Read this. Or at least take a look for some historical insight. It is both dry and interesting. An annotated history of some character codes or ASCII: Americ

Read this. Or at least take a look for some historical insight. It is both dry and interesting. An annotated history of some character codes or ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Infiltration http://worldpowersystems.com/J/codes/ http://worldpowersystems.com/J/codes/ It describes how we got here in excruciating detail, starting with Morse. Military communication systems had great influence. Before the ASCII, as we know it today, there was an "ASCII-1963" that was a bit different. The long and winding path: Morse Baudot Murray ITA2 FIELDATA ASCII-1963 ASCII-1967