What means
An octant is an eight-part tile for text graphics.
By 1984, Kaypro computers running CP/M, an early operating system, used this pattern as graphics code FF. A manual shows the 24 cells acting as on/off pixels on a text screen.
The 2021 Unicode proposal extends earlier 22 quadrants and 23 sextants into an eight-cell grid; adjoining octants make denser terminal pictures.
Why does this octant show as a box?
A font or terminal may lack the glyph.
As of 2026, display support still varies by terminal and font. Cascadia Code added octant glyphs in April 2024; without support, the character may appear as a replacement box.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
1
Questions people ask
1Why does show as a box on some devices?
It is recent: Unicode added it in version 16.0 (2024), and phones and computers whose fonts are older than that have nothing to draw it with. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.
More like this
8
How to type or find
- Search it as
- octant · terminal graphics · pixel art · Kaypro graphics · text graphics
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𜶫\1CDABCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.