ASCII ( ),
abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a
character encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...
standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers,
telecommunications equipment
Telecommunications equipment (also telecoms equipment or communications equipment) are hardware which are used for the purposes of telecommunications. Since the 1990s the boundary between telecoms equipment and IT hardware has become blurred as a ...
, and other devices. Because of technical limitations of computer systems at the time it was invented, ASCII has just 128
code point
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s, of which only 95 are , which severely limited its scope. All modern computer systems instead use
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
, which has millions of code points, but the first 128 of these are the same as the ASCII set.
The
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...
(IANA) prefers the name US-ASCII for this character encoding.
ASCII is one of the
IEEE milestones.
Overview
ASCII was developed from
telegraph code
A telegraph code is one of the character encodings used to transmit information by telegraphy. Morse code is the best-known such code. ''Telegraphy'' usually refers to the electrical telegraph, but telegraph systems using the optical telegraph w ...
. Its first commercial use was as a seven-
bit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
teleprinter
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Initia ...
code promoted by Bell data services. Work on the ASCII standard began in May 1961, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association's (ASA) (now the
American National Standards Institute
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organi ...
or ANSI) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published in 1963,
underwent a major revision during 1967,
and experienced its most recent update during 1986.
Compared to earlier telegraph codes, the proposed Bell code and ASCII were both ordered for more convenient sorting (i.e., alphabetization) of lists and added features for devices other than teleprinters.
The use of ASCII format for Network Interchange was described in 1969. That document was formally elevated to an Internet Standard in 2015.
Originally based on the (modern)
English alphabet
The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, '' alpha'' and '' beta''. ...
, ASCII encodes 128 specified
characters
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
into seven-bit integers as shown by the ASCII chart above.
Ninety-five of the encoded characters are printable: these include the digits ''0'' to ''9'', lowercase letters ''a'' to ''z'', uppercase letters ''A'' to ''Z'', and
punctuation symbol
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
s. In addition, the original ASCII specification included 33 non-printing
control code
In computing and telecommunication, a control character or non-printing character (NPC) is a code point (a number) in a character set, that does not represent a written symbol. They are used as in-band signaling to cause effects other than the ...
s which originated with
Teletype machine
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Initia ...
s; most of these are now obsolete,
although a few are still commonly used, such as the
carriage return
A carriage return, sometimes known as a cartridge return and often shortened to CR, or return, is a control character or mechanism used to reset a device's position to the beginning of a line of text. It is closely associated with the line feed a ...
,
line feed
Newline (frequently called line ending, end of line (EOL), next line (NEL) or line break) is a control character or sequence of control characters in character encoding specifications such as ASCII, EBCDIC, Unicode, etc. This character, or a ...
, and
tab codes.
For example, lowercase ''
i'' would be represented in the ASCII encoding by
binary
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...
1101001 =
hexadecimal
In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, hexa ...
69 (''i'' is the ninth letter) =
decimal
The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...
105.
Despite being an American standard, ASCII does not have a code point for the
cent
Cent may refer to:
Currency
* Cent (currency), a one-hundredth subdivision of several units of currency
* Penny (Canadian coin), a Canadian coin removed from circulation in 2013
* 1 cent (Dutch coin), a Dutch coin minted between 1941 and 1944
* ...
(¢). It also does not support
English terms with diacritical marks
English rarely uses diacritics, which are symbols indicating the modification of a vowel's sound when spoken. Most of the affected words are in terms imported from other languages The diaeresis mark, the grave accent and the acute accent are the o ...
such as
résumé
A résumé, sometimes spelled resume (or alternatively resumé), also called a curriculum vitae (CV), is a document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments. Résumés can be used for a variety of re ...
and
jalapeño
The jalapeño ( , , ) is a medium-sized chili pepper pod type cultivar of the species ''Capsicum annuum''. A mature jalapeño chili is long and hangs down with a round, firm, smooth flesh of wide. It can have a range of pungency, with Scovi ...
, or
proper nouns
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah (given name), Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a Class (philo ...
with diacritical marks such as
Beyoncé
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Beyoncé's boundary-pushing artistry and vocals have made her the most influential female musician of the 21st century, according to ...
.
History
![ASCII1963-infobox-paths](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/ASCII1963-infobox-paths.svg)
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) was developed under the auspices of a committee of the American Standards Association (ASA), called the X3 committee, by its X3.2 (later X3L2) subcommittee, and later by that subcommittee's X3.2.4 working group (now
INCITS
The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), (pronounced "insights"), is an ANSI-accredited standards development organization composed of Information technology developers. It was formerly known as the X3 and NCITS. ...
). The ASA later became the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI),
and ultimately became the
American National Standards Institute
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organi ...
(ANSI).
With the other special characters and control codes filled in, ASCII was published as ASA X3.4-1963,
leaving 28 code positions without any assigned meaning, reserved for future standardization, and one unassigned control code.
There was some debate at the time whether there should be more control characters rather than the lowercase alphabet.
The indecision did not last long: during May 1963 the CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet proposed to assign lowercase characters to ''sticks''
6 and 7,
[Brief Report: Meeting of CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet, May 13–15, 1963.] and
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
TC 97 SC 2 voted during October to incorporate the change into its draft standard.
[Report of ISO/TC/97/SC 2 – Meeting of October 29–31, 1963.] The X3.2.4 task group voted its approval for the change to ASCII at its May 1963 meeting. Locating the lowercase letters in ''sticks''
6 and 7 caused the characters to differ in bit pattern from the upper case by a single bit, which simplified
case-insensitive In computers, case sensitivity defines whether uppercase and lowercase letters are treated as distinct (case-sensitive) or equivalent (case-insensitive). For instance, when users interested in learning about dogs search an e-book, "dog" and "Dog" a ...
character matching and the construction of keyboards and printers.
