Digital Electronics - ASCII Codes

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. The ASCII
code is a popular coding scheme used in digital computing systems to encode characters.

In the ASCII code, a unique integer value is assigned to each character like number, letter,
symbol, etc. The standard ASCII code defines a set of 128 characters, where each
character can be represented by a unique 7-bit binary code. Therefore, ASCII code can
represent total 27 = 128 possible characters.

In digital electronics, the characters in ASCII code are generally represented in decimal or
hexadecimal notation. Overall, the ASCII code is a standard encoding scheme for
representing characters in digital computers and communication systems.

Properties of ASCII Code

The following are some key characteristics of ASCII code −

ASCII code assigns a unique numeric value to each character.

ASCII code provides a way of representing letters, numbers, symbols, and control
characters.

ASCII code is compatible with a wide range of programming languages and digital
devices.

ASCII code supports various control characters for basic text formatting and device
control.

ASCII code has decimal and hexadecimal representation. Hence, it is human-

readable.

ASCII code assigns numeric values to characters in a sequential order, making it an

efficient encoding standard in terms of sorting and searching.

ASCII code is highly space efficient and simple.

Types of ASCII Code

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) code is basically a 7-bit
character encoding standard used in digital electronics. But it is evolved with the
advancement in computing technologies.

The following are two main types of ASCII codes −

Standard ASCII Code

 Extended ASCII Code

Let's discuss the Standard ASCII Codes first.

Standard ASCII Code

It is a 7-bit character encoding standard having a range from 0 to 127 i.e., total 128
possible characters. It assigns a 7-bit unique binary code to each character including
numbers, letters, symbols, and control characters.

The following table highlights the name, symbol and ASCII code in decimal and binary
form for the range from 0 to 127.

