Editing ASCII (section)

==Usage==
ASCII was first used commercially during 1963 as a seven-bit teleprinter code for [[American Telephone & Telegraph]]'s TWX (TeletypeWriter eXchange) network. TWX originally used the earlier five-bit [[ITA2]], which was also used by the competing [[Telex]] teleprinter system. [[Robert William Bemer|Bob Bemer]] introduced features such as the [[Escape character|escape sequence]].<ref name="Brandel_1999"/> His British colleague [[Hugh McGregor Ross]] helped to popularize this work{{snd}} according to Bemer, "so much so that the code that was to become ASCII was first called the ''Bemer–Ross Code'' in Europe".<ref>{{cite web |author-link=Robert William Bemer |author-last=Bemer |author-first=Robert William |url=http://www.trailing-edge.com/~bobbemer/EUROPE.HTM |title=Bemer meets Europe (Computer Standards) – Computer History Vignettes |publisher=Trailing-edge.com |access-date=2008-04-14 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131017062722/http://www.trailing-edge.com/~bobbemer/EUROPE.HTM |archive-date=2013-10-17}} (NB. Bemer was employed at [[IBM]] at that time.)</ref> Because of his extensive work on ASCII, Bemer has been called "the father of ASCII".<ref name="thocp">{{cite web |url=http://www.thocp.net/biographies/bemer_bob.htm |title=Robert William Bemer: Biography |date=2013-03-09 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616081929/http://www.thocp.net/biographies/bemer_bob.htm |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref>

On March 11, 1968, US President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] mandated that all computers purchased by the [[United States Federal Government]] support ASCII, stating:<ref name="Johnson_1968">{{cite web |title=Memorandum Approving the Adoption by the Federal Government of a Standard Code for Information Interchange |author-last=Johnson |author-first=Lyndon Baines |author-link=Lyndon Baines Johnson |publisher=The American Presidency Project |date=1968-03-11 |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28724 |access-date=2008-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070914121230/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28724 |archive-date=September 14, 2007 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite newsgroup|url=https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.folklore.computers/gbg5YVFaT48/wlVFfJ2j4hYJ|title=Re: Early history of ASCII?|author=Richard S. Shuford|date=December 20, 1996|newsgroup=alt.folklore.computers|message-id=Pine.SUN.3.91.961220100220.13180C-100000@duncan.cs.utk.edu}}</ref><ref name="Folts_1982">{{cite book |publisher=[[McGraw-Hill Inc.]] |title=Compilation of Data Communications Standards |editor1-first=Harold C. |editor1-last=Folts |editor2-first=Harry |editor2-last=Karp |date=1982-02-01 |edition=2nd revised |isbn=978-0-07-021457-6 }}</ref>
<blockquote>I have also approved recommendations of the [[Secretary of Commerce]] &#91;[[Luther H. Hodges]]&#93; regarding standards for recording the Standard Code for Information Interchange on magnetic tapes and paper tapes when they are used in computer operations.
All computers and related equipment configurations brought into the Federal Government inventory on and after July 1, 1969, must have the capability to use the Standard Code for Information Interchange and the formats prescribed by the magnetic tape and paper tape standards when these media are used.</blockquote>

ASCII was the most common character encoding on the [[World Wide Web]] until December 2007, when [[UTF-8]] encoding surpassed it; UTF-8 is [[backward compatible]] with ASCII.<ref name="Dubost_2008">{{cite web |title=UTF-8 Growth on the Web |author-last=Dubost |author-first=Karl |date=2008-05-06 |work=W3C Blog |publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]] |url=http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/05/utf8-web-growth.html |access-date=2010-08-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616084132/https://www.w3.org/blog/2008/05/utf8-web-growth/ |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref><ref name="UTF-8_2008">{{cite web |title=Moving to Unicode 5.1 |author-last=Davis |author-first=Mark |author-link=Mark Davis (Unicode) |date=2008-05-05 |work=Official Google Blog |url=http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/moving-to-unicode-51.html |access-date=2010-08-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616084637/https://googleblog.blogspot.de/2008/05/moving-to-unicode-51.html |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref><ref name="Davis_2010">{{cite web |title=Unicode nearing 50% of the web |author-last=Davis |author-first=Mark |author-link=Mark Davis (Unicode) |date=2010-01-28 |work=Official Google Blog |url=http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/unicode-nearing-50-of-web.html |access-date=2010-08-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616085323/https://googleblog.blogspot.de/2010/01/unicode-nearing-50-of-web.html |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref>