GOST 10859

GOST 10859 (1964) is a standard of the Soviet Union which defined how to encode data on punched cards. This standard allowed a variable word size, depending on the type of data being encoded, but only uppercase characters.

These include the non-ASCII ⏨ (U+23E8 ⏨ DECIMAL EXPONENT SYMBOL). It was used to express real numbers in scientific notation. For example: 6.0221415⏨23.

The ⏨ character was also part of the ALGOL programming language specifications and was incorporated into the then German character encoding standard ALCOR. GOST 10859 also included numerous other non-ASCII characters/symbols useful to ALGOL programmers, e.g.: ∨, ∧, ⊃, ≡, ¬, ≠, ↑, ↓, ×, ÷, ≤, ≥, °, &, ∅, compare with ALGOL operators.

The ␡ character served the same function as the ␡ in 7-bit ASCII.

4-bit code: Binary-coded decimal

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_	0 0030	1 0031	2 0032	3 0033	4 0034	5 0035	6 0036	7 0037	8 0038	9 0039	+ 002B	- 002D	/ 002F	, 002C	. 002E	DEL 007F

5-bit code: with BCD & mathematical operators

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_	0 0030	1 0031	2 0032	3 0033	4 0034	5 0035	6 0036	7 0037	8 0038	9 0039	+ 002B	- 002D	/ 002F	, 002C	. 002E	SP 0020
1_	⏨ 23E8	↑ 2191	( 0028	) 0029	× 00D7	= 003D	; 003B	[ 005B	] 005D	* 002A	‘ 2018	’ 2019	≠ 2260	< 003C	> 003E	DEL 007F

6-bit code: with only Cyrillic upper-case letters

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_	0 0030	1 0031	2 0032	3 0033	4 0034	5 0035	6 0036	7 0037	8 0038	9 0039	+ 002B	- 002D	/ 002F	, 002C	. 002E	SP 0020
1_	⏨ 23E8	↑ 2191	( 0028	) 0029	× 00D7	= 003D	; 003B	[ 005B	] 005D	* 002A	‘ 2018	’ 2019	≠ 2260	< 003C	> 003E	: 003A
2_	А 0410	Б 0411	В 0412	Г 0413	Д 0414	Е 0415	Ж 0416	З 0417	И 0418	Й 0419	К 041A	Л 041B	М 041C	Н 041D	О 041E	П 041F
3_	Р 0420	С 0421	Т 0422	У 0423	Ф 0424	Х 0425	Ц 0426	Ч 0427	Ш 0428	Щ 0429	Ы 042B	Ь 042C	Э 042D	Ю 042E	Я 042F	DEL 007F

7-bit code: Cyrillic and Latin upper-case letters

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_	0 0030	1 0031	2 0032	3 0033	4 0034	5 0035	6 0036	7 0037	8 0038	9 0039	+ 002B	- 002D	/ 002F	, 002C	. 002E	SP 0020
1_	⏨ 23E8	↑ 2191	( 0028	) 0029	× 00D7	= 003D	; 003B	[ 005B	] 005D	* 002A	‘ 2018	’ 2019	≠ 2260	< 003C	> 003E	: 003A
2_	А[lower-alpha 1] 0410/0041	Б 0411	В[lower-alpha 1] 0412/0042	Г 0413	Д 0414	Е[lower-alpha 1] 0415/0045	Ж 0416	З 0417	И 0418	Й 0419	К[lower-alpha 1] 041A/004A	Л 041B	М[lower-alpha 1] 041C/004C	Н[lower-alpha 1] 041D/0048	О[lower-alpha 1] 041E/004E	П 041F
3_	Р[lower-alpha 1] 0420/0050	С[lower-alpha 1] 0421/0043	Т[lower-alpha 1] 0422/0054	У[lower-alpha 1] 0423/0059	Ф 0424	Х[lower-alpha 1] 0425/0058	Ц 0426	Ч 0427	Ш 0428	Щ 0429	Ы 042B	Ь 042C	Э 042D	Ю 042E	Я 042F	D 0044
4_	F 0046	G 0047	I 0049	J 004A	L 004C	N 004E	Q 0051	R 0052	S 0053	U 0055	V 0056	W 0057	Z 005A	‾ 203E	≤ 2264	≥ 2265
5_	∨ 2228	∧ 2227	⊃ 2283	¬ 00AC	÷ 00F7	≡ 2261	% 0025	◊ 25CA	| 007C	— 2014	_ 005F	! 0021	" 0022	Ъ 042A	° 00B0	' 0027
6_	→ 2192	← 2190	? 003F	↓ 2193	∅ 2205	± 00B1	∇ 2207
7_																DEL 007F

6-bit code: with only Latin upper-case letters

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_	0 0030	1 0031	2 0032	3 0033	4 0034	5 0035	6 0036	7 0037	8 0038	9 0039	+ 002B	- 002D	/ 002F	, 002C	. 002E	SP 0020
1_	⏨ 23E8	↑ 2191	( 0028	) 0029	× 00D7	= 003D	; 003B	[ 005B	] 005D	* 002A	‘ 2018	’ 2019	≠ 2260	< 003C	> 003E	: 003A
2_	A 0041	B 0042	C 0043	D 0044	E 0045	F 0046	G 0047	H 0048	I 0049	J 004A	K 004B	L 004C	M 004D	N 004E	O 004F	P 0050
3_	Q 0051	R 0052	S 0053	T 0054	U 0055	V 0056	W 0057	X 0058	Y 0059	Z 005A	∨ 2228	∧ 2227	⊃ 2283	¬ 00AC	÷ 00F7	DEL 007F

  Letter   Number   Punctuation   Symbol   Other   Undefined

See also

• KOI-7 (GOST 13052-67)
• KOI-8 (GOST 19768-74)

Notes

1. Cyrillic and Latin letters with identical (A, B, C, E, H, K, M, O, P, T, X) and similar (Y/У) glyphs were unified.

References

• (in Russian) ГОСТ 10859-64. Машины вычислительные. Коды алфавитно-цифровые для перфокарт и перфолент.
• GOST 10859 (from the Computer Museum of University of Amsterdam)
• GOST 10859

Further reading

• Savard, John J. G. (2018) [2005]. "Computer Arithmetic". quadibloc. The Early Days of Hexadecimal. Archived from the original on 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2018-07-16.