Understanding The ASCII Table

Computers generally function by understating numbers and creating a standard to convert the numbers into characters. The ASCII standard assigns a distinct set digit to each character, whether an alphabet or a symbol. Utilizing ASCII for each character has simplified communication between computers and people.

The ASCII abbreviation stands for “American Standard Code for Information Exchange.” As the name implies, it is the code used to exchange information from machine to human or machine to machine.

What is ASCII?

Understanding The ASCII Table — *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#/media/File:USASCII_code_chart.png*

To begin with, you need to be familiar with character encoding to understand ASCII. The process of assigning numbers or digits to characters is referred to as character encoding. These characters may be varied, including graphical characters and characters used in human languages. Computers use it to store data, transfer data, or manipulate data.

Encoding characters allows computers to read, understand, and work with the characters more effectively. Let’s make up some numbers and put them next to the appropriate letters for illustration’s sake. Let’s take the capital letters of all 26 alphabets and give each one a number from 1 to 26. We will have successfully encoded the characters and alphabet by giving them a numerical value. There are 26 different alphabets.

The numbers 12, 9, 14, 21, and 24 are assigned to the letters L, I, N, U and X, respectively. Computers will have an easier time deciphering and printing the characters now that this change has been made. On the other hand, in 1963, the American Standard Association published the initial version of ASCII to include all of the characters used in the English language.

Why Is ASCII Important?

One of the essential things about ASCII is that it lets computers talk to each other and people in a standard way. By using the same characters and numbers, computers can read and understand text messages and other types of data, no matter what operating system, software, or hardware is being used. This makes it easier for different systems to share information and for digital devices to be used to talk to each other.

ASCII is also important when it comes to storing and sending data. Because it only uses a small number of letters and numbers, it is swift and easy to change to other character encodings when needed. This makes it possible to store and send large amounts of data quickly and accurately, which is essential for many applications in fields like finance, healthcare, and scientific research.

Overall, ASCII has been a vital part of the growth and development of digital technology. It will likely remain an essential tool for communication, data storage, and sharing information for many years.

