Block sextant 12346

Type its hexadecimal value, then press Alt+X.

For Word 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Microsoft 365, type 1FB2C and press Alt+X. If hexadecimal text comes directly before the code, select just the code first.

What pattern does 🬬 make?

Five of its six mosaic cells are filled.

Here, a sextant is a mosaic split into two columns and three rows. The 12346 suffix marks cells 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 as filled, leaving cell 5 at lower left blank. On a character-based screen, neighboring tiles could build a larger, low-resolution picture.

Why did old screens use six-cell tiles?

They made simple pictures out of character cells.

Across the 1970s and 1980s, early home computers and teletext—information pages carried by television broadcasts—used 2×3 cells to turn lines of text characters into graphics. On the TRS-80, the tiny square screen elements were called “squots” (“square dots”). In 1970s teletext, neighboring cells could touch or sit apart with narrow gaps. France’s Minitel home information service also used these grids for online graphics in the 1980s.

The 2018 proposal to add these patterns to Unicode, the shared text-character standard, grouped them for compatibility with older systems and used “sextant” by analogy with the four-part “quadrant.”