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154 lines
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HTML
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>ASCII</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../A.html" title="A"/><link rel="previous" href="asbestos-longjohns.html" title="asbestos longjohns"/><link rel="next" href="ASCII-art.html" title="ASCII art"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">ASCII</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="asbestos-longjohns.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">A</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ASCII-art.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="ASCII"/><dt xmlns="" id="ASCII"><b>ASCII</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/as´kee/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [originally an acronym (American Standard Code for Information
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Interchange) but now merely conventional] The predominant character set
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encoding of present-day computers. The standard version uses 7 bits for
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each character, whereas most earlier codes (including early drafts of ASCII
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prior to June 1961) used fewer. This change allowed the inclusion of
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lowercase letters — a major <a href="../W/win.html"><i class="glossterm">win</i></a> — but it
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did not provide for accented letters or any other letterforms not used in
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English (such as the German sharp-S ß. or the ae-ligature æ
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which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse, though.
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It could be much worse. See <a href="../E/EBCDIC.html"><i class="glossterm">EBCDIC</i></a> to understand
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how. A history of ASCII and its ancestors is at <a href="http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/index.html" target="_top">http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/index.html</a>.</p><p>Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
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humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
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characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal shorthand
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for them. Every character has one or more names — some formal, some
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concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII characters are
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collected here. See also individual entries for
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<a href="../B/bang.html"><i class="glossterm">bang</i></a>, <a href="../E/excl.html"><i class="glossterm">excl</i></a>,
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<a href="../O/open.html"><i class="glossterm">open</i></a>, <a href="../Q/ques.html"><i class="glossterm">ques</i></a>,
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<a href="../S/semi.html"><i class="glossterm">semi</i></a>, <a href="../S/shriek.html"><i class="glossterm">shriek</i></a>,
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<a href="../S/splat.html"><i class="glossterm">splat</i></a>, <a href="../T/twiddle.html"><i class="glossterm">twiddle</i></a>, and
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<a href="../Y/Yu-Shiang-Whole-Fish.html"><i class="glossterm">Yu-Shiang Whole Fish</i></a>.</p><p>This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII pronunciation
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guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order; character pairs are
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sorted in by first member. For each character, common names are given in
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rough order of popularity, followed by names that are reported but rarely
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seen; official ANSI/CCITT names are surrounded by brokets: <>.
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Square brackets mark the particularly silly names introduced by
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<a href="../I/INTERCAL.html"><i class="glossterm">INTERCAL</i></a>. The abbreviations “<span class="quote">l/r</span>” and
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“<span class="quote">o/c</span>” stand for left/right and “<span class="quote">open/close</span>”
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respectively. Ordinary parentheticals provide some usage
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information.</p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col/><col/></colgroup><tbody><tr><td>!</td><td>Common:
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<a href="../B/bang.html"><i class="glossterm">bang</i></a>
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; pling; excl; not; shriek; ball-bat; <exclamation mark>. Rare:
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factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka;
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[spark-spot]; soldier, control.</td></tr><tr><td>"</td><td>Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark;
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double-glitch; snakebite; <quotation marks>; <dieresis>;
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dirk; [rabbit-ears]; double prime.</td></tr><tr><td>#</td><td>Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp;
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<a href="../C/crunch.html"><i class="glossterm">crunch</i></a>
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; hex; [mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe;
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flash; <square>, pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark;
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thud; thump;
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<a href="../S/splat.html"><i class="glossterm">splat</i></a>
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.</td></tr><tr><td>$</td><td>Common: dollar; <dollar sign>. Rare: currency symbol;
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buck; cash; bling; string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of
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ASCII ESC); ding; cache; [big money].</td></tr><tr><td>%</td><td>Common: percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes. Rare:
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[double-oh-seven].</td></tr><tr><td>&</td><td>Common: <ampersand>; amp; amper; and, and sign. Rare:
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address (from C); reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand;
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background (from
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<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">sh</span>(1)</span>
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); pretzel. [INTERCAL called this
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<span class="firstterm">ampersand</span>
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; what could be sillier?]</td></tr><tr><td>'</td><td>Common: single quote; quote; <apostrophe>. Rare: prime;
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glitch; tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation
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mark>; <acute accent>.</td></tr><tr><td>( )</td><td>Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right;
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open/close; paren/thesis; o/c paren;
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o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r
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banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen;
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<opening/closing parenthesis>; o/c round bracket, l/r round
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bracket, [wax/wane];
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parenthisey/unparenthisey;
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l/r ear.</td></tr><tr><td>*</td><td>Common: star; [
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<a href="../S/splat.html"><i class="glossterm">splat</i></a>
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]; <asterisk>. Rare: wildcard; gear; dingle; mult; spider;
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aster; times; twinkle; glob (see
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<a href="../G/glob.html"><i class="glossterm">glob</i></a>
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);
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<a href="../N/Nathan-Hale.html"><i class="glossterm">Nathan Hale</i></a>
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.</td></tr><tr><td>+</td><td>Common: <plus>; add. Rare: cross;
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[intersection].</td></tr><tr><td>,</td><td>Common: <comma>. Rare: <cedilla>; [tail].</td></tr><tr><td>-</td><td>Common: dash; <hyphen>; <minus>. Rare: [worm];
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option; dak; bithorpe.</td></tr><tr><td>.</td><td>Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>.
