Editing OS/8 (section)

===ASCII===
There are two systems for handling ASCII text.  ASCII files are stored as three 8-bit characters per pair of 12-bit words. The first two characters (marked with bits a0–a7 and b0–b7 below) are stored whole in their words, while the third character (bits c0–c7) is stored with half of its bits in word 1 and the other half in word 2.<ref name=OS78.ref/>
* WORD 1: c0 c1 c2 c3 | a0 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 a7
* WORD 2: c4 c5 c6 c7 | b0 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7<br>ASCII files end with a CTRL/Z (ASCII 232).

6-bits per character uppercase only ASCII strings are also used.  In this case, two characters efficiently fit in each word.  This is used for filenames in directory entries, but also for strings in BASIC.  In BASIC, even though strings use 6-bit characters, you may print any 8-bit code by using the PNT() function within PRINT, for example use PNT(27) to print an ASCII ESC character.