- ASCII Code Definition: ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a 7-bit code used to represent text and control characters in digital electronics.
- History and Development: ASCII was first standardized in 1967 and updated in 1986 as ANSI X3.4.
- Structure and Representation: ASCII uses 7 bits to represent 128 characters, including letters, digits, and special symbols.
- ASCII Table Overview: The ASCII table shows characters with their corresponding binary, decimal, octal, and hexadecimal values.
- 8-bit ASCII: The extended 8-bit version, US ASCII-8, can represent 256 characters, enhancing its usage in digital electronics.
Alphanumeric codes include ASCII: a 7-bit code that represents letters, digits, punctuation and control characters in computers and comms equipment.
The three coded sets usually taught together are ASCII, EBCDIC and Unicode. ASCII Code is the 7-bit US set. EBCDIC remains on some IBM mainframes. Unicode (often UTF-8) is what most new text uses.
What is ASCII code
ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange and is pronounced ask-ee. ASA first published it as X3.4-1963. The 1967 revision added lowercase letters. The last major 7-bit revision is ANSI X3.4-1986, still the reference for US-ASCII.
ASCII is a 7-bit code, so it can represent 27 = 128 characters. Ninety-five of those are printable: 26 upper-case letters (A – Z), 26 lower-case letters (a – z), 10 digits (0 – 9) and 33 other graphic codes (punctuation, symbols and space).
There is no single official 8-bit ASCII code named US ASCII-8. ASCII itself stays 7-bit. Later 8-bit pages such as ISO/IEC 8859 and Windows-1252 keep the same 0-127 codes and add another 128. Those sets can represent 28 = 256 characters. Unicode then went further. The table below is the 7-bit ASCII code.
ASCII Code Table
| DEC | OCT | HEX | BIN | Symbol | Description |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | NUL | Null char |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | SOH | Start of Heading |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 | STX | Start of Text |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 11 | ETX | End of Text |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | 100 | EOT | End of Transmission |
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 101 | ENQ | Enquiry |
| 6 | 6 | 6 | 110 | ACK | Acknowledgment |
| 7 | 7 | 7 | 111 | BEL | Bell |
| 8 | 10 | 8 | 1000 | BS | Back Space |
| 9 | 11 | 9 | 1001 | HT | Horizontal Tab |
| 10 | 12 | 0A | 1010 | LF | Line Feed |
| 11 | 13 | 0B | 1011 | VT | Vertical Tab |
| 12 | 14 | 0C | 1100 | FF | Form Feed |
| 13 | 15 | 0D | 1101 | CR | Carriage Return |
| 14 | 16 | 0E | 1110 | SO | Shift Out / X-On |
| 15 | 17 | 0F | 1111 | SI | Shift In / X-Off |
| 16 | 20 | 10 | 10000 | DLE | Data Line Escape |
| 17 | 21 | 11 | 10001 | DC1 | Device Control 1 (oft. XON) |
| 18 | 22 | 12 | 10010 | DC2 | Device Control 2 |
| 19 | 23 | 13 | 10011 | DC3 | Device Control 3 (oft. XOFF) |
| 20 | 24 | 14 | 10100 | DC4 | Device Control 4 |
| 21 | 25 | 15 | 10101 | NAK | Negative Acknowledgement |
| 22 | 26 | 16 | 10110 | SYN | Synchronous Idle |
| 23 | 27 | 17 | 10111 | ETB | End of Transmit Block |
| 24 | 30 | 18 | 11000 | CAN | Cancel |
| 25 | 31 | 19 | 11001 | EM | End of Medium |
| 26 | 32 | 1A | 11010 | SUB | Substitute |
| 27 | 33 | 1B | 11011 | ESC | Escape |
| 28 | 34 | 1C | 11100 | FS | File Separator |
| 29 | 35 | 1D | 11101 | GS | Group Separator |
| 30 | 36 | 1E | 11110 | RS | Record Separator |
| 31 | 37 | 1F | 11111 | US | Unit Separator |
| 32 | 40 | 20 | 100000 | Space | |
| 33 | 41 | 21 | 100001 | ! | Exclamation mark |
| 34 | 42 | 22 | 100010 | “ | Double quotes (or speech marks) |
| 35 | 43 | 23 | 100011 | # | Number |
| 36 | 44 | 24 | 100100 | $ | Dollar |
| 37 | 45 | 25 | 100101 | % | Procenttecken |
| 38 | 46 | 26 | 100110 | & | Ampersand |
| 39 | 47 | 27 | 100111 | ‘ | Single quote |
| 40 | 50 | 28 | 101000 | ( | Open parenthesis (or open bracket) |
| 41 | 51 | 29 | 101001 | ) | Close parenthesis (or close bracket) |
