Table of Contents
Advertisement
o x 27
1 x 26
0
x 25
0
x 24
1 x
23
0
x 22
1 x 2'
o
x 2°
zone
0100
4
=
o
= 64
= o
n o
= 8
=0
= 2
= Q
74
Decimal
digits
1010 Binary
A
Hexadecimal
The ASCII table in the TechnicalSupplementshows all these equivalent
representationsfor the symbolsyour laser printer understands.The table
organizesthemin ascendingorder.In fact,ASCIIis organizedin a way that
ac@allymakessense.
Flip back therefor a quicklook rightnow.See how you can slicethe table
into clumps of 16 or 32, based on what's in the zone portion under the
hexadecimalcolumn?These clumpsmake subgroupsof similarsymbols:
hex 00 to IF are the commandsymbolscalledcontrolcodes,
hex 20 to 40 arc the commonkeyboardsymbolsand numerals,
hex 41 to 60 are capitallettersand the less commonkeyboardsymbols,
hex'61to 7F are lowercaselettersand a few final symbols.
That takes care of the first 128 ASCII symbols. However,nearly every
co'mputerand printer manufacturertreats the second half of the table
differently. Hewlett-Packard,for example, puts a variety of accented
foreignlanguagecharactersintopositions128-255(oftenreferredto as high
ASCII). Epson gives you a choice of either italics characters or IBM
charactergraphics.
Control codes
TheASCIItableshowssymbolslikeJor2 thewaytheyactuallyprinton the
laser printer.But ASCIIincludesmore thanjust printablecharacters:none
of the controlcode commandsat the beginningof the table actuallyprint.
Instead, when your computersends a control code to the laser printer it
makes yourprinterdo other things,such as soundits bccpcr.
7
Advertisement
Table of Contents
