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Recent Questions - Retrocomputing Stack Exchange · Aug 1, 2026

What historical terminals or character sets are the Unicode 17 Terminal Graphic Characters based on?

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I'm reading the new Terminal Graphic Characters introduced in Unicode 17 , particularly the entries in the symbols for legacy terminal graphic characters . For example: U+1CEBA FRAGILE SYMBOL → U+1F377 🍷 U+1CEBB OFFICE BUILDING SYMBOL → U+1F3E2 🏢 U+1CEBC TREE SYMBOL → U+1F333 🌳 U+1CEBD APPLE SYMBOL → U+1F34E 🍎 → U+1F34F 🍏 U+1CEBE CHERRY SYMBOL → U+1F352 🍒 U+1CEBF STRAWBERRY SYMBOL → U+1F353…

I'm reading the new Terminal Graphic Characters introduced in Unicode 17, particularly the entries in the symbols for legacy terminal graphic characters.

For example:

U+1CEBA FRAGILE SYMBOL         → U+1F377 🍷
U+1CEBB OFFICE BUILDING SYMBOL → U+1F3E2 🏢
U+1CEBC TREE SYMBOL            → U+1F333 🌳
U+1CEBD APPLE SYMBOL           → U+1F34E 🍎
                               → U+1F34F 🍏
U+1CEBE CHERRY SYMBOL          → U+1F352 🍒
U+1CEBF STRAWBERRY SYMBOL      → U+1F353 🍓

The Unicode chart explicitly states:

These characters are not emoji. Cross-references are provided to the corresponding emoji.

I understand that these are intended to represent historical terminal graphics, not modern emoji. However, I'm trying to understand their actual origins. Specifically:

  1. Which historical terminals, videotex systems, or character sets originally contained these symbols?

  2. Why were these particular symbols chosen?

    Symbols such as FRAGILE or OFFICE BUILDING seem fairly intuitive(e.g., shipping and commercial applications), but TREE, APPLE, CHERRY, and STRAWBERRY are more surprising. Were these commonly used in any specific applications or industries?

  3. How were these symbols encoded on the original systems? Were they fixed ROM glyphs with dedicated code points, or generated in some other way?

I'd appreciate references to original manuals, ROM dumps, terminal documentation, or photographs of these systems.

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