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Rare: radix point; full stop; [spot].</td></tr><tr><td>/</td><td>Common: slash; stroke; <slant>; forward slash. Rare:
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diagonal; solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].</td></tr><tr><td>:</td><td>Common: <colon>. Rare: dots; [two-spot].</td></tr><tr><td>;</td><td>Common: <semicolon>; semi. Rare: weenie; [hybrid],
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pit-thwong.</td></tr><tr><td>< ></td><td>Common: <less/greater than>; bra/ket; l/r angle;
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l/r angle bracket; l/r broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read
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from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all
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from UNIX); tic/tac; [angle/right angle].</td></tr><tr><td>=</td><td>Common: <equals>; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe;
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[half-mesh].</td></tr><tr><td>?</td><td>Common: query; <question mark>;
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<a href="../Q/ques.html"><i class="glossterm">ques</i></a>
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. Rare: quiz; whatmark; [what]; wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook;
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hunchback.</td></tr><tr><td>@</td><td>Common: at sign; at; strudel. Rare: each; vortex; whorl;
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[whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage; <commercial
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at>.</td></tr><tr><td>V</td><td>Rare: [book].</td></tr><tr><td>[ ]</td><td>Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing
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bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare:
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square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back].</td></tr><tr><td>\</td><td>Common: backslash, hack, whack; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse
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slash; slosh; backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash; <reverse
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slant>; reversed virgule; [backslat].</td></tr><tr><td>^</td><td>Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>.
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Rare: xor sign, chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (‘to
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the power of’); fang; pointer (in Pascal).</td></tr><tr><td>_</td><td>Common: <underline>; underscore; underbar; under. Rare:
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score; backarrow; skid; [flatworm].</td></tr><tr><td>`</td><td>Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
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<grave accent>; grave. Rare: backprime; [backspark];
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unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push; <opening
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single quotation mark>; quasiquote.</td></tr><tr><td>{ }</td><td>Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly
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bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing
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brace>. Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit;
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l/r squirrelly; [embrace/bracelet]. A balanced pair of these may be
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called
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<span class="firstterm">curlies</span>
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.</td></tr><tr><td>|</td><td>Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare:
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<vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from
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UNIX); [spike].</td></tr><tr><td>~</td><td>Common: <tilde>; squiggle;
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<a href="../T/twiddle.html"><i class="glossterm">twiddle</i></a>
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; not. Rare: approx; wiggle; swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle
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(sic)].</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>The pronunciation of <tt class="literal">#</tt> as ‘pound’ is
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common in the U.S. but a bad idea;
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<a href="../C/Commonwealth-Hackish.html"><i class="glossterm">Commonwealth Hackish</i></a>
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has its own, rather more apposite use of ‘pound
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sign’ (confusingly, on British keyboards the £ happens to
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replace <tt class="literal">#</tt>; thus Britishers sometimes call
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<tt class="literal">#</tt> on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard ‘pound’,
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compounding the American error). The U.S. usage derives from an
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old-fashioned commercial practice of using a <tt class="literal">#</tt> suffix to
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tag pound weights on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced
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‘hash’ outside the U.S. There are more culture wars over the
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correct pronunciation of this character than any other, which has led to
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the <a href="../H/ha-ha-only-serious.html"><i class="glossterm">ha ha only serious</i></a> suggestion that it be
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pronounced “<span class="quote">shibboleth</span>” (see Judges 12:6 in an Old Testament or
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Tanakh).</p><p>The ‘uparrow’ name for circumflex and
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‘leftarrow’ name for underline are historical relics from
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archaic ASCII (the 1963 version), which had these graphics in those
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character positions rather than the modern punctuation characters.</p><p>The ‘swung dash’ or ‘approximation’ sign
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(∼) is not quite the same as tilde ~ in typeset material, but the ASCII
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tilde serves for both (compare <a href="angle-brackets.html"><i class="glossterm">angle brackets</i></a>).
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</p><p>Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The
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<tt class="literal">#</tt>, <tt class="literal">$</tt>, <tt class="literal">></tt>, and
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<tt class="literal">&</tt> characters, for example, are all pronounced
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“<span class="quote">hex</span>” in different communities because various assemblers use
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them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in particular,
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<tt class="literal">#</tt> in many assembler-programming cultures,
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<tt class="literal">$</tt> in the 6502 world, <tt class="literal">></tt> at Texas
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Instruments, and <tt class="literal">&</tt> on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and
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some Z80 machines). See also <a href="../S/splat.html"><i class="glossterm">splat</i></a>.</p><p>The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the world's
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other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits look more and
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more like a serious <a href="../M/misfeature.html"><i class="glossterm">misfeature</i></a> as the use of
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international networks continues to increase (see
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<a href="../S/software-rot.html"><i class="glossterm">software rot</i></a>).
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Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to
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embody the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set and that
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characters have 7 bits; this is a major irritant to people who want to use
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a character set suited to their own languages. Perversely, though, efforts
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to solve this problem by proliferating ‘national’ character
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sets produce an evolutionary pressure to use a <span class="emphasis"><em>smaller</em></span>
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subset common to all those in use.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="asbestos-longjohns.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../A.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ASCII-art.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">asbestos longjohns </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> ASCII art</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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