It doesn't make any difference what system you use, just which fonts and software are installed.
Obviously this forum system displays correct characters on your display. Even the special codes on my keyboards are translated correctly. I see the correct German characters for this for instance, ÄäÜüÖöß, and presumably you do too, but if you look at a system which does not have that font installed, or is not using ASCII codes, you will see something entirely different. These characters use the standard extended ASCII codes.
The keyboards themselves use Scan Codes;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scancode
If a special font were installed, then you would see whatever is contained in that font. The codes are the same, but the characters displayed are completely different, because the software interprets them differently, and generates a different display.
An excellent example of this are "wingding" fonts;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingdings
If this font is installed, the keyboard codes will produce these symbols,
The same codes can display different things depending on the system on which they are used.
Here is a table of the ASCII, ( American Standard Code for Information Interchange), codes in general use.
Ascii Table - ASCII character codes and html, octal, hex and decimal chart conversion
You can generate the characters on screen by typing, ( or otherwise inputting),the correct code, ( as opposed to just hitting a single key on your keyboard), you can also use characters your keyboard has no keys for, simply by typing in the appropriate code.
If you hold down the <Alt> key, and type in the two, ( or three for extended ASCII characters), digit decimal code for a character, and then release the key, then that code is sent to the system.
Ý This is what <Alt> 237 produces. <Alt> 43 is + and <Alt> 97 is a
This is normally referred to as "Plain Text" formatting and most systems can use it. Other formatting is specific to certain fonts or systems, and the characters and formats used can only be displayed if the system supports them.
In order to get the same display on two separate systems, the same fonts have to be installed. If they are not, then one machine might well produce gibberish instead of the intended characters. Some programs also use special formatting, and unless you have the same system on another machine, all you will see is gibberish instead of formatted text.
So, in order to see the same thing you typed, ( or otherwise generated), on one machine, displayed correctly on a different machine, you need to use a standard font, ( or the ASCII codes for instance and plain text), or the same software must be installed.
Years ago, I was obliged to program some machines directly in Octal code, by pressing a set of buttons in certain combinations in order to generate the code. The display was a set of LED's and there was no keyboard.
This system does not support any user installable fonts, but it does have some special coding setups. It can parse BBCode into HTML or XHTML for instance, add hyperlinks, and other stuff like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode
When you use this in a post here, it allows special formatting. If you look at it in a simple text ( ASCII) editor, you will see the actual formatting codes and no effects, ( But many plain text editors automatically strip formatting codes, so you wont see them if you copy and paste!). If you look at it on a system like this that supports it, then you see the actual effects it produces, Like this
for instance.
The actual BBCode required to produce that is;
The relative commands for this are here;
These commands allow special effects and formatting.
There are many such fonts, formats, and ways of achieving them.
The actual fonts available on this system are;
Arial
Arial Black
Book Antiqua
Century Gothic
Courier New
Tahoma
Verdana
But if you copy and paste that into a plain text editor then you will get this;
What you actually see on your display is also dependent on the font installed in that editor.
Regards....Mike Connor
