[pwdisswordfish9]

> By contrast, we all 100% knew what reversing an ASCII string meant, with no ambiguity.

Not if the ASCII string employed the backspace control character to accomplish what is today done with Unicode combining characters.

Or, in fact, if it employed any other kind of control sequence.

[thaumasiotes]

I always thought it was interesting that ASCII is transparently just a bunch of control codes for a typewriter (where "strike an 'a'" is a mechanical instruction no different from "reset the carriage position"), but when we wanted to represent symbolic data we copied it and included all of the nonsensical mechanical instructions.

[adzm]

Well the control codes were specifically for TTY rather than typewriters, many of the control codes still make sense from that standpoint.

[jameshart]

Like... \r\n