In today’s digital world, the transmission of data is done through electronic devices all over the globe. ASCII set, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard used to represent text in computers and other devices. This coding system is widely used in telecommunication systems, modern computer systems, and the internet. With its increasing usage, many people find it essential to learn about this system.
ASCII Table
The ASCII table or ASCII chart provides a comprehensive list of ASCII characters and their corresponding decimal, binary, and hexadecimal values. The table shows ASCII characters ranging from 0 to 127. Of these characters, 33 codes represent non-printable control characters such as escape, backspace, and carriage return codes, while the remaining 94 codes define printable characters. The printable characters include digits, alphabetic characters, punctuation marks, and special characters used in computer systems.
Binary Values in ASCII Set
ASCII sets use binary values to represent characters in computers. For example, the ASCII character ‘A’ is represented in binary as 01000001. The first digit ‘0’ represents the number’s sign, while the other seven digits represent the character’s value. Therefore, in binary values, each ASCII character is represented as a unique sequence of 7 bits, with each bit having a value of 0 or 1. The binary values enable computer systems to read, store and operate the ASCII characters competently.
ASCII and Unicode
Unicode is the most comprehensive character encoding standard used worldwide. Most of the modern programming languages, including Java, C++, and Python, support Unicode. It is designed to work with various writing systems globally and ranges from 0 to 1,114,111 characters. ASCII, on the other hand, ranges from 0 to 127 characters, making it limited in comparison to Unicode.
However, ASCII is ASCII encoding is still used today in computer systems, especially in older operating systems and embedded systems, that do not support Unicode. It is also useful in networks and communication protocols, where character encoding is paramount. ASCII codes serve as a fundamental building block for the encoding standards of other languages, and the basic concepts used in ASCII are used in engineering character encoding in other standards.
ASCII and Binary data transmission
The ASCII encoding standard is crucial in the transmission of binary data in computers. Binary data refers to files that are stored in a format understandable to computers. A simple example of binary data is an image file or an MP3 file, both of which cannot be read or understood by humans. Before transmission, the binary file must be converted into ASCII code since ASCII codes can be transmitted safely in human readable form over the internet or network systems.
Conclusion
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is an essential character encoding standard used worldwide. The set is designed to represent text in computers and other devices. With the widespread use of computers in today’s digital world, ASCII is an essential coding system worth knowing, especially for developers, engineers, and IT professionals. Understanding ASCII and how it works helps in the creation and operation of computer systems, networks, and the internet at large.
