11 Jan
1999
11 Jan
'99
12:52 p.m.
Philip.Belben(a)PowerTech.co.uk wrote about the ASCII code that was originally
a leftward-pointing arrow, but was later redefined as underscore:
PET has a left arrow for that code as well. Sensible,
since underscore is
available elswhere in the character set (shift-$ IIRC) but I never knew it
used to be standard ASCII.
Um, no. ASCII doesn't define any shift-$ character. In fact, ASCII doesn't
define any shift characters at all. It makes no association between
characters and keystrokes. All it defines is the codes for the characters,
and the functions of some of the control characters. Note that even in
the case of control characters, it does NOT define them as being generated
by a control key together with some other key. So, for instance, there is
no proper ASCII character designated "Control-C". This style of usage is
an artifact of bit-paired keyboards, as was discussed here last week.
ASCII originally did not have an underscore character. Since the 1968
revision, it has an underscore but no leftward-pointing arrow.
In any case, the Commodore PET did not use ASCII, although it used an
extended character set that was derived from ASCII. So perhaps you are
thinking of one of the Commodore line-drawing characters.