I use the following code and it works flawlessly. After all, it's a SMcNeill job.
SCREEN _NEWIMAGE (130, 45, 0)
_SCREENMOVE _MIDDLE
X = _DESKTOPWIDTH
IF X <1,400 THEN Fontsize = 16 ELSE Fontsize = 18
_FONT _LOADFONT ("C: \ Windows \ Fonts \ lucon.ttf", Fontsize, "MONOSPACE")
_DELAY .2
_SCREENMOVE _MIDDLE
RESTORE Microsoft_pc_cp852
FOR ascii = 128 TO 255
READ unicode &
IF unicode & = 0 THEN unicode & = 9744
_MAPUNICODE unicode & TO ascii
NEXT