MIK (character set)

MIK (МИК) is an 8-bit Cyrillic code page used with DOS. It is based on the character set used in the Bulgarian Pravetz 16[1] IBM PC compatible system. Kermit calls this character set "BULGARIA-PC" / "bulgaria-pc".[2][3][4] In Bulgaria, it was sometimes incorrectly referred to as code page 856 (which clashes with IBM's definition for a Hebrew code page). This code page is known by FreeDOS as Code page 3021.

This is the most widespread DOS/OEM code page used in Bulgaria, rather than CP 808, CP 855, CP 866 or CP 872.

Almost every DOS program created in Bulgaria, which has Bulgarian strings in it, was using MIK as encoding, and many such programs are still in use.

Character set

Each character is shown with its equivalent Unicode code point and its decimal code point. Only the second half of the table (code points 128–255) is shown, the first half (code points 0–127) being the same as ASCII.

MIK[5][6][4]

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
8_	А 0410 128	Б 0411 129	В 0412 130	Г 0413 131	Д 0414 132	Е 0415 133	Ж 0416 134	З 0417 135	И 0418 136	Й 0419 137	К 041A 138	Л 041B 139	М 041C 140	Н 041D 141	О 041E 142	П 041F 143
9_	Р 0420 144	С 0421 145	Т 0422 146	У 0423 147	Ф 0424 148	Х 0425 149	Ц 0426 150	Ч 0427 151	Ш 0428 152	Щ 0429 153	Ъ 042A 154	Ы 042B 155	Ь 042C 156	Э 042D 157	Ю 042E 158	Я 042F 159
A_	а 0430 160	б 0431 161	в 0432 162	г 0433 163	д 0434 164	е 0435 165	ж 0436 166	з 0437 167	и 0438 168	й 0439 169	к 043A 170	л 043B 171	м 043C 172	н 043D 173	о 043E 174	п 043F 175
B_	р 0440 176	с 0441 177	т 0442 178	у 0443 179	ф 0444 180	х 0445 181	ц 0446 182	ч 0447 183	ш 0448 184	щ 0449 185	ъ 044A 186	ы 044B 187	ь 044C 188	э 044D 189	ю 044E 190	я 044F 191
C_	└ 2514 192	┴ 2534 193	┬ 252C 194	├ 251C 195	─ 2500 196	┼ 253C 197	╣ 2563 198	║ 2551 199	╚ 255A 200	╔ 2554 201	╩ 2569 202	╦ 2566 203	╠ 2560 204	═ 2550 205	╬ 256C 206	┐ 2510 207
D_	░ 2591 208	▒ 2592 209	▓ 2593 210	│ 2502 211	┤ 2524 212	№ 2116 213	§ 00A7 214	╗ 2557 215	╝ 255D 216	┘ 2518 217	┌ 250C 218	█ 2588 219	▄ 2584 220	▌ 258C 221	▐ 2590 222	▀ 2580 223
E_	α 03B1 224	ß 00DF[nb 1] 225	Γ 0393 226	π 03C0 227	Σ 03A3[nb 2] 228	σ 03C3 229	µ 00B5[nb 3] 230	τ 03C4 231	Φ 03A6 232	Θ 0398 233	Ω 03A9[nb 4] 234	δ 03B4 235	∞ 221E 236	φ 03C6 237	ε 03B5[nb 5] 238	∩ 2229 239
F_	≡ 2261 240	± 00B1 241	≥ 2265 242	≤ 2264 243	⌠ 2320 244	⌡ 2321 245	÷ 00F7 246	≈ 2248 247	° 00B0 248	∙ 2219 249	· 00B7 250	√ 221A 251	ⁿ 207F 252	² 00B2 253	■ 25A0 254	NBSP 00A0 255

  Letter   Number   Punctuation   Symbol   Other   Undefined

Notes for implementors of mapping tables to Unicode

Implementors of mapping tables to Unicode should note that the MIK Code page unifies some characters:

1. 0xE1 is both the German sharp S (U+00DF, ß) and the Greek lowercase beta (U+03B2, β);
2. 0xE4 is both the n-ary summation sign (U+2211, ∑) and the Greek uppercase sigma (U+03A3, Σ);
3. 0xE6 is both the micro sign (U+00B5, µ) and the Greek lowercase mu (U+03BC, μ);
4. 0xEA is both the Ohm sign (U+2126, Ω) and the Greek uppercase omega (U+03A9, Ω);
5. 0xEE is both the element-of sign (U+2208, ∈) and the Greek lowercase epsilon (U+03B5, ε)!

Binary character manipulations

The MIK code page maintains in alphabetical order all Cyrillic letters which enables very easy character manipulation in binary form:

10xx xxxx - is a Cyrillic Letter

100x xxxx - is an Upper-case Cyrillic Letter

101x xxxx - is a Lower-case Cyrillic Letter

In such case testing and character manipulating functions as:

IsAlpha(), IsUpper(), IsLower(), ToUpper() and ToLower(),

are bit operations and sorting is by simple comparison of character values.

See also

• Hardware code page

References

1. "Pravetz 16". Archived from the original on 2016-12-06. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
2. da Cruz, Frank (2010-04-02). "Kermit and MIME Character-Set Names". The Kermit Project. Columbia University, New York, USA. Archived from the original on 2016-12-03. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
3. http://www.kermitproject.org/k95manual/cyrillic.html
4. http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftp/charsets/cp856.txt
5. Czyborra, Roman (1998-11-30) [1998-05-25]. "The Cyrillic Charset Soup". Archived from the original on 2016-12-03. Retrieved 2016-12-03.
6. Hohlov, Yu. E. "Cyrillic Information Representation in Electronic Form - Character Set (Code Page) Tables". Archived from the original on 2016-12-05. Retrieved 2016-12-05.

External links

• https://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/IBM/IBM_conversions.html Unicode Consortium's mappings between IBM's code pages and Unicode
• http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#conv UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux by Markus Kuhn