Summary 📝

Computers represent characters using binary because it's the language they understand best. Binary uses only 0s and 1s, which the computer can process quickly. Each character is assigned a unique binary code, like a secret password.

For instance, the ASCII character set is a basic one that covers English characters like letters, numbers, and symbols. It assigns each character a 7 or 8-digit binary code. For example, the letter "A" is represented as 01000001 in ASCII.

To represent more characters, the Extended ASCII set uses 8 or more digits in binary. It includes special characters and accents used in different languages.

Additionally, character sets are crucial for emojis. As computers can't understand pictures directly, emojis are assigned unique codes, allowing them to be translated into binary and displayed on our screens.

Key Learning Points 📌

• A character set is a defined list of characters each with a unique binary code that computers can store and share.
  
  

• Increasing bits (e.g. from 7 to 8) allows more characters to be represented.
  
  

• ASCII uses 7 bits (128 codes) and supports basic English letters, digits and punctuation.
  
  

• Extended ASCII uses 8 bits (256 codes) to add symbols, accented characters and some special symbols.
  
  

• Unicode uses at least 16 bits (65 536 codes) and can represent characters from languages worldwide, as well as emojis and special symbols.
  
  

• Students are often asked to compare ASCII and Unicode in terms of bits, number of characters and what they can store.