The X3 committee made other changes, including other new characters (the
brace
Brace(s) or bracing may refer to:
Medical
* Orthopaedic brace, a device used to restrict or assist body movement
** Back brace, a device limiting motion of the spine
*** Milwaukee brace, a kind of back brace used in the treatment of spinal cur ...
and
vertical bar
The vertical bar, , is a glyph with various uses in mathematics, computing, and typography. It has many names, often related to particular meanings: Sheffer stroke (in logic), pipe, bar, or (literally the word "or"), vbar, and others.
Usage
...
characters), renaming some control characters (SOM became start of header (SOH)) and moving or removing others (RU was removed).
ASCII was subsequently updated as USAS X3.4-1967,
then USAS X3.4-1968, ANSI X3.4-1977, and finally, ANSI X3.4-1986.
Revisions of the ASCII standard:
* ASA X3.4-1963
* ASA X3.4-1965 (approved, but not published, nevertheless used by
IBM 2260
The text-only monochrome IBM 2260 cathode-ray tube (CRT) video display terminal (Display Station) plus keyboard was a 1964 predecessor to the more-powerful IBM 3270 terminal line which eventually was extended to support color text and graphics ...
&
2265 Display Stations and
IBM 2848
The text-only monochrome IBM 2260 cathode-ray tube (CRT) video display terminal (Display Station) plus keyboard was a 1964 predecessor to the more-powerful IBM 3270 terminal line which eventually was extended to support color text and graphics. ...
Display Control)
* USAS X3.4-1967
* USAS X3.4-1968
* ANSI X3.4-1977
* ANSI X3.4-1986
* ANSI X3.4-1986 (R1992)
* ANSI X3.4-1986 (R1997)
* ANSI INCITS 4-1986 (R2002)
* ANSI INCITS 4-1986 (R2007)
* (ANSI) INCITS 4-1986
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...
ref name="INCITS_4-1986_R2012"/>
* (ANSI) INCITS 4-1986
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
ref name="INCITS_4-1986_R2017"/>
In the X3.15 standard, the X3 committee also addressed how ASCII should be transmitted (
least significant bit
In computing, bit numbering is the convention used to identify the bit positions in a binary number.
Bit significance and indexing
In computing, the least significant bit (LSB) is the bit position in a binary integer representing the binary 1 ...
first),
and how it should be recorded on perforated tape. They proposed a
9-track standard for magnetic tape, and attempted to deal with some
punched card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
formats.
Design considerations
Bit width
The X3.2 subcommittee designed ASCII based on the earlier teleprinter encoding systems. Like other
character encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...
s, ASCII specifies a correspondence between digital bit patterns and
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
symbols (i.e.
grapheme
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.
The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
s and
control character
In computing and telecommunication, a control Character (computing), character or non-printing character (NPC) is a code point (a number) in a character encoding, character set, that does not represent a written symbol. They are used as in-band ...
s). This allows
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
devices to communicate with each other and to process, store, and communicate character-oriented information such as written language. Before ASCII was developed, the encodings in use included 26
alphabetic
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
characters, 10
numerical digit
A numerical digit (often shortened to just digit) is a single symbol used alone (such as "2") or in combinations (such as "25"), to represent numbers in a positional numeral system. The name "digit" comes from the fact that the ten digits (Latin ...
s, and from 11 to 25 special graphic symbols. To include all these, and control characters compatible with the
Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique
The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunications and Information Commu ...
(CCITT)
International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2
The Baudot code is an early character encoding for telegraphy invented by Émile Baudot in the 1870s. It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2), the most common teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII. ...
(ITA2) standard of 1924,
FIELDATA (1956), and early
EBCDIC
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC; ) is an eight-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding six- ...
(1963), more than 64 codes were required for ASCII.
ITA2 was in turn based on the 5-bit telegraph code that
Émile Baudot
Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot (; 11 September 1845 – 28 March 1903), French telegraph engineer and inventor of the first means of digital communication Baudot code, was one of the pioneers of telecommunications. He invented a multiplexed printi ...
invented in 1870 and patented in 1874.
The committee debated the possibility of a
shift function (like in
ITA2
The Baudot code is an early character encoding for telegraphy invented by Émile Baudot in the 1870s. It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2), the most common teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII. ...
), which would allow more than 64 codes to be represented by a
six-bit code. In a shifted code, some character codes determine choices between options for the following character codes. It allows compact encoding, but is less reliable for
data transmission
Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point o ...
, as an error in transmitting the shift code typically makes a long part of the transmission unreadable. The standards committee decided against shifting, and so ASCII required at least a seven-bit code.
The committee considered an eight-bit code, since eight bits (
octet
Octet may refer to:
Music
* Octet (music), ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or composition written for such an ensemble
** String octet, a piece of music written for eight string instruments
*** Octet (Mendelssohn), 1825 compos ...
s) would allow two four-bit patterns to efficiently encode two digits with
binary-coded decimal
In computing and electronic systems, binary-coded decimal (BCD) is a class of binary encodings of decimal numbers where each digit is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four or eight. Sometimes, special bit patterns are used for ...
. However, it would require all data transmission to send eight bits when seven could suffice. The committee voted to use a seven-bit code to minimize costs associated with data transmission. Since perforated tape at the time could record eight bits in one position, it also allowed for a
parity bit
A parity bit, or check bit, is a bit added to a string of binary code. Parity bits are a simple form of error detecting code. Parity bits are generally applied to the smallest units of a communication protocol, typically 8-bit octets (bytes) ...
for
error checking
In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communica ...
if desired.
Eight-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data buses o ...
machines (with octets as the native data type) that did not use parity checking typically set the eighth bit to 0.
Internal organization
The code itself was patterned so that most control codes were together and all graphic codes were together, for ease of identification. The first two so-called ''ASCII sticks''
(32 positions) were reserved for control characters.
