Palm Pilot Character Sets And Unicode Mappings

Sources: Here and there, through reverse engineering.

Charsets used

The Palm Pilot character set is based on Windows codepage 1252 (english devices) or Windows codepage 932 (japaneese devices). All lower bytes (0x20--0x7F) are the same except for code 0x5C which is a Yen symbol on japaneese devices, and a backslash on any other devices.

The low command characters (0x00--0x1F) are not present as characters in the PalmOS and should not be used for character encoding, but they have the same meaning as in ISO Latin-1.

OTA characters: OTA means "Over The Air" and is put on the right side of hyperlinks, to indicate that they are remotely stored. Similarly OTA secure means the same for encrypted links. Their meaning is roughly the same as "HTTP" and HTTPS" today.

The deviations from Windows-1252 for different versions of PalmOS are listed below:

PalmOS 2.0.x
Deviating glyphs vs Windows-1252

Code Windows-1252 Palmos Unicode Comment
09 N/A HORIZONTAL TABULATION 0009 Control character, probably existing in Windows-1252 too, here represented by a single character meaning TAB:s on PalmOS is one TAB character wide.
80 N/A / EURO SIGN NUMERIC SPACE 2007  
8D N/A WHITE DIAMOND SUIT 2662  
8E N/A BLACK CLUB SUIT 2663  
8F N/A WHITE HEART SUIT 2661  
90 N/A BLACK SPADE SUIT 2660  
9D N/A COMMAND STROKE ?  
9E N/A SHORTCUT STROKE ?  

PalmOS 3.1
Deviating glyphs vs Windows-1252

(To be verified)

Code Windows-1252 Palmos Unicode Comment
09 N/A HORIZONTAL TABULATION 0009 Control character, probably existing in Windows-1252 too, here represented by a single character meaning TAB:s on PalmOS is one TAB character wide.
14 N/A OTA SECURE ? OTA sign next to a key symbol - does it really appear in PalmOS 3.1?
15 N/A OTA ? OTA sign - does it really appear in PalmOS 3.1?
16 N/A COMMAND STROKE ? Equal to code 9D, but this code is preferable for PalmOS >= 3.1
17 N/A SHORTCUT STROKE ? Equal to code 9E, but this code is preferable for PalmOS >= 3.1
18 N/A HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS 2026 Equal to code 85, but this code is preferable for PalmOS >= 3.1
19 N/A NUMERIC SPACE 2007 Equal to code 80 for PalmOS < 3.1, this code is preferable for PalmOS >= 3.1 (just like in Windows-1252
80 N/A / EURO SIGN EURO SIGN 20AC As of PalmOS 3.1 the Euro sign was introduced here, and numeric space moved to code 19. Also the Windows-1252 codepage was changed!
8D N/A WHITE DIAMOND SUIT 2662 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.1
8E N/A BLACK CLUB SUIT 2663 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.1
8F N/A WHITE HEART SUIT 2661 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.1
90 N/A BLACK SPADE SUIT 2660 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.1
9D N/A COMMAND STROKE ?  
9E N/A SHORTCUT STROKE ?  

PalmOS 3.3
Deviating glyphs vs Windows-1252

Code Windows-1252 Palmos Unicode Comment
09 N/A HORIZONTAL TABULATION 0009 Control character, probably existing in Windows-1252 too, here represented by a single character meaning TAB:s on PalmOS is one TAB character wide.
14 N/A OTA SECURE ? OTA sign next to a key symbol
15 N/A OTA ? OTA sign
16 N/A COMMAND STROKE ? Does not appear elsewhere as of PalmOS 3.3
17 N/A SHORTCUT STROKE ? Does not appear elsewhere as of PalmOS 3.3
18 N/A HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS 2026 Equal to code 85, but this code is preferable for PalmOS >= 3.1
19 N/A NUMERIC SPACE 2007 this code is preferable for PalmOS >= 3.3
80 N/A / EURO SIGN EURO SIGN 20AC As of PalmOS 3.1 the Euro sign was introduced here, and numeric space moved to code 19. Also the Windows-1252 codepage was changed!
8D N/A WHITE DIAMOND SUIT 2662 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.3
8E N/A BLACK CLUB SUIT 2663 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.3
8F N/A WHITE HEART SUIT 2661 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.3
90 N/A BLACK SPADE SUIT 2660 Has been moved to the Symbol font but still appears here as of PalmOS 3.3

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