INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF GRAND-BASSAM
STEM
CSC-2300 – B
Tutorial on ASCII and Unicode Computer Code
ASCII
Fundamentally, computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and other characters by
assigning a number to each one. Computers work in binary code. Information is coded using 0s
and 1s. Each 0 or 1 is called a bit. In the early years of computer development, different computer
companies applied the binary system in their own way. To avoid the confusion, a set of standards
was developed. Computer manufacturers agreed to use one code called the ASCII (American
Standard Code for Information Interchange). ASCII is an 8-bit code. That is, it uses eight bits to
represent a letter or a punctuation mark. Eight bits are called a byte. A binary code with eight
digits, such as 1101 10112, can be stored in one byte of computer memory.
Each letter, number, and symbol is represented by an 8-bit ASCII code. A portion of the ASCII
code is displayed in the table below.
Activities
1. Use the ASCII code to write your first name or nickname in binary numbers beginning
with an uppercase letter and continuing with lowercase letters. Put the letters of your
name in the first column.
2. On a separate sheet of paper, write a short message in ASCII. Exchange messages with a
partner and decode each other's message.
3. The ASCII code for a blank space is the decimal number 32, or the binary number 0010 00002.
Why do you think it is important to have a code for a blank space?
Unicode
Unicode is an international encoding standard for use with different languages and scripts, by which
each letter, digit, or symbol is assigned a unique numeric value that applies across different
platforms and programs. Unicode is maintained by the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit
organization that exists to advance the Unicode standard.
The Unicode Standard provides a unique number for every character, no matter what platform,
device, application or language. It has been adopted by all platforms, devices and applications. All
major operating systems, search engines, browsers, laptops, and smart phones and World Wide
Web support Unicode. Given a part of the Unicode table below, answer the previous questions.