The
"space" character had to come before graphics to make
sorting
Sorting refers to ordering data in an increasing or decreasing manner according to some linear relationship among the data items.
# ordering: arranging items in a sequence ordered by some criterion;
# categorizing: grouping items with similar pro ...
easier, so it became position 20
hex;
for the same reason, many special signs commonly used as separators were placed before digits. The committee decided it was important to support
uppercase
Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ...
64-character alphabets, and chose to pattern ASCII so it could be reduced easily to a usable 64-character set of graphic codes,
as was done in the
DEC SIXBIT
A six-bit character code is a character encoding designed for use on computers with word lengths a multiple of 6. Six bits can only encode 64 distinct characters, so these codes generally include only the upper-case letters, the numerals, some punc ...
code (1963).
Lowercase
Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ...
letters were therefore not interleaved with uppercase. To keep options available for lowercase letters and other graphics, the special and numeric codes were arranged before the letters, and the letter ''A'' was placed in position 41
hex to match the draft of the corresponding British standard.
The digits 0–9 are prefixed with 011, but the remaining
4 bits correspond to their respective values in binary, making conversion with
binary-coded decimal
In computing and electronic systems, binary-coded decimal (BCD) is a class of binary encodings of decimal numbers where each digit is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four or eight. Sometimes, special bit patterns are used for ...
straightforward.
Many of the non-alphanumeric characters were positioned to correspond to their shifted position on typewriters; an important subtlety is that these were based on ''mechanical'' typewriters, not ''electric'' typewriters.
Mechanical typewriters followed the
de facto standard
A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces (for example, by early entrance to the market). is a Latin phrase (literally " in fact"), here meaning "in practice b ...
set by the
Remington No. 2
The Sholes and Glidden typewriter (also known as the Remington No. 1) was the first commercially successful typewriter. Principally designed by the American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, it was developed with the assistance of fellow ...
(1878), the first typewriter with a shift key, and the shifted values of
23456789-
were
"#$%_&'()
early typewriters omitted ''0'' and ''1'', using ''O'' (capital letter ''o'') and ''l'' (lowercase letter ''L'') instead, but
1!
and
0)
pairs became standard once 0 and 1 became common. Thus, in ASCII
!"#$%
were placed in the second stick,
positions 1–5, corresponding to the digits 1–5 in the adjacent stick.
The parentheses could not correspond to ''9'' and ''0'', however, because the place corresponding to ''0'' was taken by the space character. This was accommodated by removing
_
(underscore) from ''6'' and shifting the remaining characters, which corresponded to many European typewriters that placed the parentheses with ''8'' and ''9''. This discrepancy from typewriters led to
bit-paired keyboard
A bit-paired keyboard is a keyboard where the layout of shifted keys corresponds to columns in the ASCII (1963) table, archetypally the Teletype Model 33 (1963) keyboard. This was later contrasted with a typewriter-paired keyboard, where the layou ...
s, notably the
Teletype Model 33
The Teletype Model 33 is an electromechanical teleprinter designed for light-duty office use. It is less rugged and cost less than earlier Teletype machines. The Teletype Corporation introduced the Model 33 as a commercial product in 1963 after ...
, which used the left-shifted layout corresponding to ASCII, differently from traditional mechanical typewriters.
Electric typewriters, notably the
IBM Selectric
The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961.
Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a typical typewriter of the period ...
(1961), used a somewhat different layout that has become de facto standard on computers following the
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
(1981), especially
Model M
Model M designates a group of computer keyboards designed and manufactured by IBM starting in 1985, and later by Lexmark International, Maxi Switch, and Unicomp. The keyboard's many variations have their own distinct characteristics, with ...
(1984) and thus shift values for symbols on modern keyboards do not correspond as closely to the ASCII table as earlier keyboards did. The
/?
pair also dates to the No. 2, and the
,< .>
pairs were used on some keyboards (others, including the No. 2, did not shift
,
(comma) or
.
(full stop) so they could be used in uppercase without unshifting). However, ASCII split the
;:
pair (dating to No. 2), and rearranged mathematical symbols (varied conventions, commonly
-* =+
) to
:* ;+ -=
.
Some then-common typewriter characters were not included, notably
½ ¼ ¢
, while
^ ` ~
were included as diacritics for international use, and
< >
for mathematical use, together with the simple line characters
\ ,
(in addition to common
/
). The ''@'' symbol was not used in continental Europe and the committee expected it would be replaced by an accented ''À'' in the French variation, so the ''@'' was placed in position 40
hex, right before the letter A.
The control codes felt essential for data transmission were the start of message (SOM), end of address (EOA),
end of message (EOM), end of transmission (EOT), "who are you?" (WRU), "are you?" (RU), a reserved device control (DC0), synchronous idle (SYNC), and acknowledge (ACK). These were positioned to maximize the
Hamming distance
In information theory, the Hamming distance between two strings of equal length is the number of positions at which the corresponding symbols are different. In other words, it measures the minimum number of ''substitutions'' required to chan ...
between their bit patterns.
Character order
ASCII-code order is also called ''ASCIIbetical'' order.
Collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fili ...
of data is sometimes done in this order rather than "standard" alphabetical order (
collating sequence
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fili ...
). The main deviations in ASCII order are:
* All uppercase come before lowercase letters; for example, "Z" precedes "a"
* Digits and many punctuation marks come before letters
An intermediate order converts uppercase letters to lowercase before comparing ASCII values.
Character groups
Control characters
ASCII reserves the first 32 codes (numbers 0–31 decimal) for control characters: codes originally intended not to represent printable information, but rather to control devices (such as
printers
Printer may refer to:
Technology
* Printer (publishing), a person or a company
* Printer (computing), a hardware device
* Optical printer for motion picture films
People
* Nariman Printer ( fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist
* Jame ...
) that make use of ASCII, or to provide
meta-information about data streams such as those stored on magnetic tape.
