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S Sarumathi
S Sarumathi

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ASCII

ASCII stands for
American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASCII is a number assigned to every character.

Computers don't understand letters like A, B, a, b.
Computers only understand numbers.

How does ASCII work?
Each character is assigned a unique number.
Some examples:

  • A → 65

  • B → 66

  • a → 97

  • 1 → 49

  • Space → 32

Example:
The word “HELLO” becomes:
72 69 76 76 79 (ASCII Values)

Why is ASCII used?

1. Computer Communication:
ASCII ensures different computers understand the same data.

2. Data Storage:
When you save text, characters are stored as numbers.

3. Programming:
Languages like Java, Python, C, and JavaScript use ASCII internally.

Types of ASCII:

1. Standard ASCII:
Range: 0 to 127
Includes basic English characters
2. Extended ASCII:
Range: 128 to 255
Includes additional symbols

ASCII vs Unicode:

  • ASCII is old and supports only 128 characters.

  • But modern languages need more characters like:

  • தமிழ்

  • हिंदी

  • Chinese

  • Emojis

So Unicode was introduced.

Still, ASCII is the foundation for understanding character encoding.

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