Storing+Text

characters are stored in the computer as unique binary numbers a character is a symbol on the keyboard. the ascii (american standard code for information interchange) system was made so that every computer could use the same codes to represent the same characters for american english. one byte (8bits) represents each character. ASCII uses the first 7 bits (0 to 127) of the one byte representation the "8th bit" is used by company to set up their own distinc characters.

For example, the letter A is stored as 65 (or 0100001 in binary) and the letter z is stored as 90 (01011010). other keyboard characters such as the TAB key (00001001) and RETURN key (00001101) are also represented in ASCII. the first 32 characters can again be used by the computer manufacturers for other commands such as switching the printer on and off.

Every symbol or character that a computer, peripheral or application recognises is called a character set. most computer systems are now capabile of using several character sets to provide, for example, foreign language charcters or letters.