4.5.5.2 ASCII and Unicode

Question 1

What is a character set?

Answer 1

All the characters recognised by the computer, each with a unique binary number.

Question 2

How is a character set represented?

Answer 2

Each symbol has a unique binary code of 8 bits (1 byte) or more depending on the size of the character set.

Question 3

How many different characters can ASCII represent?

Answer 3

128 / 2^7

Question 4

What is Unicode?

Answer 4

A coding system that assigns a unique value to the majority of symbols used in the world, including different languages. It continues to increase in size.

Question 5

What are the differences between ASCII and Unicode?

Answer 5

ASCII uses fewer bits per character, so Unicode can represent more characters. ASCII uses 7 bits, Unicode uses 16 or 32 bits.

Question 6

Why was unicode introduced?

Answer 6

Because ASCII did not represent enough characters, and unicode is a widespread standardised system