Topic Three (1.3): Text

Introduction Icon.png Introduction

This topic requires you to gain knowledge and understanding of how text is represented in its internal binary form depending on the character set used.
You will learn about the concept of ASCII and be able to convert text to binary.

By the end of this topic you should be able to:

  • Show an understanding of, and be able to represent, character data in its internal binary form depending on the character set used.

Watch Icon.png Watch

WATCH – Representing Text in Binary (ASCII & UNICODE) Links to an external site.

Read & Make Notes Icon.png Read and Make Notes

Read pages 14 to 16 of the textbook. Ensure you make some notes and list examples as you read through. In particular, work out the question 1.02.  

Read Icon.png Further Reading

READ – Ascii Code (ascii-code.com) Links to an external site.

READ - ASCII Character Set (webopedia.com) Links to an external site.

READ – Unicode (unicode.org) Links to an external site.

Top Tip Icon.png Top Tip

Ensure you understand the following before moving on to the next topic.

  • ASCII codes are either control codes (which are not displayed), or graphic codes (which are displayed).
  • Conversion of an upper case letter to a lower case just requires one bit in the code to be changed.
  • The most common version of Unicode is UTF-8.