What means
A 2-by-4 tile for drawing screen graphics. The digits 1, 5, 7, and 8 mark its four filled areas in one text character's space.
The Kaypro 10 User’s Guide (1983) explains the purpose: programs used these eight-pixel cells to draw on a text screen. Unicode preserves the tile as a text character.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why does show as an empty box?
Your active font may not include this glyph. As of April 30, 2024, Cascadia Code supports all 256 octants; a font with octant coverage can display the pattern.
How to type
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 1CDBC, then Alt+X to get .
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “block octant-1578”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 1cdbc, then Enter or Space.
HTML
𜶼CSS
\1CDBCHTML / XML
In markup, use the hexadecimal character reference `𜶼`.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
𜶼
HTML hex
𜶼
CSS content
content: "\1CDBC";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%F0%9C%B6%BC
1
On screen
1
Code points
2
JS .length
4
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.