Abstract: In an apparatus which supplies characters or symbols and which is intended for service in different countries, some characters or symbols must have different forms for different countries or groups of countries. In the case of read-out apparatus which reproduces in dots, such as matrix printers or displays, the character forms are usually stored in a read-only store, a given address being assigned to each character. In order to achieve simple addressing in the case of a character which has different forms in different countries, not the character form is stored in the corresponding storage location, but rather one or more addresses which indicate in which location in the character store the relevant, country-dependent character form is present. To this end, each storage location comprises an additional storage (bit) position which indicates whether or not address information is concerned and which is read and interrogated first.