| 42 | 52 | 2A | 101010 | * | Asterisk |
| 43 | 53 | 2B | 101011 | + | Plus |
| 44 | 54 | 2C | 101100 | , | Comma |
| 45 | 55 | 2D | 101101 | – | Hyphen |
| 46 | 56 | 2E | 101110 | . | Period, dot or full stop |
| 47 | 57 | 2F | 101111 | / | Slash or divide |
| 48 | 60 | 30 | 110000 | 0 | Zero |
| 49 | 61 | 31 | 110001 | 1 | One |
| 50 | 62 | 32 | 110010 | 2 | Two |
| 51 | 63 | 33 | 110011 | 3 | Three |
| 52 | 64 | 34 | 110100 | 4 | Four |
| 53 | 65 | 35 | 110101 | 5 | Five |
| 54 | 66 | 36 | 110110 | 6 | Six |
| 55 | 67 | 37 | 110111 | 7 | Seven |
| 56 | 70 | 38 | 111000 | 8 | Eight |
| 57 | 71 | 39 | 111001 | 9 | Nine |
| 58 | 72 | 3A | 111010 | : | Colon |
| 59 | 73 | 3B | 111011 | ; | Semicolon |
| 60 | 74 | 3C | 111100 | < | Less than (or open angled bracket) |
| 61 | 75 | 3D | 111101 | = | Equals |
| 62 | 76 | 3E | 111110 | > | Greater than (or close angled bracket) |
| 63 | 77 | 3F | 111111 | ? | Question mark |
| 64 | 100 | 40 | 1000000 | @ | At symbol |
| 65 | 101 | 41 | 1000001 | A | Uppercase A |
| 66 | 102 | 42 | 1000010 | B | Uppercase B |
| 67 | 103 | 43 | 1000011 | C | Uppercase C |
| 68 | 104 | 44 | 1000100 | D | Uppercase D |
| 69 | 105 | 45 | 1000101 | E | Uppercase E |
| 70 | 106 | 46 | 1000110 | F | Uppercase F |
| 71 | 107 | 47 | 1000111 | G | Uppercase G |
| 72 | 110 | 48 | 1001000 | H | Uppercase H |
| 73 | 111 | 49 | 1001001 | I | Uppercase I |
| 74 | 112 | 4A | 1001010 | J | Uppercase J |
| 75 | 113 | 4B | 1001011 | K | Uppercase K |
| 76 | 114 | 4C | 1001100 | L | Uppercase L |
| 77 | 115 | 4D | 1001101 | M | Uppercase M |
| 78 | 116 | 4E | 1001110 | N | Uppercase N |
| 79 | 117 | 4F | 1001111 | O | Uppercase O |
| 80 | 120 | 50 | 1010000 | P | Uppercase P |
| 81 | 121 | 51 | 1010001 | Q | Uppercase Q |
| 82 | 122 | 52 | 1010010 | R | Uppercase R |
| 83 | 123 | 53 | 1010011 | S | Uppercase S |
| 84 | 124 | 54 | 1010100 | T | Uppercase T |
| 85 | 125 | 55 | 1010101 | U | Uppercase U |
| 86 | 126 | 56 | 1010110 | V | Uppercase V |
| 87 | 127 | 57 | 1010111 | W | Uppercase W |
| 88 | 130 | 58 | 1011000 | X | Uppercase X |
| 89 | 131 | 59 | 1011001 | Y | Uppercase Y |
| 90 | 132 | 5A | 1011010 | Z | Uppercase Z |
| 91 | 133 | 5B | 1011011 | [ | Opening bracket |
| 92 | 134 | 5C | 1011100 | \ | Backslash |
| 93 | 135 | 5D | 1011101 | ] | Closing bracket |
| 94 | 136 | 5E | 1011110 | ^ | Caret – circumflex |
| 95 | 137 | 5F | 1011111 | _ | Underscore |
| 96 | 140 | 60 | 1100000 | ` | Grave accent |
| 97 | 141 | 61 | 1100001 | a | Lowercase a |
| 98 | 142 | 62 | 1100010 | b | Lowercase b |
| 99 | 143 | 63 | 1100011 | c | Lowercase c |
| 100 | 144 | 64 | 1100100 | d | Lowercase d |
| 101 | 145 | 65 | 1100101 | e | Lowercase e |
| 102 | 146 | 66 | 1100110 | f | Lowercase f |
| 103 | 147 | 67 | 1100111 | g | Lowercase g |
| 104 | 150 | 68 | 1101000 | h | Lowercase h |
| 105 | 151 | 69 | 1101001 | i | Lowercase i |
| 106 | 152 | 6A | 1101010 | j | Lowercase j |
| 107 | 153 | 6B | 1101011 | k | Lowercase k |
| 108 | 154 | 6C | 1101100 | l | Lowercase l |
| 109 | 155 | 6D | 1101101 | m | Lowercase m |
| 110 | 156 | 6E | 1101110 | n | Lowercase n |
| 111 | 157 | 6F | 1101111 | o | Lowercase o |
| 112 | 160 | 70 | 1110000 | p | Lowercase p |
| 113 | 161 | 71 | 1110001 | q | Lowercase q |
| 114 | 162 | 72 | 1110010 | r | Lowercase r |
| 115 | 163 | 73 | 1110011 | s | Lowercase s |
| 116 | 164 | 74 | 1110100 | t | Lowercase t |
| 117 | 165 | 75 | 1110101 | u | Lowercase u |
| 118 | 166 | 76 | 1110110 | v | Lowercase v |
| 119 | 167 | 77 | 1110111 | w | Lowercase w |
| 120 | 170 | 78 | 1111000 | x | Lowercase x |
| 121 | 171 | 79 | 1111001 | y | Lowercase y |
| 122 | 172 | 7A | 1111010 | z | Lowercase z |
| 123 | 173 | 7B | 1111011 | { | Opening brace |
| 124 | 174 | 7C | 1111100 | | | Vertical bar |
| 125 | 175 | 7D | 1111101 | } | Closing brace |
| 126 | 176 | 7E | 1111110 | ~ | Equivalency sign – tilde |
| 127 | 177 | 7F | 1111111 | Delete |
From the table, digits 0 – 9 share the prefix 0011. Upper-case ‘P’ to ‘Z’ run from 0101 0000 to 0101 1010. Lower-case ‘p’ to ‘z’ run from 0111 0000 to 0111 1010.





