Extended Ascii in Linux

Either switch the font to one that is in PC-8/CP437 encoding, or use the Unicode values for those characters instead, encoded into the current charset.


You can use the exact same codes you provided or of the extended ASCII character set (e.g. 195 for ├) if you've got the right encoder to display the characters.

On Linux, we lack the non-standard extended ASCII character set support - which is why it's not displayed. However, I found another character set that's available for Linux and is almost similar to the extended ASCII character set. It's IBM855.

All you have to do is changed the character encoding of your command line application to IBM855. All popular box drawing characters have the same code of the extended ASCII character set - which is the most important.

You may compare the sets by this image and this image.

PS: If you're using gnome-terminal, you can add IBM855 charset by clicking the "Terminal" menu from the menu bar -> "set character encoding" -> "Add or Remove". Look for IBM855, and add it. Now just choose the encoding from "terminal"->"set character encoding"->"Cyrillic (IBM855)".

They boxes were enough for my homework. Hope this helps. :)


After much poring over man printf and info printf, I think I've gotten this to work.

The basic issue seems to be that bash has a built-in printf that doesn't work. And, despite what the man/info pages, say, \U doesn't work. \u still does, though.

env printf '\u2502'

gets me a vertical box character.