o x 27
1x 26
0x25
0x24
1x 23
0x22
1x 2’
ox2°
zone
0100
4
=o
=64
=o
no
=8
=0
=2
=Q
74 Decimal
digits
1010 Binary
AHexadecimal
TheASCII tablein the TechnicalSupplementshowsallthese equivalent
representationsforthe symbolsyour laserprinter understands.Thetable
organizestheminascendingorder.Infact,ASCIIis organizedinawaythat
ac@allymakessense.
Flipback thereforaquicklook rightnow.See howyoucan slicethetable
into clumpsof 16 or 32,based on what’sin the zone portionunder the
hexadecimalcolumn?Theseclumpsmakesubgroupsof similarsymbols:
●hex00 to IF are thecommandsymbolscalledcontrolcodes,
●hex20 to40 arc thecommonkeyboardsymbolsand numerals,
●hex41 to 60 are capitallettersandthe lesscommonkeyboardsymbols,
●hex’61to7F are lowercaselettersandafew finalsymbols.
That takescare of the first 128 ASCIIsymbols. However,nearly every
co’mputerandprinter manufacturer treatsthe second half of the table
differently. Hewlett-Packard,for example,puts avariety of accented
foreignlanguagecharactersintopositions128-255(oftenreferredtoashigh
ASCII). Epson gives you achoice of either italics charactersor IBM
charactergraphics.
Control codes
TheASCIItableshowssymbolslikeJor2 thewaytheyactuallyprinton the
laserprinter.But ASCIIincludesmorethanjustprintablecharacters:none
ofthe controlcodecommandsat the beginningofthetable actuallyprint.
Instead,when your computersends acontrolcode to the laser printer it
makesyourprinter dootherthings,such assound itsbccpcr.
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