CHARACTER SET
CHARACTER SET.
1. Also character repertoire. A set of print characters available in a particular type or font.
2. A set of numbers, letters, punctuation marks, special symbols, and other representations formed from patterns of computer bits, such as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange: pronounced ‘Askee’) introduced in 1963, EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code: pronounced ‘Eb-see-dick’), used by IBM, and ISO7 (International Standards Organization 7-bit Code). The most complex sets relate to East Asia: for example, the 256 possibilities in an 8-bit byte are inadequate for the characters of Chinese and Japanese, and so 16-bit representations are used instead. See COMPUTING.
1. Also character repertoire. A set of print characters available in a particular type or font.
2. A set of numbers, letters, punctuation marks, special symbols, and other representations formed from patterns of computer bits, such as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange: pronounced ‘Askee’) introduced in 1963, EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code: pronounced ‘Eb-see-dick’), used by IBM, and ISO7 (International Standards Organization 7-bit Code). The most complex sets relate to East Asia: for example, the 256 possibilities in an 8-bit byte are inadequate for the characters of Chinese and Japanese, and so 16-bit representations are used instead. See COMPUTING.
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CHARACTER SET
