ASCII text
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| MIME / IANA | us-ascii |
|---|---|
| Alias(es) | ASCII |
| Language(s) | English |
| Classification | ISO 646 series |
| Extensions |
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| Preceded by | ITA 2, FIELDATA |
| Succeeded by | ISO 8859, Unicode |
| Other related encoding(s) | PETSCII |
ASCII (/ˈæski/ (
listen) ASS-kee), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Most modern character-encoding schemes are based on ASCII, although they support many additional characters.
ASCII is the traditional name for the encoding system; the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) prefers the updated name US-ASCII, which clarifies that this system was developed in the US and based on the typographical symbols predominantly in use there.
ASCII is one of a 1963 List of IEEE milestones.
ASCII was developed from telegraph code. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services. Work on the ASCII standard began on October 6, 1960, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association's (ASA) (now the American National Standards Institute or ANSI) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published in 1963, underwent a major revision during 1967, and experienced its most recent update during 1986. Compared to earlier telegraph codes, the proposed Bell code and ASCII were both ordered for more convenient sorting (i.e., alphabetization) of lists, and added features for devices other than teleprinters.
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