ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Character Computing

Okay, imagine that you are playing a game or typing a letter on a computer. You want to put letters and numbers to create words and sentences. But how does the computer know what letters and numbers you want to type?

This is where character computing comes in. Characters are the small symbols, like letters and numbers, that computers use to represent text. They are like building blocks for words and sentences.

Each character has its own code that the computer uses to understand it. The most common code used is called ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). This code assigns a unique number to each character, like the letter "A" is number 65 and the number "1" is number 49.

So, when you type a letter or number on your keyboard, the computer looks up its code in the ASCII table and uses that code to display the corresponding character on the screen.

This makes it possible to create all kinds of text-based documents, like books, websites, and emails. It also allows for different languages and symbols to be represented on the computer screen.

In summary, character computing is the process of using special codes to represent letters, numbers, and symbols on a computer screen. It helps computers understand what you want to type and allows you to create text-based documents.