Editing ASCII (section)

==History==
ASCII was developed in part from [[telegraph code]]. Its first commercial use was in the [[Teletype Model 33]] and the Teletype Model 35 as a seven-[[bit]] [[teleprinter]] code promoted by Bell data services.{{when|date=November 2021}} Work on the ASCII standard began in May 1961, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association's (ASA) (now the [[American National Standards Institute]] or ANSI) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published in 1963,<ref name="Brandel_1999">{{cite news |author-first=Mary |author-last=Brandel |date=July 6, 1999 |url=http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/06/1963.idg/ |title=1963: The Debut of ASCII |publisher=[[CNN]] |access-date=2008-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617155922/http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/06/1963.idg/ |archive-date=June 17, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="ASCII-1963">{{cite web |title=American Standard Code for Information Interchange, ASA X3.4-1963 |publisher=[[American Standards Association]] |date=1963-06-17 |url=https://www.sr-ix.com/Archive/CharCodeHist/X3.4-1963/index.html |website=Sensitive Research |access-date=2020-06-06}}</ref> underwent a major revision during 1967,<ref name="ASCII-1967">{{cite tech report |title=USA Standard Code for Information Interchange, USAS X3.4-1967 |publisher=[[United States of America Standards Institute]] |date=July 7, 1967}}</ref><ref name="Jennings_2016">{{cite web |title=An annotated history of some character codes or ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Infiltration |author-first=Thomas Daniel |author-last=Jennings |author-link=Thomas Daniel Jennings |website=Sensitive Research (SR-IX) |date=2016-04-20 |orig-year=1999 |url=https://www.sr-ix.com/Archive/CharCodeHist/index.html#ASCII-1967 |access-date=2020-03-08}}</ref> and experienced its most recent update during 1986.<ref name="ASCII-1986">{{cite tech report |title=American National Standard for Information Systems — Coded Character Sets — 7-Bit American National Standard Code for Information Interchange (7-Bit ASCII), ANSI X3.4-1986 |publisher=[[American National Standards Institute]] (ANSI) |date=March 26, 1986}}</ref> Compared to earlier telegraph codes, the proposed Bell code and ASCII were both ordered for more convenient sorting (i.e., alphabetization) of lists and added features for devices other than teleprinters.<ref name="ASCII-1986" />

<span class="anchor" id="1963"></span><span class="anchor" id="1965"></span><span class="anchor" id="1967"></span><span class="anchor" id="1968"></span><span class="anchor" id="1977"></span><span class="anchor" id="1986"></span><span class="anchor" id="1992"></span><span class="anchor" id="1997"></span><span class="anchor" id="2002"></span><span class="anchor" id="2007"></span><span class="anchor" id="2012"></span><span class="anchor" id="2017"></span><span class="anchor" id="2022"></span>
[[File:ASCII1963-infobox-paths.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|right|ASCII (1963). [[Control Pictures]] of equivalent controls are shown where they exist, or a grey dot otherwise.]]
ASCII was developed under the auspices of a committee of the American Standards Association (ASA), called the X3 committee, by its X3.2 (later X3L2) subcommittee, and later by that subcommittee's X3.2.4 working group (now [[INCITS]]). The ASA later became the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI)<ref name="Mackenzie_1980" />{{rp|211}} and ultimately became the [[American National Standards Institute]] (ANSI).

