Various representations of Hebrew characters

ISO 8859-8 Hebrew/Latin code page, also known as newcode:

ISO's encoding, as it's name suggest (ISO is the International Organization for Standardization) is an internationally accepted standard. The official designation for this standard pertaining to Hebrew characters is ISO-8859-8. This encoding puts the letter Aleph in position ASCII 224 (0340 in octal) and the other characters follow, so that a terminating letter (Ot Sofit) comes before the regular letter in the sequence. The ISO standard is mostly used in UNIX.

Windows Code page CP 1255:

Alef in 224 and up like in ISO 8859-8; Nikud from 192 upwards; double vav, vav yod, double yod in 324 and up. This is used in MS-Windows.

7-bit hebrew encoding, also known as old code, defined by Israeli Standard 960 (si960):

this is an old encoding, using only 7 bits for representing each character, and hence, limited by the number of characters that can be represented. It puts Hebrew letters in the standard ASCII positions of lowercase English characters; Aleph is in the grave accent's position 96 (0140 octal), Bet replaces a, Gimel replaces b etc. English and Hebrew text used exactly the same characters.

This encoding has been used in Unix when only 7 bits could be used for data representation. It is obsolete now.

IBM PC code page also known as pc code or DOS pc (cp862):

this is the old DOS encoding for Hebrew, used by old Hebrew- enabled CGA/Hercules video cards or Hebrew codepages. This encoding had Aleph in position 128 (0200 octal). It is still used by the HED editor.

Unicode Hebrew:

"alef" is in 0x05d0 and the following characters go up to "tav" in 0x05ea. There are also double vav in 0x05f0, vav yod 0x05e1, double yod 0x05f2, single abbreviation mark 0x05f3, double abbreviation mark 0x05f4, and Nikud from 0x05b0 upwards. There are also cantillation marks and Biblical accents lower down.

EBCDIC:

This is an old 7 bit Hebrew representation, once used in IBM computers. Completely obsolete.

ASCII representations of Hebrew characters in various systems.


               DOS PC                 8-bit       
                8-bit  IBM's  7-bit   ISO 8859-8 and CP 1255
                Ascii  EBCDIC Ascii   Ascii    
                -----  ------ -----   -----
     aleph       128     41    96     224
     bet         129     42    97     225
     gimel       130     43    98     226
     dalet       131     44    99     227
     hey         132     45   100     228
     vav         133     46   101     229
     zayin       134     47   102     230
     het         135     48   103     231
     tet         136     49   104     232
     yud         137     51   105     233
     chaf sofit  138     52   106     234
     chaf        139     53   107     235
     lamed       140     54   108     236
     mem sofit   141     55   109     237
     mem         142     56   110     238
     nun sofit   143     57   111     239
     nun         144     58   112     240
     samech      145     59   113     241
     ayin        146     62   114     242
     pey sofit   147     63   115     243
     pey         148     64   116     244
     zadik sofit 149     65   117     245
     zadik       150     66   118     246
     kuf         151     67   119     247
     reish       152     68   120     248
     shin        153     69   121     249
     tuv         154     71   122     250



This page has been based on information from 
Nadav Har'El    nyh@math.technion.ac.il
and from
Klaus Lagally   lagally@linde.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
and from
Boris Lavva     lavva@tx.technion.ac.il