Talk:ZX Spectrum character set

Moved from the former Talk:SPECSCII page:

Nomenclature

While this article seems okay the name SPECSCII is entirely fictional. Would be better to rename it Spectrum character set. DamienG 13:50, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

So are PETSCII (for CBM Character Set) and ATASCII (for Atari Character Set), I believe. I have no objection to such changes, though. I just think, if there should be a change, then the article should be copied to Spectrum Character Set, and the contents of SPECSCII deleted and replaced with a redirect to it. But do as you see right; I have experience with a previous wiki but I've only just registered on Wikipedia, so I'm not afraid of corrections from more experienced members. The article is linked to from PETSCII and ATASCII. --Shlomital 17:55, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

I actually think both ATASCII and PETSCII are official or quasi-official designations from Atari and CBM, respectively (100% sure for ATASCII, need to check a little further re CBM's ). Also, the names were used quite consistently in third-party books and in the trade press (computer mags), and so were well established by the systems' user community as the most common names. As you probably know, the names PET ASCII and CBM ASCII were also used for PETSCII. I've never heard of SPECSCII, but I'm not overly familiar with the Speccy scene. --Wernher 20:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have copied the contents of the SPECSCII page and pasted onto a new page Spectrum Character Set. The SPECSCII page can now be deleted or redirected, at your discretion. I decided to do this because, although the term SPECSCII may have been a shorthand for the Spectrum Character Set, it never gained as much momentum as either PETSCII or ATASCII. All links to the article fixed as well. --Shlomital 20:58, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

Re the movement of the SPECSCII article: I took the liberty of changing its name (moving it again) to ZX Spectrum character set to enforce 1) preciseness, and 2) Wikipedia article naming standard -- capital letters for proper names only. --Wernher 21:05, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Much better. Might be worth noting that two of the user-defined-graphics positions in the character set are replaced with the keywords PLAY and SPECTRUM on 128K models too. DamienG 12:07, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Which ones? I'll need the numbers in order to include that information in the article. I've tried checking with my own emulator in 128K mode, but I couldn't get past the main menu (where it says "Tape Loader" and "128K Basic"). --Shlomital 13:33, 2004 Sep 29 (UTC)

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Wurdu and Urdu

Does anyone remember a very early word processor for Urdu called "Wurdu" that ran on the Spectrum? Developed somewhere around Leeds / Bradford AFAIR. Does anyone have any refs, or the faintest notion of how it encoded Urdu text for storage? Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 13:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Character Table may need cleanup

The character set table is flagged as "may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards." If somebody can point out in what way it needs cleanig up, I'll do it.

Once thing I will do is tweek the 0x column entries, as it says left/right/down/up, etc., without the clarification that these are keypresses, not character output actions.

User:JGHarston 16-Jan-2010. —Preceding undated comment added 21:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC).

Character Table may need cleanup redux

The only thing I can find looking at other character tables and the character table template is that the table should be numbered crossways not downwards. That would be unsuitable for the Spectrum chcracter table as there are so many entries that are words (tokens), which would give an unsuitably wide table. Consequently, I have removed the 'may need cleanup' tag.

User:JGHarston 23-Apr-2010. —Preceding undated comment added 11:52, 23 April 2010 (UTC).

refimprove and original research tagging

The bulk of this article can be verified from the ZX Basic Manual (a reliable source on ZX Basic, surely?) of which a copy is available at World of Spectrum (free redistribution permission has been given by Amstrad plc.); World of Spectrum is considered by most Sinclair hobbyists to be reliable. There are a few unverified claims, which I have tagged rather than removed because I gather them to be true but don't have references for them. However, the article does not have an original research problem, being chiefly a recension of information in the aforementioned manual; I have thus removed the OR tag from the list of issues. PT 09:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The point about character code 0x0E used to trick the program to have the listing displaying some number and the execution take another value can be checked in early Speedlock games (many of them are available on World of Spectrum). The listing showed something like POKE PEEK 0 + 0 * PEEK 0, PEEK 0 but when looking at the values after the 0x0E bytes, you could read the real addresses (in the 23000-24000 range which is where the system variables are present) and the 256 constant. More info can be found in the analysis of Speedlock by Jon North in Your Sinclair issue 61 -- Vapula 22:36 8 October 2015

Tokens

Was it possible to write the character values for the tokens to the screen without interpretation? If so, what happened? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 18:03, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

No, that's not possible. 86.130.249.236 (talk) 20:31, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Unrecognised characters are generally printed as a question mark, though: e.g. PRINT CHR$ 30 prints ? 2A00:23C5:FE18:2700:3C33:8A17:1A91:8985 (talk) 05:07, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

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