Can the patterns that are used to represent characters represent other things in other contexts?
Yes.
Hex Char | Hex Char | Hex Char | Hex Char |
---|---|---|---|
00 nul | 20 sp | 40 @ | 60 ` |
01 soh | 21 ! | 41 A | 61 a |
02 stx | 22 " | 42 B | 62 b |
. . . | . . . | . . . | . . . |
0A lf | 2A * | 4A J | 6A j |
. . . | . . . | . . . | . . . |
1E rs | 3E > | 5E ^ | 7E ~ |
1F us | 3F ? | 5F _ | 7F del |
The
chart shows some patterns used in ASCII to represent characters.
(See the appendix for a complete chart.)
The first printable character is SP (space) and corresponds to the bit pattern
Space is a character, just like any other. Although not visible in the shortened chart, the upper case alphabetical characters appear in order A,B,C, ..., X, Y, Z with no gaps. There is a gap between upper case and lower case letters. The lowercase characters also appear in order a,b,c,...x, y, z.
The last pattern is 0x7F which is 0111 1111. This is the DEL (delete) character. For a complete list of ASCII representations, see the appendix.
How many of the total number of 8-bit patterns correspond to a character, (including control characters)? (Hint: look at the pattern for DEL).