Mazovia encoding

Mazovia encoding is used under MS-DOS to represent Polish texts. Basically it is code page 437 with some positions filled with Polish letters. An important feature was that the block graphic characters of code page 437 remained unchanged. In contrast, IBM's official Central-European code page 852 did not preserve all block graphics, causing incorrect display in programs such as Norton Commander.

The Mazovia encoding was designed in 1984 by Jan Klimowicz of IMM. It was designed as part of a project to develop and produce a Polish IBM PC clone codenamed "Mazovia 1016". The code page was therefore optimized for that computer's typical peripheral devices, a graphics card with dual switchable graphics, a keyboard using US English and Russian layouts and printers with Polish fonts. In 1986, the Polish National Bank (NBP) adopted the Mazovia encoding as a standard, thereby causing its widespread acceptance and distribution in Poland. They also were instrumental in Ipaco producing compatible computers with Taiwanese components under the direction of Zbigniew Jakubas and Krzysztof Sochacki.