- 1 - +------------------------+ | ISO 8859-1 | | to | | IBM CP 850 | | translation tables | +------------------------+ 1.0 Contents ============= 1.0 Contents ...................................................... 1 2.0 Why translation? .............................................. 1 3.0 Setting up your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT ................... 2 4.0 Setting up for translation in Telemate ........................ 3 5.0 Setting up for translation in ProComm PLUS .................... 4 6.0 Setting up for translation in Telix ........................... 5 7.0 Setting up for translation in other programs .................. 5 2.0 Why translation? ===================== While the IBM PC in text modus uses a system of different CODE PAGES to represent international characters, the predominant character set under UNIX, MS-Windows, Amiga and Atari is one called ISO-8859-1, or ISO Latin 1. This chararacter set is also the recommended 8-bit standard on USENET, INTERNET and other non-PC dominated environments. While most communication programs for DOS offer a translation mechanism, so that you can translate from one set to another, making such a table involves some time and effort. Included in this package are pre-made translation tables for perhaps the 3 most common PC communication programs on the market: Telemate, ProComm PLUS, and Telix. For Telemate and Telix, there is both incoming and outgoing translation; for PCPLUS only incoming. The table will translate to IBM Code Page 850, and while the other code pages will work for most of the characters, it is neccessary that you use 850 if you want a fully accurate translation of ISO Latin 1. CP 850 is the only one that contains all the characters neccessary. - 2 - 3.0 Setting up your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT ================================================ If you want to use IBM Code Page 850 (International), but your computer comes with another code page in hardware, you will need to set up software support for it. Most computers sold in the US come with code page 437 (US English). 3.1 CONFIG.SYS =============== If you are in the US, and your computer comes with code page 437 in hardware, add the following two lines to your CONFIG.SYS: country=001,,c:\dos\country.sys device=c:\dos\display.sys con=(ega,437,1) If you are in Norway, change 001 to 047. For any other country: Change to your country code (Which is the same as the prefix for international phone calls). If your computer comes with code page 865 in Hardware, change 437 to 865, etc. 3.2 AUTOEXEC.BAT ================= In your AUTOEXEC.BAT, insert the following lines: c:\dos\nlsfunc.exe c:\dos\mode con cp prep=((850)c:\dos\ega.cpi) This will add support for code page 850 as a 'prepared' code page. If you want to use this code page for all your applications, you should also add the following line: chcp 850 Otherwise, you could switch to code page 850 every time you start your communication program, by making a batch file, for instance. Let's suppose you are using Telemate, from the directory C:\MODEM\TELEMATE, and that you are normally using code page 437. This is how your TM.BAT file would look like: @echo off chcp 850 c:\modem\telemate\tm.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 chcp 437 Be sure to have this batch file in your path, then. - 3 - 4.0 Setting up for translation in Telemate =========================================== 4.1 Activating the table ========================= - Copy the file TM.KEY to your Telemate directory. - Start Telemate - From the Macro menu (Click twice on "Macro", or press ALT-M twice), select "Keyboard" to open the translation dialogue box. - Make sure that the appropiate checkbox(-es) in the ower left corner (Incoming and Outgoing translation) are checked. - Click Ok, then Save keyboard. (The table is the same, but this is the only way to save the status of the checkboxes without going into the TM.CFG file and edit it manually). If you do not want the table to be loaded by default, rename it to something else (for instance "ISO-8859.KEY"). 4.2 Loading or unloading from a script ======================================= If you want the table to be loaded for some entries, but not for others, you can insert lines according to the following syntax in the appropiate scripts (An example): Set Incoming,1 Set Outgoing,0 This will select incoming, but not outgoing translation. To select a different translation table, you can say: LoadKey "TABLE" where TABLE.KEY is the name of the table. Save, and next time you run the script it will compile. For more information on how to create scripts, including information on Telemate's "Learn Script" feature, refer to your on-line document TMSCRIPT.DOC. - 4 - 5.0 Setting up for translation in ProComm PLUS =============================================== 5.1 Activating the table ========================= - Copy the file PCPLUS.XLT to your PCPLUS directory. - Start PCPLUS - Press Alt-W to go to the translation table. - Press F2 to toggle screens and verify that the table is loaded. - Press F3 to make the table active. - Press F1 to save. - Press ESC to go back to terminal mode. 5.2 Loading or unloading from a script ======================================= If you want the table to be loaded for some entries, but not for others, you can insert one of the following lines in the appropiate scripts: set translation on OR set translation off Save, and next time you run the script it will compile. For more information on how to create scripts, including information on PCPLUS's "Record" feature, refer to your manual. - 5 - 6.0 Setting up for translation in Telix ======================================== 6.1 Activating the table ========================= - Copy the file TELIXIN.XLT to your Telix directory. - Copy the file TELIXOUT.XLT to your Telix directory. If you do not want the translation tables to be loaded by default rename them to something else (for instance, ISOTOIBM.XLT and IBMTOISO.XLT). 6.2 Loading or unloading from a script ======================================= If you want the tables to be loaded for some entries, use the following syntax in the appropiate scripts: transtab("TABLEIN.XLT", 0); transtab("TABLEOUT.XLT", 1); transtab("*CLEAR*", 0); transtab("*CLEAR*", 1); where TABLEIN.XLT and TABLEOUT.XLT are the names of the tables you want to use (the default tables are TELIXIN.XLT and TELIXOUT.XLT). 0 means incoming translation, 1 means outgoing. *CLEAR* means to deactivate any translation. For instance, 'transtab("*CLEAR*", 1)' means to deactivate any outgoing translation. Save, and next time you run the script it will compile. For more information on how to create scripts, refer to your on-line document SALT.DOC. 7.0 Setting up for translation in other programs ================================================= While I have not made translation tables for other programs than the three listed in this document yet, I will willingly grant any request for such. I have already made the programs to generate such tables; the condition is that you provide me with spesific information on the format used for the table. Mail me for more info. slettnet@athena.ecs.csus.edu (Tor Slettnes) June 21th, 1993