For example, character 10 represents the "line feed" function (which causes a printer to advance its paper), and character 8 represents "backspace". refers to control characters that do not include carriage return, line feed or
white space as non-whitespace control characters.
[ (NB. NO-WS-CTL.)] Except for the control characters that prescribe elementary line-oriented formatting, ASCII does not define any mechanism for describing the structure or appearance of text within a document. Other schemes, such as
markup language
Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...
s, address page and document layout and formatting.
The original ASCII standard used only short descriptive phrases for each control character. The ambiguity this caused was sometimes intentional, for example where a character would be used slightly differently on a terminal link than on a
data stream
In connection-oriented communication, a data stream is the transmission of a sequence of digitally encoded coherent signals to convey information. Typically, the transmitted symbols are grouped into a series of packets.
Data streaming has bec ...
, and sometimes accidental, for example with the meaning of "delete".
Probably the most influential single device affecting the interpretation of these characters was the
Teletype Model 33
The Teletype Model 33 is an electromechanical teleprinter designed for light-duty office use. It is less rugged and cost less than earlier Teletype machines. The Teletype Corporation introduced the Model 33 as a commercial product in 1963 after ...
ASR, which was a printing terminal with an available
paper tape
Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape
Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop
Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...
reader/punch option. Paper tape was a very popular medium for long-term program storage until the 1980s, less costly and in some ways less fragile than magnetic tape. In particular, the Teletype Model 33 machine assignments for codes 17 (control-Q, DC1, also known as XON), 19 (control-S, DC3, also known as XOFF), and 127 (
delete) became de facto standards. The Model 33 was also notable for taking the description of control-G (code 7, BEL, meaning audibly alert the operator) literally, as the unit contained an actual bell which it rang when it received a BEL character. Because the keytop for the O key also showed a left-arrow symbol (from ASCII-1963, which had this character instead of
underscore
An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on Manuscript (publishing), man ...
), a noncompliant use of code 15 (control-O, shift in) interpreted as "delete previous character" was also adopted by many early timesharing systems but eventually became neglected.
When a Teletype 33 ASR equipped with the automatic paper tape reader received a control-S (XOFF, an abbreviation for transmit off), it caused the tape reader to stop; receiving control-Q (XON, transmit on) caused the tape reader to resume. This so-called
flow control technique became adopted by several early computer operating systems as a "handshaking" signal warning a sender to stop transmission because of impending
buffer overflow
In information security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomaly whereby a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory locations.
Buffers are areas of memory ...
; it persists to this day in many systems as a manual output control technique. On some systems, control-S retains its meaning but control-Q is replaced by a second control-S to resume output.
The 33 ASR also could be configured to employ control-R (DC2) and control-T (DC4) to start and stop the tape punch; on some units equipped with this function, the corresponding control character lettering on the keycap above the letter was TAPE and
TAPE respectively.
Delete vs backspace
The Teletype could not move its typehead backwards, so it did not have a key on its keyboard to send a BS (backspace). Instead, there was a key marked that sent code 127 (DEL). The purpose of this key was to erase mistakes in a manually-input paper tape: the operator had to push a button on the tape punch to back it up, then type the rubout, which punched all holes and replaced the mistake with a character that was intended to be ignored. Teletypes were commonly used with the less-expensive computers from
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
(DEC); these systems had to use what keys were available, and thus the DEL code was assigned to erase the previous character.
Because of this, DEC video terminals (by default) sent the DEL code for the key marked "Backspace" while the separate key marked "Delete" sent an
escape sequence
In computer science, an escape sequence is a combination of characters that has a meaning other than the literal characters contained therein; it is marked by one or more preceding (and possibly terminating) characters.
Examples
* In C and man ...
; many other competing terminals sent a BS code for the backspace key.
The Unix terminal driver could only use one code to erase the previous character, this could be set to BS ''or'' DEL, but not both, resulting in recurring situations of ambiguity where users had to decide depending on what terminal they were using (
shells that allow line editing, such as
ksh,
bash
Bash or BASH may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992
* ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961
* '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych
* ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game
* "Bash" ('' ...
, and
zsh
The Z shell (Zsh) is a Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell (computing), shell and as a command line interpreter, command interpreter for shell scripting. Zsh is an extended Bourne shell with many improvements, including som ...
, understand both). The assumption that no key sent a BS code allowed control+H to be used for other purposes, such as the "help" prefix command in
GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project of ...
.
Escape
Many more of the control codes have been assigned meanings quite different from their original ones. The "escape" character (ESC, code 27), for example, was intended originally to allow sending of other control characters as literals instead of invoking their meaning, an "escape sequence". This is the same meaning of "escape" encountered in URL encodings,
C language
C (''pronounced like the letter c'') is a general-purpose computer programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie, and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities o ...
strings, and other systems where certain characters have a reserved meaning. Over time this interpretation has been co-opted and has eventually been changed.
In modern usage, an ESC sent ''to'' the terminal usually indicates the start of a command sequence usually in the form of a so-called "
ANSI escape code
ANSI escape sequences are a standard for in-band signaling to control cursor location, color, font styling, and other options on video text terminals and terminal emulators. Certain sequences of bytes, most starting with an ASCII escape charac ...
" (or, more properly, a "
Control Sequence Introducer
ANSI escape sequences are a standard for in-band signaling to control cursor location, color, font styling, and other options on video text terminals and terminal emulators. Certain sequences of bytes, most starting with an ASCII escape charac ...
") from ECMA-48 (1972) and its successors, beginning with ESC followed by a "
character used to terminate an operation or special mode, as in the TECO and vi">Text Editor and Corrector">TECO and vi text editor">vi.html" ;"title="Text Editor and Corrector">TECO and vi">Text Editor and Corrector">TECO and vi text editors. In graphical user interface (GUI) and window (computing), windowing systems, ESC generally causes an application to abort its current operation or to exit (system call), exit (terminate) altogether.
