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So the laserprinter understandsthesymbolJas 01001010,which wecan also
represent as the decimal number 74 or the hexadecimal number 4A. We’ve
printed this byte vertically and horizontally below, showing how it adds up
to decimal 74 and hex 4A.
o x 27
1 x 26
0x 25
0x 24
1 x 23
0x 22
1x 2’
ox 2°
zone
0100
4
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digits
1010
A
o
64
0
0
8
0
2
0
74
Decimal
Binary
Hexadecimal
The ASCII table in the Technical Supplement shows all these equivalent
representations for the symbols your laser printer understands. The table
organizes them in ascending order. In fact, ASCII is organized in a way that
actually makes sense.
Flip back there for a quick look right now. See how you can slice the table
into clumps of 16 or 32, based on what’s in the zone portion under the
hexadecimal column? These clumps make subgroups of similar symbols:
● hex 00 to 1F are the command symbols called control codes,
. hex 20 to 40 are the common keyboard symbols and numerals,
. hex 41 to 60 are capital letters and the less common keyboard
symbols,
. hex 61 to 7F are lowercase letters and a few final symbols.
That takes care of the first 128 ASCII symbols. However, nearly every
computer and printer manufacturer treats the second half of the table
differently. Hewlett-Packard, forexample, puts avariety of accented foreign
languagecharacters intopositions 128-255(oftenreferred to as/zighASCZl).
Epson gives you a choice of either italics characters or IBM character
graphics.
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