Name Symbol Decimal 7-Bit Binary

Null char NUL 0 00000000

Start of Heading SOH 1 00000001

Start of Text STX 2 00000010

End of Text ETX 3 00000011

End of Transmission EOT 4 00000100

Enquiry ENQ 5 00000101

Acknowledgment ACK 6 00000110

Bell BEL 7 00000111

Back Space BS 8 00001000

Horizontal Tab HT 9 00001001

Line Feed LF 10 00001010

Vertical Tab VT 11 00001011

Form Feed FF 12 00001100

Carriage Return CR 13 00001101

Shift Out / X-On SO 14 00001110

Shift In / X-Off SI 15 00001111

Data Line Escape DLE 16 00010000

Device Control 1 (oft. XON) DC1 17 00010001

Device Control 2 DC2 18 00010010

Device Control 3 (oft. XOFF) DC3 19 00010011

Device Control 4 DC4 20 00010100

Negative Acknowledgement NAK 21 00010101

Synchronous Idle SYN 22 00010110

End of Transmit Block ETB 23 00010111

Cancel CAN 24 00011000

End of Medium EM 25 00011001

Substitute SUB 26 00011010

Escape ESC 27 00011011

File Separator FS 28 00011100

Group Separator GS 29 00011101

Record Separator RS 30 00011110

Unit Separator US 31 00011111

Space 32 00100000

Exclamation mark ! 33 00100001

Double quotes " 34 00100010

Hash # 35 00100011

Dollar $ 36 00100100

Percentage % 37 00100101

Ampersand & 38 00100110

Single quote ' 39 00100111

Open parenthesis ( 40 00101000

Close parenthesis ) 41 00101001

Asterisk * 42 00101010
Plus + 43 00101011

Comma , 44 00101100

Hyphen - 45 00101101

Period, dot or full stop . 46 00101110

Slash or divide / 47 00101111

Zero 0 48 00110000

One 1 49 00110001

Two 2 50 00110010

Three 3 51 00110011

Four 4 52 00110100

Five 5 53 00110101

Six 6 54 00110110

Seven 7 55 00110111

Eight 8 56 00111000

Nine 9 57 00111001

Colon : 58 00111010

Semicolon ; 59 00111011

Less than < 60 00111100

Equals = 61 00111101

Greater than > 62 00111110

Question mark ? 63 00111111

At symbol @ 64 01000000

Uppercase A A 65 01000001

Uppercase B B 66 01000010

Uppercase C C 67 01000011

Uppercase D D 68 01000100
Uppercase E E 69 01000101

Uppercase F F 70 01000110

Uppercase G G 71 01000111

Uppercase H H 72 01001000

Uppercase I I 73 01001001

Uppercase J J 74 01001010

Uppercase K K 75 01001011

Uppercase L L 76 01001100

Uppercase M M 77 01001101

Uppercase N N 78 01001110

Uppercase O O 79 01001111

Uppercase P P 80 01010000

Uppercase Q Q 81 01010001

Uppercase R R 82 01010010

Uppercase S S 83 01010011

Uppercase T T 84 01010100

Uppercase U U 85 01010101

Uppercase V V 86 01010110

Uppercase W W 87 01010111

Uppercase X X 88 01011000

Uppercase Y Y 89 01011001

Uppercase Z Z 90 01011010

Opening bracket [ 91 01011011

Backslash \ 92 01011100

Closing bracket ] 93 01011101

Caret - circumflex ^ 94 01011110

Underscore _ 95 01011111

Grave accent ` 96 01100000

Lowercase a a 97 01100001

Lowercase b b 98 01100010

Lowercase c c 99 01100011

Lowercase d d 100 01100100

Lowercase e e 101 01100101

Lowercase f f 102 01100110

Lowercase g g 103 01100111

Lowercase h h 104 01101000

Lowercase i i 105 01101001

Lowercase j j 106 01101010

Lowercase k k 107 01101011

Lowercase l l 108 01101100

Lowercase m m 109 01101101

Lowercase n n 110 01101110

Lowercase o o 111 01101111

Lowercase p p 112 01110000

Lowercase q q 113 01110001

Lowercase r r 114 01110010

Lowercase s s 115 01110011

Lowercase t t 116 01110100

Lowercase u u 117 01110101

Lowercase v v 118 01110110

Lowercase w w 119 01110111

Lowercase x x 120 01111000

 Lowercase y y 121 01111001

Lowercase z z 122 01111010

Opening brace { 123 01111011

Vertical bar | 124 01111100

Closing brace } 125 01111101

Equivalency sign (tilde) ~ 126 01111110

Delete 127 01111111

Extended ASCII Code

It is an 8-bit character encoding standard having a range from 0 to 255 i.e., total 256
possible characters. The extended ASCII code adds extra 128 characters to the standard
ASCII code.

The following table shows the name, symbol and ASCII code in decimal and binary form
for the range from 128 to 255.

