Iconvex Retro

iconvex_retro adds pure Elixir codecs for historical machines and media. These systems use card punches, six-bit words, terminal glyph ROMs, or video-memory cells.

It contains exactly the frozen package surface:

• 192 canonical byte-stream codecs plus their aliases.
• 23 logical non-octet codecs.
• 57 named packed profiles with MSB-first and LSB-first transports.
• Two Unicode IBMGRAPH table providers.

Install

def deps do
  [
    {:iconvex, "~> 0.1.1"},
    {:iconvex_retro, "~> 0.1"}
  ]
end

Starting the application installs every route and provider in one transaction. Stopping it removes the same records in one transaction. A collision rolls back all changes.

Six-bit machines

{:ok, bytes} = Iconvex.convert("HELLO", "UTF-8", "DEC-SIXBIT")
{:ok, "HELLO"} = Iconvex.convert(bytes, "DEC-SIXBIT", "UTF-8")

{:ok, packed} =
  Iconvex.Retro.Packed.encode_from_utf8(
    "HELLO",
    "DEC-SIXBIT-PACKED-MSB"
  )

{:ok, "HELLO"} =
  Iconvex.Retro.Packed.decode_to_utf8(
    packed,
    "DEC-SIXBIT-PACKED-MSB"
  )

The same packed API covers CDC Display Code, FIELDATA, and PDP-1 concise codes. It also covers Apple-1 Signetics 2513, UNIVAC I, DEC national sets, and DEC terminal graphics.

Twelve-bit punched-card values

Logical card codecs preserve masks as 12 contiguous bits. Iconvex registers explicit 16BE and 16LE word transports as byte codecs.

alias Iconvex.Retro.IBM7040HReport

{:ok, card_bits} = IBM7040HReport.encode_packed(~c"HELLO")
{:ok, ~c"HELLO"} = IBM7040HReport.decode_packed(card_bits)

{:ok, words} = Iconvex.convert("HELLO", "UTF-8", "IBM-7040-H-REPORT-16BE")
{:ok, "HELLO"} = Iconvex.convert(words, "IBM-7040-H-REPORT-16BE", "UTF-8")

The package includes IBM 7040/7044, IBM 1401, and CDC 167 and 6000. It also includes University of Iowa reconstructions and all ten IBM 24/26 Figure 23 arrangements.

Video memory and terminal ROMs

The WG2 N5028 family provides 70 separately named mappings for Apple II, Atari, Commodore, TRS-80, ZX Spectrum, teletext, RISC OS, and other historical systems. Video order and interchange order remain separate encodings.

{:ok, utf8} = Iconvex.convert(memory, "ATASCII-GRAPHICS-VIDEO", "UTF-8")
{:ok, screen_bytes} = Iconvex.convert("┌─┐", "UTF-8", "IBMGRAPH")

Other source-qualified codecs include Kermit JIS7 Kanji, DEC Hebrew, and SI 960. The set also includes DEC Special/Technical, TI-83 Plus, and TI-89 AMS 2.0. The package also includes Mattel Aquarius, Stanford RFC 698 graphics, ABC 800 character mode, and Kermit vendor sets.

Inspect the codec surface

Iconvex.Retro.encodings()          # 192 registry names
Iconvex.Retro.non_octet_encodings() # 23 logical names
Iconvex.Retro.packed_profiles()     # 57 width/order maps
Iconvex.Retro.provider_ids()        # IBMGRAPH providers

SURFACE_MANIFEST.tsv provides the machine-readable authority. Three generated CSV inventories provide release views. Run this check:

elixir tools/generate_surface_module.exs --check

The command verifies that the public module and inventories match the frozen manifest.

Verification and provenance

The test suite ports the original family tests and fixtures. It exhausts finite byte and fixed-width domains. It checks the complete Unicode scalar corpus for accidental encoder keys. It also tests streaming offsets and performance against independent source-derived loops.

Large historical scans remain repository-only evidence. The Hex artifact contains compact transcriptions, mapping attachments, notices, and runtime tables. The original Iconvex code uses LGPL-2.1-or-later. Other inputs retain their Apache-2.0, Unicode-3.0, or Kermit BSD-3-Clause terms.

Complete codec catalog

The generator builds this table from the release inventories. Do not edit this section by hand. Codec names ignore ASCII letter case. You can use each alias to look up its codec. Aliases do not increase the canonical codec count.

192 canonical codecs · 332 aliases · 524 accepted names.

Registered codec names

Logical non-octet codecs

23 logical codecs · 27 aliases · 46 byte transports. These codecs keep their specified unit width. The byte transports provide explicit registry-compatible forms. They do not add logical codecs.

Packed transport profiles

57 base codec profiles · 114 explicit packed names. These profiles change the bit transport only. They do not add registered Unicode mappings.