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ASCII is a very obvious format. If you take the english alphabet and symbols, it fits almost perfectly in the first 7 bits. In 5th grade I tried encoding Englis
by crazypython 5y ago
ASCII is a very obvious format. If you take the english alphabet and symbols, it fits almost perfectly in the first 7 bits. In 5th grade I tried encoding English in binary, and noticed how I accidentally reinvented ASCII.
- vagrantJin 5y agoEncode English in Binary in 5th grade? You must be a smart cookie. In 5th grade, I had the attention span of a fruit fly. Probably would have tried drawing phalluses in ascii if I had known about it.
- 0x0 5y agoI wouldn't say it's obvious. There's some careful decisions in the design that might not be obvious at first sight, such as having upper and lowercase characters be the same save for a single bit.
- unilynx 5y agoOr the numbers 0 to 9 at 48 to 57 (ie just mask out bits 4 and 5)
- crazypython 5y agoI see. I would retract my statement if HN let me edit.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoRetract it at the bottom where it is least likely to be seen like we do in modern papers/news sites.