1

I was attempting to type the symbol for DC (direct current), I still haven't found it but in the process I noticed that the codes found online generate something completely different on my computer. I am using a P-7811FX (Gateway) laptop that has a numerical keypad on the right. This may have to do with language settings but I don't remember messing with them or even how to navigate to the settings.

Alt+9393 is usually some variant of the letter (v) for most users.

I get the following:

Alt+9393 = ▒ (I have no idea what that is; looks kind of cool though but not DC symbol)

phuclv
  • 27,773
Nevermind Susan
  • 37

1 Answers1

2

TL;DR

The value is taken as decimal modulo 256. In code page 437 the code point 9393 mod 256 = 177 is ▒

You must use the hex numpad with Alt++codepoint to get the correct character

Alt codes are generally limited to ANSI or OEM code pages only and won't work for code points larger than 255. A few apps do support larger values, which means Alt+9393 will produce U+24B1 (parenthesized latin small letter v = ⒱) as expected (9393 = 0x24B1). Some other apps just throw away any digits after the third one. But by default in almost all applications if you input any larger values then only the low byte of the real value is taken as the code point, i.e. modulo 256

So pressing Alt+9393 will be equivalent to Alt+177 because 9393 ≡ 177 (mod 256). When you run US Windows which uses code page 437 for the OEM code page then at code point 177 is ▒ which is a medium shade block drawing character. Same for Alt+1179 and Alt+155 as 1179 ≡ 155 (mod 256), and ¢ is code point 155 in code page 437

To produce code point 9393 (U+24B1) reliably in any apps you need to use the hex numpad by creating a registry key named EnableHexNumpad with type REG_SZ in HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method, set its value to 1 then reboot. After that you can type the character as Alt++ then Alt+Unicode value (Alt++24B1 in your case). If you use some applications with special Unicode input support like MS Word then there are other better ways to insert Unicode characters

For more information read

But why do you think that ⒱ is the symbol for DC? The correct symbol for it is ⎓ U+2393 (direct current symbol form two)​

Community
  • 1
phuclv
  • 27,773