ASCII Code Control Characters
Surely you have wondered about how the computer world works, well, it is more complex than we think and behind functions as simple as writing on a Word sheet or sending a document to print, there are processes that happen in microseconds that are previously encoded.
The American Standard Code for Information Exchange or ASCII for its acronym in English, is a set of characters or symbols that are based on Latin to -as its name says- exchange information and execute properly.
Table of control characters and ASCII code symbols
What are ASCII code control characters?
They exist, the ASCII code printable characters which are the ones we can see and the control characters that are those who send the information to execute a task, like sending a file to print, for example.
The set of characters and symbols of these two results in something called extended ASCII code characters and they are the “extra” characters that we use every day, such as: ¡,',?,-,€,#, etc.
Understanding this, we can then say that the ASCII code control characters are not the ones we can see, but the ones we they are executed internally in the system to execute a command.
The ASCII code control characters and symbols emerged to provide a solution to a universal problem, and that is that Many years ago, information was not as easy to transmit as it is now.
Depending on the computer used by users, the operating system varied, and with it, the format in which files could be shared varied, that is, a file did not look or read the same on one computer as it did on another.
This happened because each computer was coded differently, let us remember that, at the beginning of the computer age, the demand was not as much as it is today and there were more possibilities to encode tables, symbols, codes and others individually.
As the demand for electronic devices increased and the need to share information virtually grew, the ASCII code.
In this way, it was possible to provide a solution to a problem, which has been developed.
ASCII code control characters have been reserved with the first thirty-two codes, which are numbered 0 through 31; they were not intended from the beginning to represent printable information, but to control devices.
What are they used for?
ASCII code control characters are used to give commands, that is, to execute commands and be able to reproduce the action either tables and symbols.
For example, every action we perform with the computer, it has been assigned in tables a symbol that corresponds to the ASCII code control characters, since, if the "delete" action is assigned the code 125, every time you press the delete button, this number is reproduced from the key to the computer control, and what you select is deleted .
Another example is to print any document or a photo, at the moment in which we select the option to print executes a code that corresponds to what is assigned in the character table ASCII code control.
In this way, the ASCII code control characters evolved until they were universal and almost all devices had them.
How are ASCII code control characters used?
There is a table where you have been assigned a code that corresponds to the ASCII code control characters.
In fact, you use these ASCII code control characters on a daily basis, for example, when you use the ESC letter to exit full-screen playback mode on YouTube.
Or also, when you use the TAB key, which is in charge of moving the cursor in a line towards a position that has been previously defined in this case, and generally towards the horizontal, although in the same way, there is the VT, which is the vertical tab.
On windows
In the Windows operating system, you may be able to insert non-keyboard commands just by using the character map by clicking the start button.
Once a window appears, you are going to type “charmap” in the search field there and you are going to Click on the proposed result.
After you complete these steps, a character map will appear on the screen, complete with all the features that are available, just select the one you want to run and that's it.
On Mac
If you are on a device with an iOS operating system such as Macs, we are going to use the keyboard shortcuts.
There are several and it will vary depending on what you wants, for example, to completely exit any program on Mac you will need the Exit command, either with a shortcut or with the menu in the application because with the red X it does not exit completely:
- In order to force quit any unresponsive app, hold Command + Shift + Option + Esc for three seconds.
- To close any active window you are using use Command + W
- To close all open windows in the app, use Option + Command + W
- To open a new tab in any browser, use Command + T
- To open a new document, press Command + N
- To hide the window of the application you are using, press Command + H
- To hide all existing app windows and return to the background screen, use Command + Option + H
- To show the restart, sleep or shutdown dialog press Ctrl + Eject
- To make the display sleep press Shift + Control + Eject
- To put the computer to sleep press Command + Alt + Eject
- To save or close all applications and after this, restart the MAC, use Command + Control + Eject
- To log out of your OS X user account, use Command + Shift + Q, although this will ask for confirmation.
On Linux
To use it in a free operating system, such as Linux, the process is usually a bit different because the control characters change and you must know the hex code that you require, because normally the other two previous operating systems use decimals.
To have the window open to write one of the control characters, you have to press the Ctrl + Shift + U keys so that after the search bar opens you enter the hexadecimal code.
For example, to start the scientific calculator in a Windows terminal the decimal code is 126, if we convert it to the hexadecimal system we get 7E, so we type in 7E in the search engine and hit Enter.
This was a job in which millions of programmers were involved, so that the system and the ASCII code control characters be the same language universally.
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