ASCII /as'kee/ n.
[originally an acronym (American
Standard Code for Information Interchange) but now merely
conventional] The predominant character set encoding of present-day
computers. The standard version uses 7 bits for each character,
whereas most earlier codes (including early drafts of of ASCII
prior to June 1961) used fewer. This change allowed the inclusion
of lowercase letters -- a major win -- but it did not
provide for accented letters or any other letterforms not used in
English (such as the German sharp-S
or the ae-ligature
which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse,
though. It could be much worse. See EBCDIC to understand
how. A history of ASCII and its ancestors is at
http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/index.html.
Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names -- some
formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII
characters are collected here. See also individual entries for
bang, excl, open, ques
splat, twiddle, and Yu-Shian
This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII
pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character,
common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the
particularly silly names introduced by INTERCAL. The
abbreviations "l/r" and "o/c" stand for left/right and
"open/close" respectively. Ordinary parentheticals provide some
usage information.
!
Common: bang; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>. Rare:
factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka;
[spark-spot]; soldier, control.
"
Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark; double-glitch;
<quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk; [rabbit-ears]; double
prime.
#
Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; crunch; hex;
[mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash; <square>, pig-pen;
tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; splat.
$
Common: dollar; <dollar sign>. Rare: currency symbol; buck; cash;
string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of ASCII ESC);
ding; cache; [big money].
[originally an acronym (American
Standard Code for Information Interchange) but now merely
conventional] The predominant character set encoding of present-day
computers. The standard version uses 7 bits for each character,
whereas most earlier codes (including early drafts of of ASCII
prior to June 1961) used fewer. This change allowed the inclusion
of lowercase letters -- a major win -- but it did not
provide for accented letters or any other letterforms not used in
English (such as the German sharp-S
or the ae-ligature
which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse,
though. It could be much worse. See EBCDIC to understand
how. A history of ASCII and its ancestors is at
http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/index.html.
Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names -- some
formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII
characters are collected here. See also individual entries for
bang, excl, open, ques
splat, twiddle, and Yu-Shian
This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII
pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character,
common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the
particularly silly names introduced by INTERCAL. The
abbreviations "l/r" and "o/c" stand for left/right and
"open/close" respectively. Ordinary parentheticals provide some
usage information.
!
Common: bang; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>. Rare:
factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka;
[spark-spot]; soldier, control.
"
Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark; double-glitch;
<quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk; [rabbit-ears]; double
prime.
#
Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; crunch; hex;
[mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash; <square>, pig-pen;
tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; splat.
$
Common: dollar; <dollar sign>. Rare: currency symbol; buck; cash;
string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of ASCII ESC);
ding; cache; [big money].
Related:
- Common: percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes.
Rare: [double-oh-seven]. & Common: <ampersand>... - TECO /tee'koh/ n.,v. obs.
1. [originally an acronym for
`[paper] Tape Editor and COrrector';
later, `Text Editor and COrrector'] n. A text editor... - bit-paired keyboard n.,obs.
(alt. `bit-shift
keyboard') A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have
originated with the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several
years on early computer equipment.
The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see EOU), so... - ASCII art n.
The fine art of drawing diagrams using the
ASCII character set (mainly |,
/, \, and +). Also known as `character graphics'... - splat n.
1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and
others) for the asterisk (*) character (ASCII 0101010).
This may derive from the `squashed-bug' appearance... - angle brackets n.
Either of the characters < (ASCII
0111100) and >
(ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or greater-than... - 0
Numeric zero, as opposed to the letter `O' (the 15th
letter of the English alphabet).
In their unmodified forms they look a lot alike... - ANSI /an'see/
1. n. [techspeak] The American National
Standards Institute.
ANSI, along with the International Organization ... - splat: n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for
the asterisk (`*') character (ASCII 0101010).
This may derive from the `squashed-bug' appearance...
