Character Sets | Computer for GCSE/IGCSE - Year 11 PDF Download

Character Sets

• Text, comprised of characters, is translated into binary, the language computers employ for processing data.
• Binary representation of text utilizes a character set, mapping characters to corresponding binary codes.
• The ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) character set employs unique 7-bit binary codes for characters, encompassing letters, digits, punctuation, and control characters.
• For instance, the uppercase 'A' corresponds to the ASCII code 01000001, while '?' corresponds to 00111111.
• ASCII's scope is limited in character range and doesn't support languages beyond English.
• To overcome these constraints, Unicode emerged, offering a broader spectrum of characters and symbols, including diverse languages and emojis.
• Unicode employs a variable-length encoding method, assigning distinct codes to characters, represented in binary through multiple bytes.
• For instance, the heart symbol's Unicode code is U+2665, translated into binary as 11100110 10011000 10100101.
• Unicode's utilization of more bits per character may lead to larger file sizes and slower processing when handling text-based data.