End of line
The inherent ambiguity of many control characters, combined with their historical usage, created problems when transferring "plain text" files between systems. The best example of this is the newline
Newline (frequently called line ending, end of line (EOL), next line (NEL) or line break) is a control character or sequence of control characters in character encoding specifications such as ASCII, EBCDIC, Unicode, etc. This character, or a ...
problem on various operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s. Teletype machines required that a line of text be terminated with both "carriage return" (which moves the printhead to the beginning of the line) and "line feed" (which advances the paper one line without moving the printhead). The name "carriage return" comes from the fact that on a manual typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
the carriage holding the paper moves while the typebars that strike the ribbon remain stationary. The entire carriage had to be pushed (returned) to the right in order to position the paper for the next line.
DEC operating systems (OS/8
OS/8 is the primary operating system used on the Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-8 minicomputer.
PDP-8 operating systems which precede OS/8 include:
* R-L Monitor, also referred to as MS/8.
* P?S/8, requiring only 4K of memory.
* PDP-8 4K ...
, RT-11
RT-11 (Real-time 11) is a discontinued small, low-end, single-user real-time operating system for the full line of Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 16-bit computers. RT-11 was first implemented in 1970. It was widely used for real-time computin ...
, RSX-11
RSX-11 is a discontinued family of multi-user real-time operating systems for PDP-11 computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation. In widespread use through the late 1970s and early 1980s, RSX-11 was influential in the development of later ...
, RSTS, TOPS-10
TOPS-10 System (''Timesharing / Total Operating System-10'') is a discontinued operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for the PDP-10 (or DECsystem-10) mainframe computer family. Launched in 1967, TOPS-10 evolved from the earlier ...
, etc.) used both characters to mark the end of a line so that the console device (originally Teletype machines) would work. By the time so-called "glass TTYs" (later called CRTs or "dumb terminals") came along, the convention was so well established that backward compatibility
Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially i ...
necessitated continuing to follow it. When Gary Kildall
Gary Arlen Kildall (; May 19, 1942 – July 11, 1994) was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur.
During the 1970s, Kildall created the CP/M operating system among other operating systems and programming tools, a ...
created CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
, he was inspired by some of the command line interface conventions used in DEC's RT-11 operating system.
Until the introduction of PC DOS in 1981, IBM had no influence in this because their 1970s operating systems used EBCDIC encoding instead of ASCII, and they were oriented toward punch-card input and line printer output on which the concept of "carriage return" was meaningless. IBM's PC DOS (also marketed as MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
by Microsoft) inherited the convention by virtue of being loosely based on CP/M, and Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
in turn inherited it from MS-DOS.
Requiring two characters to mark the end of a line introduces unnecessary complexity and ambiguity as to how to interpret each character when encountered by itself. To simplify matters, plain text
In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...
data streams, including files, on Multics
Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...
used line feed (LF) alone as a line terminator. Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
and Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
systems, and Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
systems, adopted this convention from Multics. On the other hand, the original Macintosh OS
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...
, Apple DOS
Apple DOS is the family of disk operating systems for the Apple II series of microcomputers from late 1978 through early 1983. It was superseded by ProDOS in 1983. Apple DOS has three major releases: DOS 3.1, DOS 3.2, and DOS 3.3; each one of t ...
, and ProDOS
ProDOS is the name of two similar operating systems for the Apple II series of personal computers. The original ProDOS, renamed ProDOS 8 in version 1.2, is the last official operating system usable by all 8-bit Apple II series computers, and w ...
used carriage return (CR) alone as a line terminator; however, since Apple has now replaced these obsolete operating systems with the Unix-based macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
operating system, they now use line feed (LF) as well. The Radio Shack TRS-80
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...
also used a lone CR to terminate lines.
Computers attached to the ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
included machines running operating systems such as TOPS-10 and TENEX using CR-LF line endings; machines running operating systems such as Multics using LF line endings; and machines running operating systems such as OS/360
OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, is a discontinued batch processing operating system developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964; it was influenced by the earlier IBSYS/IBJOB ...
that represented lines as a character count followed by the characters of the line and which used EBCDIC rather than ASCII encoding. The Telnet
Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...
protocol defined an ASCII "Network Virtual Terminal
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics
...
" (NVT), so that connections between hosts with different line-ending conventions and character sets could be supported by transmitting a standard text format over the network. Telnet used ASCII along with CR-LF line endings, and software using other conventions would translate between the local conventions and the NVT. The File Transfer Protocol
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...
adopted the Telnet protocol, including use of the Network Virtual Terminal, for use when transmitting commands and transferring data in the default ASCII mode. This adds complexity to implementations of those protocols, and to other network protocols, such as those used for E-mail and the World Wide Web, on systems not using the NVT's CR-LF line-ending convention.
End of file/stream
The PDP-6 monitor, and its PDP-10 successor TOPS-10, used control-Z (SUB) as an end-of-file indication for input from a terminal. Some operating systems such as CP/M tracked file length only in units of disk blocks, and used control-Z to mark the end of the actual text in the file. For these reasons, EOF, or end-of-file
In computing, end-of-file (EOF) is a condition in a computer operating system where no more data can be read from a data source. The data source is usually called a file or stream.
Details
In the C standard library, the character reading functio ...
, was used colloquially and conventionally as a three-letter acronym
A three-letter acronym (TLA), or three-letter abbreviation, is an abbreviation consisting of three letters. These are usually the initial letters of the words of the phrase abbreviated, and are written in capital letters (upper case); three-lette ...
for control-Z instead of SUBstitute. The end-of-text code ( ETX), also known as control-C
Control+C is a common computer command. It is generated by pressing the key while holding down the key on most computer keyboards.
In graphical user interface environments that use the control key to control the active program, control+C is o ...
