What is an ASCII chart?
An ASCII Chart is a simple way to keep a list of
what all the printable, or displayable characters
are. All computers store information as a set of
1's and 0's (bits), not as actual characters. A
group of eight (8) bits make a byte. Believe it
or not, four bits actually make a nibble and two
nibbles make a byte. Pay attention, there is going
to be a test on this. ;-)
To keep things simple, if you count from 0 up to
254, here are some milestones:
- 32 is a space
- 48 to 57 are our numbers 0-9
- 65 to 90 are the capital letters A-Z
- 97 to 122 are the lowercase letters a-z
There is method to this madness. Ever wonder why things
sort the way they do on your computer? It is really a
numerical sort, but not using numbers the way we use them!
That is why on many systems, this would
be considered sorted:
100 5 9 X Y Z a b c
Of course, most sort routines allow you to overide what is
considered the true ASCII sort sequence.
What do I need an ASCII chart for anyway?
Displaying certain special characters such as:
< & > or ©
So instead we use special codes to do what is above.
< & > or ©
Having a chart like this can be a great timesaver when you
need to know what number makes what character.
How do I use this chart?
If you want to display the © (copyright) symbol, you would
look for it on the chart under SHOWS, and then use the
code under HTML. In this example that would be
©
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