ATASCII

The ATASCII character set, from ATARI Standard Code for Information Interchange, alternatively ATARI ASCII, is the variation on ASCII used in the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. The first of this family were the Atari 400 and 800, released in 1979, and later models were released throughout the 1980s. The last Atari 8-bit computer, and therefore the last computer to use the ATASCII character set, was the XEGS (short for "XL Extended Gaming System,") which was released in 1989.

Like most other non-standard ASCIIs, ATASCII has its own special block graphics symbols (arrows, blocks, circles, line segments, playing card suits, etc.) corresponding to the control character locations of the standard ASCII table (characters 0–31), plus a few other character locations.

Atari 8-bit computer screenshot showing ATASCII char.set

The inverse video^* display mode of ATASCII is implemented quite simply by letting the first half of the character set (the inverse one) being the bitwise negation of the second, normal, half.

(* also called reverse video by other manufacturers)

See also: PETSCII, Spectrum Character Set

External links

*ATASCII concise graphical overview   (4.2KB GIF image)
*ATASCII <–> IBM ASCII tables (mostly plain ASCII text)