A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy to a computer. That was not doable but I managed to get a computer from year
2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were on the harddisk so getting the files is solved. I am not sure what I used to write them but I created things using ASCII characters. But the ASCII characters do not show
up as double lines etc. Is there a font I can use that will show these characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now? Right now trying Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

<Bill>

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On 5/4/2024 2:05 PM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:

A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy to a computer. That was not doable but I managed to get a computer from year
2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were on the harddisk so getting the files is solved. I am not sure what I used to write them but I created things using ASCII characters. But the ASCII characters do not show up as double lines etc. Is there a font I can use that will show these characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now? Right now trying Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

Do you mean ANSI characters? ASCII is the basic keyboard
characters in Enlgish, which is also the lower half of ANSI and the
first 128 characters of UTF-8. ANSI is a one-byte character
set that's ASCII up to 127 and depends on the local codepage
for 128 to 255. Most standard fonts should display those
characters.

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On 04/05/2024 19:29, Newyana2 wrote:

On 5/4/2024 2:05 PM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:

A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy to a
computer.  That was not doable but I managed to get a computer from year
2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were on the
harddisk so
getting the files is solved.  I am not sure what I used to write them
but I
created things using ASCII characters.  But the ASCII characters do
not show
up as double lines etc.  Is there a font I can use that will show these
characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now?  Right now
trying
Libre Office.  Open to any suggestions.

  Do you mean ANSI characters? ASCII is the basic keyboard
characters in Enlgish, which is also the lower half of ANSI and the
first 128 characters of UTF-8. ANSI is a one-byte character
set that's ASCII up to 127 and depends on the local codepage
for 128 to 255. Most standard fonts should display those
characters.

He probably means the old code page 437 box characters you had in DOS in
the USA.

You can make Notepad++ convert them to their UTF-8 equivalents, then you
can just use a mono spaced font like Courier or Consolas and that should
be it.

First tell Notepad++ that your original is Western European > OEM-US and
then tell it to convert to UTF-8 and then that file will look right in
any Windows program.

--
Brian Gregory (in England).

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Bill Bradshaw wrote:

A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy to a computer. That was not doable but I managed to get a computer from year
2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were on the harddisk so getting the files is solved. I am not sure what I used to write them but I created things using ASCII characters. But the ASCII characters do not show up as double lines etc. Is there a font I can use that will show these characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now? Right now trying Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

Assuming you mean OEM/DOS characters (code page 437) like these: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437#Character_set>

That is what the "Terminal" font in Windows 10 is for.

Right now trying Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

The "Terminal" font is an OEM/DOS font, not a Unicode font, and will
probably not work in a Unicode application like Libre Office.

Instead, do this in Libre Office:
1. Use "File | Open" to open the file.
2. In the Open file window, scroll down the list of file types
and select "Text - Choose Encoding".
3. When prompted to choose, choose "Western Europe (DOS/OS2-437/US)".



PS:
These are the 128 ASCII characters. ASCII does not have the "double
lines". <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#Character_set>

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Brian Gregory wrote:

On 04/05/2024 19:29, Newyana2 wrote:

On 5/4/2024 2:05 PM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:

A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy
to a computer. That was not doable but I managed to get a computer
from year 2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were
on the harddisk so
getting the files is solved. I am not sure what I used to write them
but I
created things using ASCII characters. But the ASCII characters do
not show
up as double lines etc. Is there a font I can use that will show
these characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now?
Right now trying
Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

Do you mean ANSI characters? ASCII is the basic keyboard
characters in Enlgish, which is also the lower half of ANSI and the
first 128 characters of UTF-8. ANSI is a one-byte character
set that's ASCII up to 127 and depends on the local codepage
for 128 to 255. Most standard fonts should display those
characters.

He probably means the old code page 437 box characters you had in DOS
in the USA.

This is exactly what I meant. I entered them by number. I believe I
created these files in 1989 on a Tandy 1200A.

You can make Notepad++ convert them to their UTF-8 equivalents, then
you can just use a mono spaced font like Courier or Consolas and that
should be it.

First tell Notepad++ that your original is Western European > OEM-US
and then tell it to convert to UTF-8 and then that file will look
right in any Windows program.

Yout system works and then I can save the converted file and open it Libre Office for formatting and saving.

Thanks.

<Bill>

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Barney Hill wrote:

Bill Bradshaw wrote:

A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy to
a computer. That was not doable but I managed to get a computer
from year 2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were on
the harddisk so getting the files is solved. I am not sure what I
used to write them but I created things using ASCII characters. But
the ASCII characters do not show up as double lines etc. Is there a
font I can use that will show these characters as ASCII and not the
funny things they are now? Right now trying Libre Office. Open to
any suggestions.