, was inappropriate for a variety of reasons, while using Z as the control code to end a file is analogous to its position at the end of the alphabet, and serves as a very convenient mnemonic aid. A historically common and still prevalent convention uses the ETX code convention to interrupt and halt a program via an input data stream, usually from a keyboard.
In C library and Unix conventions, the null character
The null character (also null terminator) is a control character with the value zero.
It is present in many character sets, including those defined by the Baudot and ITA2 codes, ISO/IEC 646 (or ASCII), the C0 control code, the Universal Coded Ch ...
is used to terminate text strings
String or strings may refer to:
*String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
; such null-terminated string
In computer programming, a null-terminated string is a character string stored as an array containing the characters and terminated with a null character (a character with a value of zero, called NUL in this article). Alternative names are C stri ...
s can be known in abbreviation as ASCIZ or ASCIIZ, where here Z stands for "zero".
Control code chart
Other representations might be used by specialist equipment, for example ISO 2047 ISO 2047 (Information processing – Graphical representations for the control characters of the 7-bit coded character set) is a standard for graphical representation of the control characters for debugging purposes, such as may be found in the ...
graphics or hexadecimal
In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, hexa ...
numbers.
Printable characters
Codes 20hex to 7Ehex, known as the printable characters, represent letters, digits, punctuation mark
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
s, and a few miscellaneous symbols. There are 95 printable characters in total.
Code 20hex, the "space" character, denotes the space between words, as produced by the space bar of a keyboard. Since the space character is considered an invisible graphic (rather than a control character)[ (NB. Almost identical wording to USAS X3.4-1968 except for the intro.)] it is listed in the table below instead of in the previous section.
Code 7Fhex corresponds to the non-printable "delete" (DEL) control character and is therefore omitted from this chart; it is covered in the previous section's chart. Earlier versions of ASCII used the up arrow instead of the caret
Caret is the name used familiarly for the character , provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to the original proofreade ...
(5Ehex) and the left arrow instead of the underscore (5Fhex).
Character set
Usage
ASCII was first used commercially during 1963 as a seven-bit teleprinter code for American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
's TWX (TeletypeWriter eXchange) network. TWX originally used the earlier five-bit ITA2
The Baudot code is an early character encoding for telegraphy invented by Émile Baudot in the 1870s. It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2), the most common teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII. ...
, which was also used by the competing Telex
The telex network is a station-to-station switched network of teleprinters similar to a Public switched telephone network, telephone network, using telegraph-grade connecting circuits for two-way text-based messages. Telex was a major method of ...
teleprinter system. Bob Bemer
Robert William Bemer (February 8, 1920 – June 22, 2004) was a computer scientist best known for his work at IBM during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Early life and education
Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Bemer graduated from Cranbro ...
introduced features such as the escape sequence
In computer science, an escape sequence is a combination of characters that has a meaning other than the literal characters contained therein; it is marked by one or more preceding (and possibly terminating) characters.
Examples
* In C and man ...
. His British colleague Hugh McGregor Ross
Hugh McGregor Ross (31 August 1917 – 1 September 2014) was an early pioneer in the history of British computing. He was employed by Ferranti from the mid-1960s, where he worked on the Pegasus thermionic valve computer. He was involved in t ...
helped to popularize this work according to Bemer, "so much so that the code that was to become ASCII was first called the ''Bemer–Ross Code'' in Europe". Because of his extensive work on ASCII, Bemer has been called "the father of ASCII".
On March 11, 1968, US President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
mandated that all computers purchased by the United States Federal Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...
support ASCII, stating:
I have also approved recommendations of the Secretary of Commerce
The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...
[Luther H. Hodges
Luther Hartwell Hodges (March 9, 1898October 6, 1974) was a businessman and American politician. After a career in textile manufacturing, he entered public service, gaining some state appointments. Elected as lieutenant governor of North Carolin ...
] regarding standards for recording the Standard Code for Information Interchange on magnetic tapes and paper tapes when they are used in computer operations.
All computers and related equipment configurations brought into the Federal Government inventory on and after July 1, 1969, must have the capability to use the Standard Code for Information Interchange and the formats prescribed by the magnetic tape and paper tape standards when these media are used.
ASCII was the most common character encoding on the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
until December 2007, when UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...
encoding surpassed it; UTF-8 is backward compatible
Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially i ...
with ASCII.
Variants and derivations
As computer technology spread throughout the world, different standards bodies and corporations developed many variations of ASCII to facilitate the expression of non-English languages that used Roman-based alphabets. One could class some of these variations as "ASCII extension
Extended ASCII is a repertoire of character encodings that include (most of) the original 96 ASCII character set, plus up to 128 additional characters. There is no formal definition of "extended ASCII", and even use of the term is sometimes critic ...
s", although some misuse that term to represent all variants, including those that do not preserve ASCII's character-map in the 7-bit range. Furthermore, the ASCII extensions have also been mislabelled as ASCII.
7-bit codes
From early in its development, ASCII was intended to be just one of several national variants of an international character code standard.
Other international standards bodies have ratified character encodings such as ISO 646
ISO/IEC 646 is a set of ISO/IEC standards, described as ''Information technology — ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange'' and developed in cooperation with ASCII at least since 1964. Since its first edition in 1 ...
(1967) that are identical or nearly identical to ASCII, with extensions for characters outside the English alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
and symbols used outside the United States, such as the symbol for the United Kingdom's pound sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
(£); e.g. with code page 1104. Almost every country needed an adapted version of ASCII, since ASCII suited the needs of only the US and a few other countries. For example, Canada had its own version that supported French characters.
Many other countries developed variants of ASCII to include non-English letters (e.g. é, ñ, ß, Ł), currency symbols (e.g. £, ¥), etc. See also YUSCII
YUSCII is an informal name for several JUS standards for 7-bit character encoding. These include:
* JUS I.B1.002 (ISO-IR-141, ISO 646-YU), which encodes Gaj's Latin alphabet, used for Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian language
* JUS I.B1.003 (ISO-IR- ...
