Editing ATASCII (section)

===Alternate character sets===
[[File:Atascii-international.png|thumb|x80px|The international character set included in the XL and XE models]]
Atari 8-bit computers, via the [[ANTIC]] coprocessor, supported indirection of the character set graphics, allowing a program to redefine the graphical glyphs that appear for each ATASCII character.<ref name="INSIGHT: Atari"/> This can be used as a new [[font]] for text, to support an additional character set, or for [[Tile-based video game|tile graphics]] in a video game or other application. Cycling between multiple redefined character sets can be used to provide simple animation at very little CPU cost (in exchange for memory used to store the character set data). Altering a character set in RAM can also be used for animation.

In the XL and [[Atari XE|XE]] lines, the Atari OS ROM includes an "international character set" that replaces 29 of the graphical glyphs with Latin alphabetical characters containing [[diacritic]]s, such as [[e-acute]] (é). The OS built into the [[Atari 1200XL]], the only Atari 8-bit model with [[function key]]s, allowed users to switch between the standard and alternate character sets by pressing {{keypress|CTRL|F4}}.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Atari 1200XL Home Computer Owner's Guide |date=1982 |publisher=Atari |url=https://archive.org/details/atari-1200xl-guide/mode/2up}}</ref> Later XL and XE models required the user to update a register in RAM (e.g., via a [[PEEK and POKE|POKE]] command in [[BASIC]]).<ref name="INSIGHT: Atari"/>

In some regions, a different character set was included instead of the default international character set, in order to better accommodate the target market, including Polish, Arabic, and Hebrew. Atari 192XT and 256XT systems distributed in [[Eastern Europe]] by P.Z.Karen had a Polish character set in place of the international character set.<ref name="atariki">{{cite web |title=ATASCII |url=http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/ATASCII |website=Atariki |language=pl |date=5 May 2020}}</ref><ref name="mcurrent">{{cite web |last1=Current |first1=Michael |title=Atari 8-Bit Computers Frequently Asked Questions List |url=https://mcurrent.name/atari-8-bit/faq.txt |publisher=comp.sys.atari.8bit newsgroup |access-date=29 November 2023 |date=29 May 2023}}</ref> The Atari 65XE Najm, which was distributed in the Middle East, has an Arabic character encoding as its default encoding and displays text [[Right-to-left script|right-to-left]], while the international character set was replaced by the standard ATASCII encoding.<ref name="mcurrent"/><ref>{{cite web |author1=Nosty |title=Atari Allacha |url=https://atarionline.pl/v01/index.php?id=1184283958&ct=wynalazki |website=Atari Online.pl |language=pl |date=2007-07-13}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Parent |first1=Eric |title=ATASCII Character Sets |url=http://joyfulcoder.net/atari/atascii/ |website=Joyful Coder |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316000320/http://joyfulcoder.net/atari/atascii/ |archive-date=16 March 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Savetz |first1=Kevin |title=Exploring the "Star" Arabic Atari 65 XE |url=https://www.savetz.com/vintagecomputers/arabic65xe/ |publisher=Atari 8-Bit Computer WebRing |access-date=29 November 2023 |date=19 November 2003}}</ref> Hebrew versions of the Atari 600XL and 800XL were distributed in Israel, which had a Hebrew character set in place of the international character set. The Hebrew character set had Hebrew letters instead of lowercase Latin letters, but preserved the uppercase Latin letters. When typing in Hebrew mode, typing Latin letters advances the cursor to the right, while typing Hebrew letters advances the cursor to the left.<ref name="mcurrent"/><ref>{{cite web |author1=The Modern Atari 8bit computer |title=Hebrew ATARI XL Computer |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xYnU0KEFsk |website=YouTube |access-date=29 November 2023 |language=en |date=11 October 2017}}</ref>