Assuming you mean OEM/DOS characters (code page 437) like these: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437#Character_set>

That is what the "Terminal" font in Windows 10 is for.

Right now trying Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

The "Terminal" font is an OEM/DOS font, not a Unicode font, and will
probably not work in a Unicode application like Libre Office.

Instead, do this in Libre Office:
1. Use "File | Open" to open the file.
2. In the Open file window, scroll down the list of file types
and select "Text - Choose Encoding".
3. When prompted to choose, choose "Western Europe
(DOS/OS2-437/US)".
PS:
These are the 128 ASCII characters. ASCII does not have the "double
lines". <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#Character_set>

You and Brian are right in that it was Code 437 and I entered the special charaters in the document by numbers. Brians method will work but I want to see if your method will save some steps.

This method save some steps. I noticed some errors in the file I have tried
it on so a little editing will fix everything.

Thanks.

<Bill>

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 5/4/2024 2:05 PM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:

A while back I was trying to fine a way to attach a 5-1/4" floppy to a computer. That was not doable but I managed to get a computer from year
2000 running and low and behold the files I needed were on the harddisk so getting the files is solved. I am not sure what I used to write them but I created things using ASCII characters. But the ASCII characters do not show up as double lines etc. Is there a font I can use that will show these characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now? Right now trying Libre Office. Open to any suggestions.

<Bill>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HxD

https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Using a hex editor, show us as much as you are comfortable with.

If the file is reasonably un-encoded, then English sentences might
already be visible.

If you wish privacy with your project, use the Linux "file" command

file mysterymeat.txt

and it will tell you what kind of file it is. If you "hate Linux",
then the Gnuwin32 version might suffice. Yes, this is a bear to set up.
There has to be a directory structure so the "magic file" is in the
right location, with respect to the EXE file.

https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/file.htm

file.exe mysterymeat.txt

The difference is, the magic file in the Linux version, will be
roughly ten years more modern, than the gnuwin32 version. Yet, your
file is so old, this really does not matter. If the file from 2000
has a recognizable format, even the gnuwin32 version will work.

You can take a screenshot of the HxD screen, and post it to

https://postimages.org/

or for that matter, to any other image or file hosting facility
you have access to.

You could set up the Bash shell on Windows 10, but they did not
make that particularly easy either.

You could write a program, to convert the binary bytes to printable
characters. But that's really what HxD is doing. HxD has Copy/Paste
capability, and you can copy in Editor mode, and that's just as
good as a screenshot.

What a time to be alive :-/

This is HxD copy/paste in Editor View, reviewing its own code. You
can see in the right pane, how the plaintext is visible now. And
I didn't even need PostImage to get this to you. I ran the 64-bit
version of the editor, then dumped the EXE for the 32-bit version
into the window. And this is what I see.

Offset(h) 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

00000000 4D 5A 50 00 02 00 00 00 04 00 0F 00 FF FF 00 00 MZP.........ÿÿ.. 00000010 B8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 1A 00 00 00 00 00 ¸.......@....... 00000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00000030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 ................ 00000040 BA 10 00 0E 1F B4 09 CD 21 B8 01 4C CD 21 90 90 º....´.Í!¸.LÍ!..
00000050 54 68 69 73 20 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 20 6D 75 73 This program mus 00000060 74 20 62 65 20 72 75 6E 20 75 6E 64 65 72 20 57 t be run under W 00000070 69 6E 33 32 0D 0A 24 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 in32..$7........

OK, now, this is the 64-bit program, viewed in the 32-bit
version of the HxD editor. Notice how it instructs us, that
this will only work on a 64-bit OS.

Offset(h) 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

00000000 4D 5A 50 00 02 00 00 00 04 00 0F 00 FF FF 00 00 MZP.........ÿÿ.. 00000010 B8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 1A 00 00 00 00 00 ¸.......@....... 00000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00000030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 ................ 00000040 BA 10 00 0E 1F B4 09 CD 21 B8 01 4C CD 21 90 90 º....´.Í!¸.LÍ!..
00000050 54 68 69 73 20 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 20 6D 75 73 This program mus 00000060 74 20 62 65 20 72 75 6E 20 75 6E 64 65 72 20 57 t be run under W 00000070 69 6E 36 34 0D 0A 24 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 in64..$7........

Paul

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Bill,

Is there a font I can use that will show these characters as ASCII and not the funny things they are now?

If all you want to do is take a look at them you could try, on the
commandline, "type file.txt".

Caveat : it works on XP, YMMV.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

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