I see exactly the same output when I run those same commands. This demonstrates the DIR command properly outputs and displays a Latin small letter o with an acute accent regardless of the active code page (so long as ó is in the repetoire of characters of the code page), which is terrific, and good to know. But this is PerlMonks, not DirMonks. ;-)

Now run my Perl script as I did with the code page set to 437, 850, 1252, 65001, etc. Then come back and tell me if you still think I was "confusing things by mentioning chcp" and that "[i]t isn't necessary." I wasn't, and it is.

The important and germane point here is that, unlike what DIR does, ActivePerl for Windows prints whatever the glyph is for byte \xF3 in whatever the active code page is.