Skip to content
Learnearn.uk » IB Computer Science » Text Representation in Binary

Text Representation in Binary

Text to Binary

Converting text to binary

When computers were first invented most text was represented in binary using the ASCII (American Standard Code for  Information Interchange).

Converting text to ASCII formatted binary is a simple process. You simply look up the decimal value for the character in the ASCII table below, and then convert that value from decimal to binary, like we did last lesson.

Example – hello

ascii-hello-example

ASCII Table

DO NOT USE THE HEX COLUMN!!!

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

ASCII Table

Binary > Text

Converting Binary to Text

Converting from binary to text is nice and simple. You simply convert each binary number to a decimal number and then look up that number on the ASCII table.

ascii-goodbye-example

Practice

Convert these text examples to binary:

a. dog

b. cat

c. mouse

Convert these binary examples to text:

d. 01100101 01100111 01100111

e. 01101000 01100001 01101101

f. 01100011 01101000 01101001 01110000 01110011

Limitations of ASCII

Limitation of ASCII

  • ASCII can only be used save text that uses the roman alphabet ( mainly English) so it cannot be used for Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, etc.
  • Doesn’t include any special characters (like wingdings)

Because of these limitations new formats were introduced (such as UFT and Unicode). These allowed computers to use millions of different characters, alphabets and special characters (such as emojis, non-roman alphabets and mathematical symbols.

 

Plan

Lesson Slides Show

Prep

Download and print 30 copies of the ASCII table.

Starter

Lesson board starter

If students finish before others get them to do the online starter.

Hand out ASCII table to students while they fill in starter.

Demo

Intro ASCII to students by comparing to Morse code and then walk through the process of converting a simple word to binary on the board.

Practice

Get the students to write the first 5 letters of their name in binary.

If the finish get students to have a go at the online practice.

Learning Log

Get students to fill out learning log for lesson 3. When they reach the ASCII limitations bit, stop the class and elicit answers.

Plenary

Lesson review Kahoot