What is ASCII?

ASCII, which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a widely used character encoding system that represents text in computers and other devices. It was developed in the 1960s and has since become a fundamental part of modern computing. ASCII uses a unique numerical value to represent each character, allowing computers to store and manipulate text-based data.

Understanding ASCII values

In ASCII, every character is assigned a specific numerical value ranging from 0 to 127. These values are used to represent characters such as letters, numbers, and symbols. For example, the letter ‘A’ is represented by the ASCII value 65, ‘B’ is 66, and so on. ASCII values make it possible for computers to understand and process textual information, as they provide a standardized way to represent letters and symbols in binary code.

Finding the ASCII value of ‘l’

To find the ASCII value of a character, you can refer to the ASCII table. This table displays the complete list of characters along with their corresponding ASCII values. Looking at the table, we find that the ASCII value of ‘l’ is 108. This means that when a computer encounters the character ‘l’, it internally represents it using the numerical value 108. This applies to all devices and programming languages that follow the ASCII standard.

The secret behind the ASCII value of ‘l’

Now, you may be wondering why the ASCII value of ‘l’ is 108. The secret lies in how ASCII values were assigned. The original ASCII standard was designed to be compatible with earlier teleprinter systems, which used a 5-bit code known as Baudot code. However, since computers work with binary code (base 2), ASCII was expanded to use 7 bits in order to accommodate the increasing number of characters. The value 108 in binary is 1101100, where each digit represents a bit. This binary representation, when converted back to decimal, gives us the ASCII value of ‘l’.

Character	ASCII Value
l	108

In conclusion, ASCII is a character encoding system that assigns a unique numerical value to each character. The ASCII value of ‘l’ is 108, and this value allows computers to process and manipulate text-based information. The association between characters and their ASCII values is crucial in various programming tasks, such as comparing and sorting text. So, the next time you come across the letter ‘l’ in your code or text, remember that behind its seemingly random value lies the fascinating world of ASCII.