Multinational Character Set

The Multinational Character Set (MCS) is a character encoding created by Digital Equipment Corporation 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.^[1][2]

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 ISO 8859-1.^[3]

The code chart of MCS with 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
A8	U+00A4	¤
D7	U+0152	Œ
DD	U+0178	Ÿ
F7	U+0153	œ
FD	U+00FF	ÿ

Codepage layout

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

DEC Multinational Character Set

	_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

References

1. "VT220 Programmer Reference Manual". Digital Equipment Corporation. 1984.
2. "TinyTERM Emulator — National Replacement Character Set (NCRS)".
3. Roman Czyborra (1998). "ISO 8859-1 and MCS, from ISO 8859 Alphabet Soup".