Tables¶

For convenience, let us give more compact tables in hex and decimal.

   2 3 4 5 6 7       30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120


 -------------      ---------------------------------
0:   0 @ P ` p     0:    (  2  <  F  P  Z  d   n   x
1: ! 1 A Q a q     1:    )  3  =  G  Q  [  e   o   y
2: " 2 B R b r     2:    *  4  >  H  R  \  f   p   z
3: # 3 C S c s     3: !  +  5  ?  I  S  ]  g   q   {
4: $ 4 D T d t     4: "  ,  6  @  J  T  ^  h   r   |
5: % 5 E U e u     5: #  -  7  A  K  U  _  i   s   }
6: & 6 F V f v     6: $  .  8  B  L  V  `  j   t   ~
7: ´ 7 G W g w     7: %  /  9  C  M  W  a  k   u  DEL
8: ( 8 H X h x     8: &  0  :  D  N  X  b  l   v
9: ) 9 I Y i y     9: ´  1  ;  E  O  Y  c  m   w
A: * : J Z j z
B: + ; K [ k {
C: , < L \ l |
D: - = M ] m }
E: . > N ^ n ~
F: / ? O _ o DEL

History¶

An ascii manual page appeared in Version 7 of AT&T UNIX.

On older terminals, the underscore code is displayed as a left arrow, called backarrow, the caret is displayed as an up-arrow and the vertical bar has a hole in the middle.

Uppercase and lowercase characters differ by just one bit and the ASCII character 2 differs from the double quote by just one bit, too. That made it much easier to encode characters mechanically or with a non-microcontroller-based electronic keyboard and that pairing was found on old teletypes.

The ASCII standard was published by the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI) in 1968.