ASCII

6 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  ASCII \ASCII\ n. [Acronym: American Standard Code for
     Information Interchange.](Computers)
     1. the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a
        code consisting of a set of 128 7-bit combinations used in
        digital computers internally, for display purposes, and
        for exchanging data between computers. It is very widely


        used, but because of the limited number of characters
        encoded must be supplemented or replaced by other codes
        for encoding special symbols or words in languages other
        than English. Also used attributively; -- as, an ASCII
        file.
  
     Syn: American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
          [PJC]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Ascii \As"ci*i\, Ascians \As"cians\, n. pl. [L. ascii, pl. of
     ascius, Gr. ? without shadow; 'a priv. + ? shadow.]
     Persons who, at certain times of the year, have no shadow at
     noon; -- applied to the inhabitants of the torrid zone, who
     have, twice a year, a vertical sun.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  ASCII
       n : (computer science) a code for information exchange between
           computers made by different companies; a string of 7
           binary digits represents each character; used in most
           microcomputers [syn: {American Standard Code for
           Information Interchange}]

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  ASCII
       American Standard Code of Information Interchange
       
       

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  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 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}, {semi}, {shriek}, {splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole
     Fish}.
  
     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; not; shriek; ball-bat; .  Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow;
    hey; wham; eureka; [spark-spot]; soldier, control.
    
     "
    Common: double quote; quote.  Rare: literal mark; double-glitch;
    ; ; dirk; [rabbit-ears]; double prime.
    
     #
    Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; {crunch}; hex;
    [mesh].  Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash; ,
    pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; {splat}.
    
     $
    Common: dollar; .  Rare: currency symbol; buck; cash;
    string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of ASCII ESC);
    ding; cache; [big money].
    
     %
    Common: percent; ; mod; grapes.  Rare:
    [double-oh-seven].
    
     &
    Common: ; amp; amper; and, and sign.  Rare: address
    (from C); reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background
    (from `sh(1)'); pretzel.  [INTERCAL called this `ampersand'; what
    could be sillier?]
    
     '
    Common: single quote; quote; .  Rare: prime; glitch;
    tick; irk; pop; [spark]; ; .
    
     ( )
  
    Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close;
    paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r
    banana.  Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen; ; o/c round bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane];
    parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.
    
     *
    Common: star; [{splat}]; .  Rare: wildcard; gear; dingle;
    mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see {glob}); {Nathan
    Hale}.
    
     +
    Common: ; add.  Rare: cross; [intersection].
    
     ,
    Common: .  Rare: ; [tail].
    
     -
    Common: dash; ; .  Rare: [worm]; option; dak;
    bithorpe.
    
     .
    Common: dot; point; ; .  Rare: radix point;
    full stop; [spot].
    
     /
    Common: slash; stroke; ; forward slash.  Rare: diagonal;
    solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].
    
  :
    Common: .  Rare: dots; [two-spot].
    
     ;
    Common: ; semi.  Rare: weenie; [hybrid], pit-thwong.
    
     < >
  
    Common: ; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle
    bracket; l/r broket.  Rare: from/{into, towards}; read from/write
    to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all from
    UNIX); tic/tac; [angle/right angle].
    
     =
    Common: ; gets; takes.  Rare: quadrathorpe; [half-mesh].
    
     ?
    Common: query; ; {ques}.  Rare: quiz; whatmark;
    [what]; wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook; hunchback.
    
     @
    Common: at sign; at; strudel.  Rare: each; vortex; whorl;
    [whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage; .
    
     V
    Rare: [book].
    
     [ ]
  
    Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; ; bracket/unbracket.  Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U
    turn back].
    
     \
    Common: backslash, hack, whack; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse
    slash; slosh; backslant; backwhack.  Rare: bash; ;
    reversed virgule; [backslat].
    
     ^
    Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; .  Rare: xor
    sign, chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
    fang; pointer (in Pascal).
    
     _
    Common: ; underscore; underbar; under.  Rare: score;
    backarrow; skid; [flatworm].
    
     `
    Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
    ; grave.  Rare: backprime; [backspark];
    unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push; ; quasiquote.
    
     { }
  
    Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly
    bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; .
    Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly;
    [embrace/bracelet].  A balanced pair of these may be called
    `curlies'.
    
     |
    Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar.  Rare:
    ; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX);
    [spike].
    
     ~
    Common: ; squiggle; {twiddle}; not.  Rare: approx; wiggle;
    swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].
    
     The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S. but a bad
     idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more apposite use of
     `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards the pound graphic
     happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes call `#' on a
     U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the American error). The U.S.
     usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of using a `#'
     suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading. The character is usually
     pronounced `hash' outside the U.S. There are more culture wars over the
     correct pronunciation of this character than any other, which has led to
     the {ha ha only serious} suggestion that it be pronounced `shibboleth'
     (see Judges 12:6 in an Old Testament or Tanakh).
  
     The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for underline
     are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963 version), which had
     these graphics in those character positions rather than the modern
     punctuation characters.
  
     The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same as
     tilde in typeset material but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare
     {angle brackets}).
  
     Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The `#', `$', `>', and
     `&' characters, for example, are all pronounced "hex" in different
     communities because various assemblers use them as a prefix tag for
     hexadecimal constants (in particular, `#' in many assembler-programming
     cultures, `$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and `&' on
     the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines). See also {splat}.
  
     The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the world's
     other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits look more
     and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of international
     networks continues to increase (see {software rot}). Hardware and
     software from the U.S. still tends to embody the assumption that ASCII
     is the universal character set and that characters have 7 bits; this is
     a major irritant to people who want to use a character set suited to
     their own languages. Perversely, though, efforts to solve this problem
     by proliferating `national' character sets produce an evolutionary
     pressure to use a _smaller_ subset common to all those in use.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  ASCII
       
          {American Standard Code for Information Interchange}