SIXBIT

SIXBIT is a predecessor encoding system to ASCII; it too supported encoding various glyphs (written forms such as letters, numbers, etc) in 6 bits (hence the name); it only supported upper-case characters, however. SIXBIT contains the characters with ASCII codes from 32 to 95; to get the SIXBIT code for one of these characters, simply subtract 32 from the ASCII code.

It allowed 6 characters to be carried in the then-common 36-bit words common on many computers; with 18-bit and 12-bit computers then being common also, it had wide utility.

The values (given in octal, the usual binary-friendly base used on the computers on which SIXBIT was used) were:

High	.0	.1	.2	.3	.4	.5	.6	.7
0.	'   '	!	"	#	$	%	&	'
1.	(	)	*	+	,	-	.	/
2.	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
3.	8	9	:	;	<	=	>	?
4.	@	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
5.	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O
6.	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W
7.	X	Y	Z	[	\	]	^	_