		 ë
00EB
235		 ì
00EC
236		 í
00ED
237		 î
00EE
238		 ï
00EF
239
 
F_
 		 ñ
00F1
241		 ò
00F2
242		 ó
00F3
243		 ô
00F4
244		 õ
00F5
245		 ö
00F6
246		 œ
0153
247		 ø
00F8
248		 ù
00F9
249		 ú
00FA
250		 û
00FB
251		 ü
00FC
252		 ÿ
00FF
253
_0 _1 _2 _3 _4 _5 _6 _7 _8 _9 _A _B _C _D _E _F

See also

References

  1. ↑ "VT220 Programmer Reference Manual" (2 ed.). Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). 1984 [1983].
  2. ↑ "TinyTERM Emulator — National Replacement Character Set (NRCS)". Century Software. Archived from the original on 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2016-12-01. [sic]
  3. 1 2 "SBCS code page information - CPGID: 01100 / Name: Multinational Emulation". IBM Software: Globalization: Coded character sets and related resources: Code pages by CPGID: Code page identifiers. 1. IBM. 1992-10-01. Archived from the original on 2016-12-02. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
  4. ↑ Standard ECMA-94: 8-bit Single-Byte Coded Graphic Character Set (PDF) (1 ed.). European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA). March 1985 [1984-12-14]. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2016-12-01. […] Since 1982 the urgency of the need for an 8-bit single-byte coded character set was recognized in ECMA as well as in ANSI/X3L2 and numerous working papers were exchanged between the two groups. In February 1984 ECMA TC1 submitted to ISO/TC97/SC2 a proposal for such a coded character set. At its meeting of April 1984 SC decided to submit to TC97 a proposal for a new item of work for this topic. Technical discussions during and after this meeting led TC1 to adopt the coding scheme proposed by X3L2. Part 1 of Draft International Standard DTS 8859 is based on this joint ANSI/ECMA proposal. […] Adopted as an ECMA Standard by the General Assembly of Dec. 13–14, 1984. […]
  5. ↑ Czyborra, Roman (1998). "ISO 8859-1 and MCS". ISO 8859 Alphabet Soup. Archived from the original on 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
  6. ↑ "VT220 Programmer Reference Manual". Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Table 2-3: DEC Multinational Character Set (C1 and GR Codes). Retrieved 2016-12-02.
  7. ↑ VAX/VMS User's Manual. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). April 1986. AI-Y517A-TE.}}
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