ASCII

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), generally pronounced ass-key, is a character set and a character encoding based on the Roman alphabet as used in modern English and other Western European languages. It is most commonly used by computers and other communication equipment to represent text and by control devices that work with text.

ASCII printable characters

Code 32 is the "space" character, denoting the space between words, which is produced by the large space bar of a keyboard. Codes 33 to 126 are called the printable characters, which represent letters, digits, punctuation marks, and a few miscellaneous symbols.

Seven bit ASCII provided seven "national" characters and, if the combined hardware and software permit, can use overstrikes to simulate some additional international characters: a BackSpace can be followed with the grave accent (which the American and British standards, but only the American and British standards, also call "opening single quotation mark"), a tilde, or a breath mark (inverted vel).

Binary Decimal Hex Graphic 0010 0000 32 20 (blank) (␠) 0010 0001 33 21 ! 0010 0010 34 22 " 0010 0011 35 23 # 0010 0100 36 24 $ 0010 0101 37 25 % 0010 0110 38 26 & 0010 0111 39 27 ' 0010 1000 40 28 ( 0010 1001 41 29 ) 0010 1010 42 2A * 0010 1011 43 2B + 0010 1100 44 2C , 0010 1101 45 2D - 0010 1110 46 2E . 0010 1111 47 2F / 0011 0000 48 30 0 0011 0001 49 31 1 0011 0010 50 32 2 0011 0011 51 33 3 0011 0100 52 34 4 0011 0101 53 35 5 0011 0110 54 36 6 0011 0111 55 37 7 0011 1000 56 38 8 0011 1001 57 39 9 0011 1010 58 3A : 0011 1011 59 3B ; 0011 1100 60 3C < 0011 1101 61 3D = 0011 1110 62 3E > 0011 1111 63 3F ?

Binary Decimal Hex Graphic 0100 0000 64 40 @ 0100 0001 65 41 A 0100 0010 66 42 B 0100 0011 67 43 align="cente r"|C 0100 0100 68 44 D 0100 0101 69 45 E 0100 0110 70 46 F 0100 0111 71 47 G 0100 1000 72 48 H 0100 1001 73 49 I 0100 1010 74 4A J 0100 1011 75 4B K 0100 1100 76 4C L 0100 1101 77 4D M 0100 1110 78 4E N 0100 1111 79 4F O 0101 0000 80 50 P 0101 0001 81 51 Q 0101 0010 82 52 R 0101 0011 83 53 S 0101 0100 84 54 T 0101 0101 85 55 U 0101 0110 86 56 V 0101 0111 87 57 W 0101 1000 88 58 X 0101 1001 89 59 Y 0101 1010 90 5A Z 0101 1011 91 5B [ 0101 1100 92 5C \ 0101 1101 93 5D ] 0101 1110 94 5E ^ 0101 1111 95 5F _

Binary Decimal Hex Graphic 0110 0000 96 60 ` 0110 0001 97 61 a 0110 0010 98 62 b 0110 0011 99 63 c 0110 0100 100 64 d 0110 0101 101 65 e 0110 0110 102 66 f 0110 0111 103 67 g 0110 1000 104 68 h 0110 1001 105 69 i 0110 1010 106 6A j 0110 1011 107 6B k 0110 1100 108 6C l 0110 1101 109 6D m 0110 1110 110 6E n 0110 1111 111 6F o 0111 0000 112 70 p 0111 0001 113 71 q 0111 0010 114 72 r 0111 0011 115 73 s 0111 0100 116 74 t 0111 0101 117 75 u 0111 0110 118 76 v 0111 0111 119 77 w 0111 1000 align="c enter"|120 78 x 0111 1001 121 79 y 0111 1010 122 7A z 0111 1011 123 7B { 0111 1100 124 7C align="center" 0111 1101 125 7D } 0111 1110 126 7E ~

Note how uppercase characters can be converted to lowercase by adding 32 to their ASCII value; in binary, this can be accomplished simply by setting the sixth-least significant bit to 1.

External links

• Color coded ASCII chart with binary, octal, decimal, and hex values
• Standard ECMA-6: 7-bit Coded Character Set 6th edition (December 1991)
• IANA Registry: C0 Set of ISO 646
• IANA Registry: ISO 646, USA Version X3.4 -- 1968
• ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Infiltration by Tom Jennings
• Jargon File: ASCIIbetical
• Bob Bemer's home page some historical notes about ASCII from one of its designers
• A pronunciation guide for ASCII characters (some are more whimsical than others; see especially the end of the list)
• Annotated History of Character Codes by Tom Jennings, World Power Systems
• Learning by Simulations Interactive simulation of ASCII encoding