What Exactly is ASCII?

ASCII, short for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard that is widely used in computers and other electronic devices. It was first developed in the 1960s by a committee led by Robert W. Bemer, who wanted to establish a universal way to represent characters in computer systems. ASCII assigns a unique numerical value to each character, allowing computer programs to understand and manipulate text. It includes a wide range of characters, including letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and control characters.

How does ASCII Assign Values to Characters?

In ASCII, each character is represented by a 7-bit binary number, which is equivalent to a decimal value ranging from 0 to 127. The characters are assigned values based on a standardized mapping. For example, the letter ‘A’ is assigned the decimal value 65, ‘B’ is 66, and so on. Similarly, the decimal value 97 represents the lowercase letter ‘a’. ASCII also includes special characters like punctuation marks and control characters, each with their own unique decimal value.

The Mystery Revealed: ASCII Value of “(“

So, what exactly is the ASCII value of the opening parenthesis “(“? The decimal value assigned to this character is 40. This means that whenever you encounter a “(” in a computer program or text file, its ASCII value will be represented as 40. It’s important to note that the ASCII value of a character is independent of its position in the alphabet or its visual representation. ASCII simply provides a standardized way to represent characters in a digital format.

Fun Fact: ASCII Art and the “(” Character

ASCII art is a unique form of artistic expression that predates modern computer graphics. It involves creating images using only ASCII characters. Interestingly, the “(” character, with its ASCII value of 40, is often used in ASCII art to represent various objects or symbols. For instance, when combined with other characters, such as the forward slash “/”, it can resemble a human face or a smiley emoticon. This creative use of ASCII characters allows artists to create visually appealing images using just text.

To help you better understand the ASCII values assigned to characters, here’s a useful table:

Character	ASCII Value
(	40
A	65
B	66
a	97
#	35
!	33
%	37
@	64

So next time you encounter a “(” in a computer program, remember its ASCII value of 40 and appreciate the versatility of ASCII in representing characters and enabling various forms of digital communication and creativity.