ASCII Table – Character Code Chart with Decimal, Hex, Binary, HTML & Description

Dec	Hex	Binary	HTML	Char	Description
0	00	00000000		NUL	Null
1	01	00000001		SOH	Start of Header
2	02	00000010		STX	Start of Text
3	03	00000011		ETX	End of Text
4	04	00000100		EOT	End of Transmission
5	05	00000101		ENQ	Enquiry
6	06	00000110		ACK	Acknowledge
7	07	00000111		BEL	Bell
8	08	00001000		BS	Backspace
9	09	00001001		HT	Horizontal Tab
10	0A	00001010		LF	Line Feed
11	0B	00001011		VT	Vertical Tab
12	0C	00001100		FF	Form Feed
13	0D	00001101		CR	Carriage Return
14	0E	00001110		SO	Shift Out
15	0F	00001111		SI	Shift In
16	10	00010000		DLE	Data Link Escape
17	11	00010001		DC1	Device Control 1
18	12	00010010		DC2	Device Control 2
19	13	00010011		DC3	Device Control 3
20	14	00010100		DC4	Device Control 4
21	15	00010101		NAK	Negative Acknowledge
22	16	00010110		SYN	Synchronize
23	17	00010111		ETB	End of Transmission Block
24	18	00011000		CAN	Cancel
25	19	00011001		EM	End of Medium
26	1A	00011010		SUB	Substitute
27	1B	00011011		ESC	Escape
28	1C	00011100		FS	File Separator
29	1D	00011101		GS	Group Separator
30	1E	00011110		RS	Record Separator
31	1F	00011111		US	Unit Separator
32	20	00100000		space	Space
33	21	00100001	!	!	Exclamation mark
34	22	00100010	"	“	Double quote
35	23	00100011	#	#	Number
36	24	00100100	$	$	Dollar sign
37	25	00100101	%	%	Percent
38	26	00100110	&	&	Ampersand
39	27	00100111	'	‘	Single quote
40	28	00101000	(	(	Left parenthesis
41	29	00101001	)	)	Right parenthesis
42	2A	00101010	*	*	Asterisk
43	2B	00101011	+	+	Plus
44	2C	00101100	,	,	Comma
45	2D	00101101	-	–	Minus
46	2E	00101110	.	.	Period
47	2F	00101111	/	/	Slash
48	30	00110000	0	0	Zero
49	31	00110001	1	1	One
50	32	00110010	2	2	Two
51	33	00110011	3	3	Three
52	34	00110100	4	4	Four
53	35	00110101	5	5	Five
54	36	00110110	6	6	Six
55	37	00110111	7	7	Seven
56	38	00111000	8	8	Eight
57	39	00111001	9	9	Nine
58	3A	00111010	:	:	Colon
59	3B	00111011	;	;	Semicolon
60	3C	00111100	<	<	Less than
61	3D	00111101	=	=	Equality sign
62	3E	00111110	>	>	Greater than
63	3F	00111111	?	?	Question mark
64	40	01000000	@	@	At sign
65	41	01000001	A	A	Capital A
66	42	01000010	B	B	Capital B
67	43	01000011	C	C	Capital C
68	44	01000100	D	D	Capital D
69	45	01000101	E	E	Capital E
70	46	01000110	F	F	Capital F
71	47	01000111	G	G	Capital G
72	48	01001000	H	H	Capital H
73	49	01001001	I	I	Capital I
74	4A	01001010	J	J	Capital J
75	4B	01001011	K	K	Capital K
76	4C	01001100	L	L	Capital L
77	4D	01001101	M	M	Capital M
78	4E	01001110	N	N	Capital N
79	4F	01001111	O	O	Capital O
80	50	01010000	P	P	Capital P
81	51	01010001	Q	Q	Capital Q
82	52	01010010	R	R	Capital R
83	53	01010011	S	S	Capital S
84	54	01010100	T	T	Capital T
85	55	01010101	U	U	Capital U
86	56	01010110	V	V	Capital V
87	57	01010111	W	W	Capital W
88	58	01011000	X	X	Capital X
89	59	01011001	Y	Y	Capital Y
90	5A	01011010	Z	Z	Capital Z
91	5B	01011011	[	[	Left square bracket
92	5C	01011100	\	\	Backslash
93	5D	01011101	]	]	Right square bracket
94	5E	01011110	^	^	Caret / circumflex
95	5F	01011111	_	_	Underscore
96	60	01100000	`	`	Grave / accent
97	61	01100001	a	a	Small a
98	62	01100010	b	b	Small b
99	63	01100011	c	c	Small c
100	64	01100100	d	d	Small d
101	65	01100101	e	e	Small e
102	66	01100110	f	f	Small f
103	67	01100111	g	g	Small g
104	68	01101000	h	h	Small h
105	69	01101001	i	i	Small i
106	6A	01101010	j	j	Small j
107	6B	01101011	k	k	Small k
108	6C	01101100	l	l	Small l
109	6D	01101101	m	m	Small m
110	6E	01101110	n	n	Small n
111	6F	01101111	o	o	Small o
112	70	01110000	p	p	Small p
113	71	01110001	q	q	Small q
114	72	01110010	r	r	Small r
115	73	01110011	s	s	Small s
116	74	01110100	t	t	Small t
117	75	01110101	u	u	Small u
118	76	01110110	v	v	Small v
119	77	01110111	w	w	Small w
120	78	01111000	x	x	Small x
121	79	01111001	y	y	Small y
122	7A	01111010	z	z	Small z
123	7B	01111011	{	{	Left curly bracket
124	7C	01111100	\|	\|	Vertical bar
125	7D	01111101	}	}	Right curly bracket
126	7E	01111110	~	~	Tilde
127	7F	01111111		DEL	Delete

ASCII Advantages and Disadvantages

After more than 50 years of use, everyone knows the pros and cons of using ASCII character encoding. That is one of the best things about the way the encoding works.

Advantages

Everyone agrees on it. Everyone knows how to use ASCII character encoding. Except for IBM mainframes, which use EBCDIC encoding, it is used everywhere in computing through the Unicode standard. Unicode character encoding has replaced ASCII character encoding, but it also works with ASCII.

Encoding characters in a small space. Seven bits can be used to make standard codes. This means that to store or send data that can be written in the standard ASCII character set, you only need as many bytes as there are characters in the data.

Effective for writing code. Character codes for letters and numbers work well with programming techniques for changing text and using numbers for calculations or storing as raw data.

Disadvantages

Fewer characters to use. Even with extended ASCII, you can only show 255 different characters. A standard character set has enough characters for communicating in English. Despite the fact that expanded ASCII allows diacritical markings and Greek letters, working with languages that do not utilize the Latin alphabet is difficult.

Not a good way to encode characters. Standard ASCII encoding works well for both English text and numbers. You need extra things like escape codes to show characters from other alphabets.

Conclusion

Data can only be saved on computers in the form of numbers since computers only comprehend the language of numbers. So, for computers to comprehend the characters, each character must correspond to a specific numeric value. The alphabets make up the characters, and the many symbols available for usage in programming are a part of them.

This article will discuss the standard ASCII table to understand better how it can be understood and how it can be helpful for communication between various devices and computers. This article aims to give a better concept of how it can be understood and how it can be helpful.