Here is a table for how to translate HP48 text characters into Unicode characters, which is what modern computers use for text. Now HP48 developers create software that transfers, displays, or edits HP48 characters (ex: copying a file from an HP48 calc to a computer) with code that will reliably display a corresponding character. By using this mapping table, we should be able to avoid the garbage data, bugs, and crashes that has been an issue for some PC/Mac/Linux side HP48 software.

Further details and explanations in an easier to read format is available at
http://www.drehersoft.com/mapping-hp48-text-to-unicode

Mapping HP48 Text to Unicode

Most HP48 characters can be directly mapped to Unicode characters for the ranges of 0x00 to 0x1F, 0x20 to 0x7E, and 0xA0 to 0xFF. For example, an HP48 character of 'A' is 0x41 (65 in decimal) and in Unicode would be 0041 (65 in decimal). However, the 34 special characters of 0x1F and from 0x7F to 0x9F should be translated by the below table:

  HP48         Unicode    

Dec   Hex    Code    Name

---------    ------------

31     1F    2026    Ellipsis

127    7F    2592    Medium Shade

128    80    2220    Measured Angle

129    81    0101    Latin Small Letter a with Macron

130    82    2207    Nabla

131    83    221A    Square Root

132    84    222B    Integral

133    85    03A3    Greek Capital Letter Sigma

134    86    25B6    Black Right-Pointing Triangle

135    87    03C0    Greek Small Letter Pi

136    88    2202    Partial Differential

137    89    2264    Less-Than or Equal To

138    8A    2265    Greater-Than or Equal To

139    8B    2260    Not Equal To

140    8C    03B1    Greek Small Letter Alpha

141    8D    2192    Rightwards Arrow

142    8E    2190    Leftwards Arrow

143    8F    2193    Downwards Arrow

144    90    2191    Upwards Arrow

145    91    03B3    Greek Small Letter Gamma

146    92    03B4    Greek Small Letter Delta

147    93    03B5    Greek Small Letter Epsilon

148    94    03B7    Greek Small Letter Eta

149    95    03B8    Greek Small Letter Theta

150    96    03BB    Greek Small Letter Lamda

151    97    03C1    Greek Small Letter Rho

152    98    03C3    Greek Small Letter Sigma

153    99    03C4    Greek Small Letter Tau

154    9A    03C9    Greek Small Letter Omega

155    9B    0394    Greek Capital Letter Delta

156    9C    03A0    Greek Capital Letter Pi

157    9D    03A9    Greek Capital Letter Omega

158    9E    25A0    Black Square

159    9F    221E    Infinity

If you are using UTF-8, then it is necessary to encode each Unicode characters into the appropriate 1, 2, or 3 byte sequences.

Resources

Unicode Standard: http://unicode.org/

Unicode Character Name Index: http://www.unicode.org/charts/charindex.html

UTF-8 summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utf-8

Hello Chris,

is that also a problem by transferring files between HP 50g and PC?
If yes, it is possible to use same mapping table?

Thank you for your efforts,
peacecalc

Edited: 9 Dec 2012, 3:30 a.m.

Chris,

Thanks for putting this together. Can I suggest that you put it in the articles section of this forum? This seems like a useful bit of information.

Dave

I'm no expert on the HP 49/50 line of products. However, I did find an HP-49 manual at http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpia5324.pdf

Overall, the table I provided is fine with the following exceptions. Someone will need to search the Unicode tables for the correct character.

Dec   Hex   Name

160   A0    Euro (HP changed the standard non-breaking space to the Euro character)

10    0A    Newline  

28    1B    Large Left-pointing Black Arrow

29    1C    Solid Black Cursor

30    1D    Ellipse

That's a great idea! I'll look into writing one.

Hello Chris,

thank you for sharing your knowledge!
This is a good information for hp 50g user.

Greetings
peacecalc