ASCII - pronounced ASS-KEY
We've all read text files. The letters we see on screen are essentially bitmaps.
The computer reads the text-file to see which bitmap to display, thus displaying the contents to us in a readable form.
The text-file contains what are known as ASCII codes. Each ASCII code corresponds to a certain CHARACTER.
Some are letters of the alphabet, some are Numbers. (alfa-numeric)
Some are symbols like smiliy-faces, some look like arrows.
An ASCII code is a Byte in size(as opposed to unicode (2 bytes), what windows uses for certain things).
When writing programs, we'll often deal with TEXT. In the programs we'll sometimes manipulate the ASCII codes to change the TEXT somehow.
In ASCII, the string "HERE" corresponds to the following four values - 72 69 82 69 - those ASCII values are in decimal(TEN-BASE).
The string "here" is - 104 101 114 101 - again the ASCII in decimal