During system initialization, the code pages specified in the CODEPAGE statement are prepared to enable run-time code page switching of the display, the keyboard, the printer, and the country information. The display, keyboard, and printer must be defined in a DEVINFO statement in order to be prepared. Country information is prepared for the system country code specified in the COUNTRY statement.

If a resource cannot be prepared for the selected code page during system initialization, it is prepared for a default code page. The following are the defaults:

• A keyboard layout defaults to the code page of the translate table designated as the default layout in the KEYBOARD.DCP file. The default layout is based on the national code page of its associated country. You must explicitly specify KEYBOARD.DCP in the DEVINFO statement for the keyboard in CONFIG.SYS.

• The display defaults to the code page of ROM_0 for the device.

  (ROM_0 means a device default code page that is the device native code page or the lowest addressed ROM code page.)

• The printer defaults to the code page of ROM_0 for the device.

  (ROM_0 means a device default code page that is the device native code page or the lowest addressed ROM code page.)

• The country information defaults to the code page of the first entry found in the COUNTRY.SYS file for the country code. Each entry is the same information for a given country code, but is encoded in a different code page. The first entry is based on the preferred country code page.

If country information cannot be prepared at system initialization because it is not found in the COUNTRY.SYS file, for a code page selected with the CODEPAGE statement, then it is prepared (maintained for run-time code page switching in memory) in the default code page. Similarly, a keyboard layout is prepared in its default code page if it cannot be prepared in the selected code page, because it is not found in the KEYBOARD.DCP file.

COUNTRY.SYS contains one default entry per country code, and KEYBOARD.DCP contains one default entry per keyboard layout based on these assignments.