Character encoding: ASCII, ISCII , and UNICODE

A computer works on different characters like Alphabets, Punctuation marks, Numeric characters, and other special characters. But the computer or other devices can not understand these characters so it uses some encoding standards to represent characters. Some standards are discussed below:-

 

ASCII

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange and pronounced as “ask-ee”. This code is the most widely used alphanumeric code in computers. It is available in two forms 7- bit and 8-bit code. ASCII-7 can represent 128 characters. Out of 7 bits, 3 are zone bits and 4 are numeric bits. ASCII-8 can represent 256 characters. Out of 8 bits, 4 are zone bits and 4 are numeric bits. It is an extended form of ASCII-7. It represents all of the standard keyboard characters as well as control functions.

Eg: 0(41) – 0101001 , a(97) – 1100001 , 1(49) – 0110001 , A(65) – 1000001

-----------------------------------------ASCII-7------------------------------------------

!	33	)	41	1	49	?	63	^	94
“	34	*	42	2	50	@	64	_	95
#	35	+	43	9	57	A	65	`	96
$	36	,	44	:	58	B	66	a	97
%	37	-	45	;	59	Z	90	z	122
&	38	.	46	<	60	[	91	{	123
‘	39	/	47	=	61	\	92	|	124
(	40	0	48	>	62	]	93	}, ~	125 ,126

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ISCII

It stands for Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange. It was developed in 1991 to use the Indian language on computers and the Bureau of Indian Standards adopted the ISCII. It is an 8-bit code capable of encoding 256 characters. These codes are used for 10 Indian scripts Devanagari, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Bengali, Asami, Telgu, Kannad, Malayalam, and Tamil. ISCII code retains all ASCII characters also.

Unicode

Unicode is a new universal coding standard adopted by all new platforms. Unicode provides a unique number for every character irrespective of the platform, program, and language. It is a character coding system designed to support the worldwide interchange, processing, and display of the written texts of diverse languages. Unicode is a 16-bit code capable of representing more than 65000 characters.