(Yugoslavia).
It would share most characters in common, but assign other locally useful characters to several code point
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s reserved for "national use". However, the four years that elapsed between the publication of ASCII-1963 and ISO's first acceptance of an international recommendation during 1967 caused ASCII's choices for the national use characters to seem to be de facto standards for the world, causing confusion and incompatibility once other countries did begin to make their own assignments to these code points.
ISO/IEC 646, like ASCII, is a 7-bit character set. It does not make any additional codes available, so the same code points encoded different characters in different countries. Escape codes were defined to indicate which national variant applied to a piece of text, but they were rarely used, so it was often impossible to know what variant to work with and, therefore, which character a code represented, and in general, text-processing systems could cope with only one variant anyway.
Because the bracket and brace characters of ASCII were assigned to "national use" code points that were used for accented letters in other national variants of ISO/IEC 646, a German, French, or Swedish, etc. programmer using their national variant of ISO/IEC 646, rather than ASCII, had to write, and, thus, read, something such as
:ä aÄiÜ = 'Ön'; ü
instead of
:
C trigraph
In computer programming, digraphs and trigraphs are sequences of two and three characters, respectively, that appear in source code and, according to a programming language's specification, should be treated as if they were single characters.
V ...
s were created to solve this problem for ANSI C
ANSI C, ISO C, and Standard C are successive standards for the C programming language published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the ...
, although their late introduction and inconsistent implementation in compilers limited their use. Many programmers kept their computers on US-ASCII, so plain-text in Swedish, German etc. (for example, in e-mail or Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
) contained "" and similar variants in the middle of words, something those programmers got used to. For example, a Swedish programmer mailing another programmer asking if they should go for lunch, could get "Nsar" as the answer, which should be "Nä jag har smörgåsar" meaning "No I've got sandwiches".
In Japan and Korea, still a variation of ASCII is used, in which the backslash
The backslash is a typographical mark used mainly in computing and mathematics. It is the mirror image of the common slash . It is a relatively recent mark, first documented in the 1930s.
History
, efforts to identify either the origin o ...
(5C hex) is rendered as ¥ (a Yen sign
The yen and yuan sign, ¥, is a currency sign used for the Japanese yen and the Renminbi, Chinese yuan currency, currencies when writing in Latin scripts. This monetary symbol resembles a Latin letter Y with a single or double horizontal stroke. ...
, in Japan) or ₩ (a Won sign
The won sign , is a currency symbol. It represents the South Korean won, the North Korean won and, unofficially, the old Korean won.
Appearance
Its appearance is "W" (the first letter of "Won") with a horizontal strike going through the cent ...
, in Korea). This means that, for example, the file path C:\Users\Smith is shown as C:¥Users¥Smith (in Japan) or C:₩Users₩Smith (in Korea).
8-bit codes
Eventually, as 8-, 16-, and 32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
(and later 64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...
) computers began to replace 12-, 18-, and 36-bit
36-bit computers were popular in the early mainframe computer era from the 1950s through the early 1970s.
Starting in the 1960s, but especially the 1970s, the introduction of 7-bit ASCII and 8-bit EBCDIC led to the move to machines using 8-bit ...
computers as the norm, it became common to use an 8-bit byte to store each character in memory, providing an opportunity for extended, 8-bit relatives of ASCII. In most cases these developed as true extensions of ASCII, leaving the original character-mapping intact, but adding additional character definitions after the first 128 (i.e., 7-bit) characters.
Encodings include ISCII
Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It encodes the main Indic scripts and a Roman transliteration. The supported scripts are: Bengali–Assamese, Devanagari ...
(India), VISCII
VISCII is an unofficially-defined modified ASCII character encoding for using the Vietnamese language with computers. It should not be confused with the similarly-named officially registered VSCII encoding. VISCII keeps the 95 printable charac ...
(Vietnam). Although these encodings are sometimes referred to as ASCII, true ASCII is defined strictly only by the ANSI standard.
Most early home computer systems developed their own 8-bit character sets containing line-drawing and game glyphs, and often filled in some or all of the control characters from 0 to 31 with more graphics. Kaypro
Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer based out of San Diego in the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems (NLS) to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a ...
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
computers used the "upper" 128 characters for the Greek alphabet.
The PETSCII
PETSCII (''PET Standard Code of Information Interchange''), also known as CBM ASCII, is the character set used in Commodore Business Machines (CBM)'s 8-bit home computers, starting with the PET from 1977 and including the C16, C64, C116, C1 ...
code Commodore International
Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mach ...
used for their 8-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...
systems is probably unique among post-1970 codes in being based on ASCII-1963, instead of the more common ASCII-1967, such as found on the ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as t ...
computer. Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...
8-bit computers and Galaksija computers also used ASCII variants.
The IBM PC defined code page 437
Code page 437 (CCSID 437) is the character set of the original IBM PC (personal computer). It is also known as CP437, OEM-US, OEM 437, PC-8, or DOS Latin US. The set includes all printable ASCII characters as well as some accented letters (diacri ...
, which replaced the control characters with graphic symbols such as smiley faces
"Smiley Faces" is a song by American soul music duo Gnarls Barkley from their debut album, ''St. Elsewhere (album), St. Elsewhere'' (2006). It was released July 17, 2006, as the second single (music), single from that album in the United Kingdom ...
, and mapped additional graphic characters to the upper 128 positions. Operating systems such as DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...
supported these code pages, and manufacturers of IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
s supported them in hardware. Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
developed the Multinational Character Set
The Multinational Character Set (DMCS or MCS) is a character encoding created in 1983 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for use in the popular VT220 computer terminal, terminal. It was an 8-bit extension of ASCII that added accented character ...
