Confusing Chr$ explanation

[Space_Ghost]

Hi PhilOfPerth,

Here are some resources that I found very helpful for ASC II and Extended ASC II -- and ALT Codes.  I recommend you read and review in order.

OVERVIEW TABLE OF BOTH ASC II AND EXTENDED ASC II
https://www.asciitable.com/

MORE DETAILS ON ASC II
https://www.lookuptables.com/text/ascii-table

• ASCII was originally created as a standard for sending text over phone lines, and first used with teleprinters back in 1963. It consists of 128 characters (7 bit).
  
• Every ASCII character has an equivalent number, often used in programming languages such as Python.
  
• The first 32 ASCII characters (0-31) and 127 (DEL) are actually commands historically used to control the teleprinter, such as the well known carriage return (13) and line feed (10). For this reason they are referred to as control characters, control codes or non printable characters.
  
• The remainder of the 128 ASCII characters are the visible / printable characters most people would equate to plain text. These printable characters are often referred to as the ASCII Standard Character Set and include upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and basic punctuation.
  

MORE DETAILS ON EXTENDED ASC II
https://www.lookuptables.com/text/extended-ascii-table

• There are well over 200 different "extended" (8 bit) versions of the ASCII character set.
  
• Extended ASCII provides 256 characters, the extended part making up characters 128-255.
  
• Various extended versions have been developed for different purposes such as to support proprietary technology, different alphabets, or simply to draw nice boxes on the screen.
  
• Below is the CP437 (Code Page 437) version which was present on the original IBM PC, based on characters used in Wang word processing machines.
  
• This particular set of extended ASCII characters are sometimes referred to as ALT Codes because in Windows it is possible to hold down the ALT key and type the 3 digit ASCII code on the number pad to output a character not physically present on the keyboard.
  

ALT CODES (IMPORTANT)
https://www.lookuptables.com/text/alt-codes
Please note that the first two rows of codes in the QB64pe ASC II table are what are called "ALT Codes".

• There are some characters that are not present on the keyboard, so to be able to 'type' them isn't straight forward. Here are your options:
  
• Windows Character Map
  
• Press the Windows key and type Character Map - here you can find all the characters visually if you know the Character Set they belong to.
  
• Use Alt Codes - Keyboard Shortcuts
  
• Use numeric shortcuts known as ALT Codes - Simply:
  
• Make sure Num Lock is ON
  
• Hold down the ALT Key
  
• Type the relevant number on the numeric keypad
  
• Release the ALT key
  
• * These should work if your system locale is set to English (United States).
  

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANSI AND ASC II (not super important)
http://www.differencebetween.net/technol...and-ascii/


You can see the QB64pe ASC II Chart under the IDE Tools Menu --> ASC II Chart, here is the image that comes up.  Note it uses the ALT codes for the "non-printable" 1 to 32 first items.



Finally be careful when inputting information in and what the text file encoding is, including Unicode and UTF-8, etc.....

Cheers!

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