Name Symbol DEC BIN

Euro sign € 128 10000000

129 10000001

Single low-9 quotation mark ‚ 130 10000010

Latin small letter f with hook ƒ 131 10000011

Double low-9 quotation mark „ 132 10000100

Horizontal ellipsis … 133 10000101

Dagger † 134 10000110

Double dagger ‡ 135 10000111

Modifier letter circumflex accent ˆ 136 10001000

Per mille sign ‰ 137 10001001

Latin capital letter S with caron Š 138 10001010

Single left-pointing angle quotation ‹ 139 10001011

Latin capital ligature OE Π140 10001100

141 10001101

Latin capital letter Z with caron Ž 142 10001110

143 10001111

144 10010000

Left single quotation mark ‘ 145 10010001

Right single quotation mark ’ 146 10010010

Left double quotation mark “ 147 10010011

Right double quotation mark ” 148 10010100

Bullet • 149 10010101

En dash – 150 10010110

Em dash — 151 10010111

Small tilde ˜ 152 10011000

Trade mark sign ™ 153 10011001

Latin small letter S with caron š 154 10011010

Single right-pointing angle quotation mark › 155 10011011

Latin small ligature oe œ 156 10011100

157 10011101

Latin small letter z with caron ž 158 10011110

Latin capital letter Y with diaeresis Ÿ 159 10011111

Non-breaking space 160 10100000

Inverted exclamation mark ¡ 161 10100001

Cent sign ¢ 162 10100010

Pound sign £ 163 10100011

Currency sign ¤ 164 10100100

Yen sign ¥ 165 10100101

Pipe, Broken vertical bar ¦ 166 10100110

Section sign § 167 10100111

Spacing diaeresis - umlaut ¨ 168 10101000

Copyright sign © 169 10101001

Feminine ordinal indicator ª 170 10101010

Left double angle quotes « 171 10101011

Not sign ¬ 172 10101100

Soft hyphen 173 10101101

Registered trade mark sign ® 174 10101110

Spacing macron - overline ¯ 175 10101111

Degree sign ° 176 10110000

Plus-or-minus sign ± 177 10110001

Superscript two - squared ² 178 10110010

Superscript three - cubed ³ 179 10110011

Acute accent - spacing acute ´ 180 10110100

Micro sign µ 181 10110101

Pilcrow sign - paragraph sign ¶ 182 10110110

Middle dot - Georgian comma · 183 10110111

Spacing cedilla ¸ 184 10111000

Superscript one ¹ 185 10111001

Masculine ordinal indicator º 186 10111010

Right double angle quotes » 187 10111011

Fraction one quarter ¼ 188 10111100

Fraction one half ½ 189 10111101

Fraction three quarters ¾ 190 10111110

Inverted question mark ¿ 191 10111111

Latin capital letter A with grave À 192 11000000

Latin capital letter A with acute Á 193 11000001

Latin capital letter A with circumflex  194 11000010

Latin capital letter A with tilde à 195 11000011

Latin capital letter A with diaeresis Ä 196 11000100

Latin capital letter A with ring above Å 197 11000101

Latin capital letter AE Æ 198 11000110

Latin capital letter C with cedilla Ç 199 11000111

Latin capital letter E with grave È 200 11001000

Latin capital letter E with acute É 201 11001001

Latin capital letter E with circumflex Ê 202 11001010

Latin capital letter E with diaeresis Ë 203 11001011

Latin capital letter I with grave Ì 204 11001100

Latin capital letter I with acute Í 205 11001101

Latin capital letter I with circumflex Î 206 11001110

Latin capital letter I with diaeresis Ï 207 11001111

Latin capital letter ETH Ð 208 11010000

Latin capital letter N with tilde Ñ 209 11010001

Latin capital letter O with grave Ò 210 11010010

Latin capital letter O with acute Ó 211 11010011

Latin capital letter O with circumflex Ô 212 11010100

Latin capital letter O with tilde Õ 213 11010101

Latin capital letter O with diaeresis Ö 214 11010110

Multiplication sign × 215 11010111

Latin capital letter O with slash Ø 216 11011000

Latin capital letter U with grave Ù 217 11011001

Latin capital letter U with acute Ú 218 11011010

Latin capital letter U with circumflex Û 219 11011011

Latin capital letter U with diaeresis Ü 220 11011100

Latin capital letter Y with acute Ý 221 11011101

Latin capital letter THORN Þ 222 11011110

Latin small letter sharp s - ess-zed ß 223 11011111

Latin small letter a with grave à 224 11100000

Latin small letter a with acute á 225 11100001

Latin small letter a with circumflex â 226 11100010

Latin small letter a with tilde ã 227 11100011

Latin small letter a with diaeresis ä 228 11100100

Latin small letter a with ring above å 229 11100101

Latin small letter ae æ 230 11100110

Latin small letter c with cedilla ç 231 11100111

Latin small letter e with grave è 232 11101000

Latin small letter e with acute é 233 11101001

Latin small letter e with circumflex ê 234 11101010

Latin small letter e with diaeresis ë 235 11101011

Latin small letter i with grave ì 236 11101100

Latin small letter i with acute í 237 11101101

Latin small letter i with circumflex î 238 11101110

Latin small letter i with diaeresis ï 239 11101111

Latin small letter eth ð 240 11110000

Latin small letter n with tilde ñ 241 11110001

Latin small letter o with grave ò 242 11110010

Latin small letter o with acute ó 243 11110011

 Latin small letter o with circumflex ô 244 11110100

Latin small letter o with tilde õ 245 11110101

Latin small letter o with diaeresis ö 246 11110110

Division sign ÷ 247 11110111

Latin small letter o with slash ø 248 11111000

Latin small letter u with grave ù 249 11111001

Latin small letter u with acute ú 250 11111010

Latin small letter u with circumflex û 251 11111011

Latin small letter u with diaeresis ü 252 11111100

Latin small letter y with acute ý 253 11111101

Latin small letter thorn þ 254 11111110

Latin small letter y with diaeresis ÿ 255 11111111

Advantages of ASCII Code

The following are the key benefits of the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) code −

The ASCII code provides a simple and straightforward encoding scheme to represent
letters, numbers, and symbols.

ASCII code is compatible with a wide range of programming languages and

computing devices.

ASCII code provides a compact character representation, where each character can
be represented using 7-bits or 8-bits. Hence, it is a space efficient encoding
standard.
ASCII code is a universally adopted encoding standard in the field of digital
electronics.
ASCII code has easy and simple implementation in hardware and software.

Limitations of ASCII Code

ASCII code has several advantages as described above, but it also has some limitations
which are given below −

The standard ASCII code has a limited set of 128 characters. This makes it
unsuitable for representing characters of languages other than English.
 The ASCII code can be extended to 8-bits but it is not standardized beyond 7-bits.

ASCII code is not suitable to use in systems that require a broad range of characters.

Applications of ASCII Code

ASCII code is a standard character encoding scheme used in wide range of applications in
the field of digital electronics.

Some major applications of ASCII code are listed below −

ASCII code is used in digital systems for textual communication.

ASCII code is used in computer programming to represent alphanumeric data like

letters, numbers, symbols, etc.

ASCII code is also used in various communication protocols utilized for data
transmission among devices.

In the field web technology, ASCII code is used to represent different characters and
symbols in a webpage.

ASCII code is also used in database systems to represent text data.

Conclusion
In conclusion, ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character
encoding scheme widely used in digital systems. It is a 7-bit standard code used to
represent a total of 128 characters including numbers, letters, symbols, and control
characters.