Mazovia encoding

Mazovia encoding is used under MS-DOS to represent Polish texts. Basically it is code page 437 with some positions filled with Polish letters. An important feature was that the block graphic characters of code page 437 remained unchanged. In contrast, IBM's official Central-European code page 852 did not preserve all block graphics, causing incorrect display in programs such as Norton Commander.

The Mazovia encoding was designed in 1984 by Jan Klimowicz of IMM. It was designed as part of a project to develop and produce a Polish IBM PC clone codenamed "Mazovia 1016". The code page was therefore optimized for that computer's typical peripheral devices, a graphics card with dual switchable graphics, a keyboard using US English and Russian layouts and printers with Polish fonts. In 1986, the Polish National Bank (NBP) adopted the Mazovia encoding as a standard, thereby causing its widespread acceptance and distribution in Poland. They also were instrumental in Ipaco producing compatible computers with Taiwanese components under the direction of Zbigniew Jakubas and Krzysztof Sochacki.

Some ambiguity exists in the official code page assignment for the Mazovia encoding:

PTS-DOS and S/DOS support this encoding under code page 667 (CP667).^[1] The same encoding was also called code page 991 (CP991) in some Polish software,^{[nb 1]} however, the FreeDOS implementation of code page 991 seems not to be identical to this original encoding. The DOS code page switching file NECPINW.CPI for NEC Pinwriters supports the Mazovia encoding under both code pages 667 and 991.^[1] FreeDOS has meanwhile introduced support for the original Mazovia encoding under code page 790 (CP790) as well.

Code page layout

Each character is shown with its equivalent Unicode code point and its decimal code point. Only the second half of the table (code points 128–255) is shown, the first half (code points 0–127) being the same as ASCII and code page 437. Code points 128–133, 135–140, 142, 147–148, 150–151, 153–155, 157, 159, 162, 168–255 are identical to code page 437 as well.^[2]

Several variants of this encoding exists:

• Mazovia 157 (ś is at code point 157 instead of 158)
• Fido Mazovia (ć is at code point 135 instead of 141 and Ć is at code point 128 instead of 149)
• FreeDOS Mazovia (złoty sign at code point 155). FreeDOS supports this variant under code page 991, although the original definition of code page 991, which pre-dates FreeDOS, appears to have been identical to code page 667 / 790.

These variants are not fully compliant with the definition of code page 667 / 790 and should therefore not be associated with these numbers.

Differences from code page 437 have a black border, code points used for multiple purposes in code page 437 are shaded.

Code page 667 / 790

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
8_	Ç 00C7 128	ü 00FC 129	é 00E9 130	â 00E2 131	ä 00E4 132	à 00E0 133	ą 0105 134	ç 00E7 135	ê 00EA 136	ë 00EB 137	è 00E8 138	ï 00EF 139	î 00EE 140	ć 0107 141	Ä 00C4 142	Ą 0104 143
9_	Ę 0118 144	ę 0119 145	ł 0142 146	ô 00F4 147	ö 00F6 148	Ć 0106 149	û 00FB 150	ù 00F9 151	Ś 015A 152	Ö 00D6 153	Ü 00DC 154	¢ 00A2 155	Ł 0141 156	¥ 00A5 157	ś 015B 158	ƒ 0192 159
A_	Ź 0179 160	Ż 017B 161	ó 00F3 162	Ó 00D3 163	ń 0144 164	Ń 0143 165	ź 017A 166	ż 017C 167	¿ 00BF 168	⌐ 2310 169	¬ 00AC 170	½ 00BD 171	¼ 00BC 172	¡ 00A1 173	« 00AB 174	» 00BB 175
B_	░ 2591 176	▒ 2592 177	▓ 2593 178	│ 2502 179	┤ 2524 180	╡ 2561 181	╢ 2562 182	╖ 2556 183	╕ 2555 184	╣ 2563 185	║ 2551 186	╗ 2557 187	╝ 255D 188	╜ 255C 189	╛ 255B 190	┐ 2510 191
C_	└ 2514 192	┴ 2534 193	┬ 252C 194	├ 251C 195	─ 2500 196	┼ 253C 197	╞ 255E 198	╟ 255F 199	╚ 255A 200	╔ 2554 201	╩ 2569 202	╦ 2566 203	╠ 2560 204	═ 2550 205	╬ 256C 206	╧ 2567 207
D_	╨ 2568 208	╤ 2564 209	╥ 2565 210	╙ 2559 211	╘ 2558 212	╒ 2552 213	╓ 2553 214	╫ 256B 215	╪ 256A 216	┘ 2518 217	┌ 250C 218	█ 2588 219	▄ 2584 220	▌ 258C 221	▐ 2590 222	▀ 2580 223
E_	α 03B1 224	ß 00DF 225	Γ 0393 226	π 03C0 227	Σ 03A3 228	σ 03C3 229	µ 00B5 230	τ 03C4 231	Φ 03A6 232	Θ 0398 233	Ω 03A9 234	δ 03B4 235	∞ 221E 236	φ 03C6 237	ε 03B5 238	∩ 2229 239
F_	≡ 2261 240	± 00B1 241	≥ 2265 242	≤ 2264 243	⌠ 2320 244	⌡ 2321 245	÷ 00F7 246	≈ 2248 247	° 00B0 248	∙ 2219 249	· 00B7 250	√ 221A 251	ⁿ 207F 252	² 00B2 253	■ 25A0 254	NBSP 00A0 255
	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F

Notes

1. The Polish text converter PLC, developed by Marcin Gryszkalis between 1997-1999, supports the standard Mazovia encoding under code page 991 as well as under the symbolic handle MAZ. The Fidonet Mazovia encoding is supported under symbolic handle MFD instead.

References

1. Paul, Matthias (2001) [1996], "Specification and reference documentation for NECPINW", NECPINW.CPI - DOS code page switching driver for NEC Pinwriters (2.08 ed.), FILESPEC.TXT from NECPI208.ZIP, retrieved 2013-04-22
2. Pinwriter Familie - Pinwriter - Epromsockel - Zusätzliche Zeichensätze / Schriftarten (Printed reference manual for optional font and codepage EPROMs for NEC Pinwriters, including custom variants) (in German) (00 3/93 ed.), NEC Deutschland GmbH, 1993 (NB. Some dot matrix printers of the NEC Pinwriter series, namely the P3200/P3300 (P20/P30), P6200/P6300 (P60/P70), P9300 (P90), P7200/P7300 (P62/P72), P22Q/P32Q, P3800/P3900 (P42Q/P52Q), P1200/P1300 (P2Q/P3Q), P2000 (P2X) and P8000 (P72X), supported the installation of optional font EPROMs, where this encoding was included in ROM #8 "Polish".)

See also

• Kamenický encoding