(DEC-MCS) for use in the popular VT220
The VT220 is a computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in November 1983. The VT240 added monochrome ReGIS vector graphics support to the base model, while the VT241 did the same in color. The 200 series replaced the s ...
terminal
Terminal may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together
* Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line
* Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...
as one of the first extensions designed more for international languages than for block graphics. The Macintosh defined Mac OS Roman
Mac OS Roman is a character encoding created by Apple Computer, Inc. for use by Macintosh computers. It is suitable for representing text in English and several other Western languages. Mac OS Roman encodes 256 characters, the first 128 of which ...
and Postscript also defined a set, both of these contained both international letters and typographic punctuation marks instead of graphics, more like modern character sets.
The ISO/IEC 8859
ISO/IEC 8859 is a joint ISO and IEC series of standards for 8-bit character encodings. The series of standards consists of numbered parts, such as ISO/IEC 8859-1, ISO/IEC 8859-2, etc. There are 15 parts, excluding the abandoned ISO/IEC 8859-12. ...
standard (derived from the DEC-MCS) finally provided a standard that most systems copied (at least as accurately as they copied ASCII, but with many substitutions). A popular further extension designed by Microsoft, Windows-1252
Windows-1252 or CP-1252 ( code page 1252) is a single-byte character encoding of the Latin alphabet, used by default in the legacy components of Microsoft Windows for English and many European languages including Spanish, French, and German.
It ...
(often mislabeled as ISO-8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1 ...
), added the typographic punctuation marks needed for traditional text printing. ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252, and the original 7-bit ASCII were the most common character encodings until 2008 when UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...
became more common.
ISO/IEC 4873
ISO/IEC 2022 ''Information technology—Character code structure and extension techniques'', is an ISO/IEC standard (equivalent to the ECMA standard ECMA-35, the ANSI standard ANSI X3.41 and the Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X 0202) in the f ...
introduced 32 additional control codes defined in the 80–9F hexadecimal
In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, hexa ...
range, as part of extending the 7-bit ASCII encoding to become an 8-bit system.
Unicode
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
and the ISO/IEC 10646 Universal Character Set
The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS, Unicode) is a standard set of characters defined by the international standard ISO/IEC 10646, ''Information technology — Universal Coded Character Set (UCS)'' (plus amendments to that standard), whi ...
(UCS) have a much wider array of characters and their various encoding forms have begun to supplant ISO/IEC 8859 and ASCII rapidly in many environments. While ASCII is limited to 128 characters, Unicode and the UCS support more characters by separating the concepts of unique identification (using natural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are those numbers used for counting (as in "there are ''six'' coins on the table") and ordering (as in "this is the ''third'' largest city in the country").
Numbers used for counting are called ''Cardinal n ...
s called ''code points'') and encoding (to 8-, 16-, or 32-bit binary formats, called UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...
, UTF-16
UTF-16 (16-bit computing, 16-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a character encoding capable of encoding all 1,112,064 valid code points of Unicode (in fact this number of code points is dictated by the design of UTF-16). The encoding is variab ...
, and UTF-32
UTF-32 (32-bit Unicode transformation format, Unicode Transformation Format) is a fixed-length Character encoding, encoding used to encode Unicode code points that uses exactly 32 bits (four bytes) per code point (but a number of leading bits must ...
, respectively).
ASCII was incorporated into the Unicode (1991) character set as the first 128 symbols, so the 7-bit ASCII characters have the same numeric codes in both sets. This allows UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...
to be backward compatible
Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially i ...
with 7-bit ASCII, as a UTF-8 file containing only ASCII characters is identical to an ASCII file containing the same sequence of characters. Even more importantly, forward compatibility
Forward compatibility or upward compatibility is a design characteristic that allows a system to accept input intended for a later version of itself. The concept can be applied to entire systems, electrical interfaces, telecommunication signals, d ...
is ensured as software that recognizes only 7-bit ASCII characters as special and does not alter bytes with the highest bit set (as is often done to support 8-bit ASCII extensions such as ISO-8859-1) will preserve UTF-8 data unchanged.
See also
* 3568 ASCII, an asteroid named after the character encoding
* Alt codes
On personal computers with numeric keypads that use Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows, many characters that do not have a dedicated key combination on the keyboard may nevertheless be entered using the Alt code (the Alt numpad input me ...
* Ascii85
Ascii85, also called Base85, is a form of binary-to-text encoding developed by Paul E. Rutter for the btoa utility. By using five ASCII characters to represent four bytes of binary data (making the encoded size larger than the original, assuming e ...
* ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant chara ...
* ASCII Ribbon Campaign
* Basic Latin (Unicode block)
The Basic Latin or C0 Controls and Basic Latin Unicode block is the first block of the Unicode standard, and the only block which is encoded in one byte in UTF-8. The block contains all the ISO basic Latin alphabet, letters and ASCII control cha ...
(ASCII as a subset of Unicode)
* Extended ASCII
Extended ASCII is a repertoire of character encodings that include (most of) the original 96 ASCII character set, plus up to 128 additional characters. There is no formal definition of "extended ASCII", and even use of the term is sometimes critic ...
* HTML decimal character rendering
While Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) has been in use since 1991, HTML 4.0 from December 1997 was the first standardized version where international characters were given reasonably complete treatment. When an HTML document includes special ch ...
* Jargon File
The Jargon File is a glossary and usage dictionary of slang used by computer programmers. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and others of the old ARPANET A ...
, a glossary of computer programmer slang which includes a list of common slang names for ASCII characters
* List of computer character sets
* List of Unicode characters
As of Unicode version 15.0, there are 149,186 characters with code points, covering 161 modern and historical scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets. This article includes the 1062 characters in the Multilingual European Character Set 2 (ME ...
Notes
References
Further reading
*
* from:
**
**
* (facsimile, not machine readable)
*
*
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
ASCII,
Computer-related introductions in 1963
Character sets
Character encoding
Latin-script representations
Presentation layer protocols
American National Standards Institute standards