ASCII Table by Rick Andrews

Did you ever want to put a copyright symbol in a Word document? How
do you do it? There isn't one on the keyboard. (Or is there ?!?) Find
the ASCII code of the copyright symbol by looking in the Psion User
Guide. The code for copyright is 184. Then, in the document, press
and hold the Control key and type 1 then 8 then 4. A copyright symbol
appears. Magic.

Okay, but what happens if you're on the 07.59 Reading to Paddington
at the time? You're not carrying your Psion manuals; they don't fit
into your shirt pocket, whichever way you bind them. Could you ask
your fellow passengers for an ASCII table? Well, you can, but even if
they didn't think you were a weirdo, there's a chance that their
table could be different.

Hang on, ASCII stands for American *Standard* Code for Information
Interchange. What's the point in having a standard if the codes are
different? Well, the ASCII standard only defines characters 32 to
127. The other characters (128 to 255) form the 'Extended character
set' and these can be different. The whole character set is called
the Code Page.

So, although there is no such thing as 'ASCII code 184', people know
that you mean the character represented by the number 184 in the Code
Page.

The Series 3 uses IBM Code Page 850, "Multilingual (Latin I)" which
is described as 'containing characters for most of the languages
using the Latin alphabet'. The IBM PC uses Code Page 437 by default
(which doesn't have a copyright symbol), but different pages
including 850 can be loaded.

Right... back on the train, assuming nobody is carrying a copy of IBM
Code Page 850, what can you do?

That's where this ASCII table utility comes in. It displays all the
characters, and their ASCII number in decimal and hexadecimal (Base
16). Different characters are viewed by scrolling a line at a time
with the up and down arrows, or a screen at a time with Pg Up and Pg
Dn. 

There are some characters that can't be displayed because they clear
the screen and the like, (characters 7 to 13 and 255), so they are
just shown as dots.

Different layouts are available, like showing the ASCII code in
decimal with the character, or the character on its own. These modes
can be chosen from a menu, or by using the hot-key. The first
character to be displayed on the screen can be selected by entering
its ASCII code, or the character itself.

There is also a keypress function that displays the code of a key
when pressed. It also shows the KMOD (keyboard modifier) status, for
example Control or Shift. The codes displayed for the key press are
generally ASCII, but there are some exotic ones. Look at the code
produced by adjusting the screen contrast!

For more information about ASCII codes and entering characters
through the keyboard, see Appendix A of the Psion User Guide.

Finally, on a different but slightly related subject, does anyone
know anything about a keyboard macro recorder for the Series 3? There
was something about it in "What Micro" May 92 saying Psion were
developing a system-level utility usable by all applications, but
I've spoken to Psion Technical Support who said they haven't heard
anything about it, but they helpfully suggested the reporter may have
been getting confused about OPL. Hmmm. Also, I have heard that
Cubsoft, the company that produced the fantastic FNKEY for the
Organiser II, is unfortunately no longer planning a version for the
Series 3. Is anyone out there developing this sort of thing?