With the other special characters and control codes filled in, ASCII was published as ASA X3.4-1963,<ref name="ASCII-1963"/><ref name="Bukstein_1964">{{cite journal |title=Binary Computer Codes and ASCII |author-first=Ed |author-last=Bukstein |journal=[[Electronics World]] |date=July 1964 |volume=72 |number=1 |pages=28–29 |url=http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/ElectronicsWorld/Jul1964/EW_Jul1964.htm |access-date=2016-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180933/http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/ElectronicsWorld/Jul1964/EW_Jul1964.htm |archive-date=March 3, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> leaving 28 code positions without any assigned meaning, reserved for future standardization, and one unassigned control code.<ref name="Mackenzie_1980"/>{{rp|66, 245}} There was some debate at the time whether there should be more control characters rather than the lowercase alphabet.<ref name="Mackenzie_1980"/>{{rp|435}} The indecision did not last long: during May 1963 the CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet proposed to assign lowercase characters to ''sticks''{{Efn|name="NB_Stick"|{{anchor|Stick}}The 128 characters of the 7-bit ASCII character set are divided into eight 16-character groups called ''sticks'' 0–7, associated with the three [[most-significant bit]]s.<ref name="Bemer_1980_Inside"/> Depending on the horizontal or vertical representation of the character map, ''sticks'' can correspond with either table rows or columns.}}<ref name="Bemer_1980_Inside"/> 6 and 7,<ref name="CCITT_1963">Brief Report: Meeting of CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet, May 13–15, 1963.</ref> and [[International Organization for Standardization]] TC 97 SC 2 voted during October to incorporate the change into its draft standard.<ref name="ISO_1963">Report of ISO/TC/97/SC 2 – Meeting of October 29–31, 1963.</ref> The X3.2.4 task group voted its approval for the change to ASCII at its May 1963 meeting.<ref>Report on Task Group X3.2.4, June 11, 1963, Pentagon Building, Washington, DC.</ref> Locating the lowercase letters in ''sticks''{{Efn|name="NB_Stick"}}<ref name="Bemer_1980_Inside"/> 6 and 7 caused the characters to differ in bit pattern from the upper case by a single bit, which simplified [[case-insensitive]] character matching and the construction of keyboards and printers.

The X3 committee made other changes. It added the [[brace (punctuation)|brace]] and [[vertical bar]] characters.<ref>Report of Meeting No. 8, Task Group X3.2.4, December 17 and 18, 1963</ref> It renamed some control characters {{endash}} SOM became [[Start-of-Header|SOH]]. It moved or removed others {{endash}} RU was removed.<ref name="Mackenzie_1980"/>{{rp|247–248}} ASCII was subsequently updated as USAS X3.4-1967,<ref name="ASCII-1967"/><ref name="Winter_2010">{{cite web |title=US and International standards: ASCII |url=http://homepages.cwi.nl/~dik/english/codes/stand.html#ascii |author-first=Dik T. |author=Winter |date=2010 |orig-year=2003 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100116001012/http://homepages.cwi.nl/~dik/english/codes/stand.html#ascii |archive-date=2010-01-16}}</ref> then USAS X3.4-1968,<ref name="ASCII-1968">{{cite tech report |title=USA Standard Code for Information Interchange, USAS X3.4-1968 |url=https://archive.org/details/enf-ascii-1968-1970/ |publisher=[[United States of America Standards Institute]] |date=October 10, 1968}}</ref> ANSI X3.4-1977, and finally, ANSI X3.4-1986.<ref name="ASCII-1986"/><ref name="Salste_2016">{{cite web |title=7-bit character sets: Revisions of ASCII |author-first=Tuomas |author-last=Salste |publisher=Aivosto Oy |date=January 2016 |id={{URN|nbn|fi-fe201201011004}} |url=http://www.aivosto.com/vbtips/charsets-7bit.html#body |access-date=2016-06-13 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160613145224/http://www.aivosto.com/vbtips/charsets-7bit.html#body |archive-date=2016-06-13}}</ref>

The use of ASCII format for Network Interchange was described in 1969.<ref name="RFC-20_1968">{{cite IETF |title=ASCII format for Network Interchange |rfc=20 |author-first=Vint |author-last=Cerf |author-link=Vint Cerf |date=October 16, 1969 |publisher=Network Working Group |access-date=2016-06-13}} (NB. Almost identical wording to [[USAS X3.4-1968]] except for the intro.)</ref> That document was formally elevated to an Internet Standard in 2015.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/status-change-rfc20-ascii-format-to-standard/ |title=Correct classification of RFC 20 (ASCII format) to Internet Standard |author=Barry Leiba |date=January 12, 2015 |publisher=[[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]}}</ref>