Why does byte 0x9B become a newline instead of a literal character?

Because 0x9B is genuinely ATASCII's end-of-line marker, not just another printable character; Atari 8-bit software treats it exactly the way ASCII treats 0x0A. Decoding it back to \n is the direct, faithful inverse of the encoder's behavior.

What byte range does this accept?

0x20-0x7E (the printable range) plus the special byte 0x9B for end-of-line. Any other byte value, ATASCII's other Atari-specific control codes, is rejected, since this converter's encoder companion doesn't produce them either.

Does this recover \r\n line endings?

No, it only ever produces a plain \n for a decoded 0x9B byte, matching exactly what ASCII to ATASCII Converter consumes on the way in; there's no \r involved in ATASCII's own EOL convention.

How is this different from Hex to ASCII Converter?

For printable bytes with no 0x9B present, the two tools produce identical text, since ATASCII matches ASCII byte-for-byte there. The difference is the EOL byte: this tool specifically recognizes 0x9B as a newline, something a plain ASCII hex decoder has no reason to do.

ATASCII to ASCII Converter - Decode Atari 8-Bit Bytes

Overview

Introduction

A byte dump from an Atari 8-bit disk image, cassette capture, or emulator trace is ATASCII, and while most of it reads like plain ASCII, the line endings won't make sense unless you know to treat byte 0x9B specially.

This tool decodes ATASCII hex bytes back into ASCII text, correctly turning 0x9B back into a newline, the direct inverse of ASCII to ATASCII Converter.

What Is ATASCII to ASCII Converter?

A reverse lookup for Atari ATASCII: printable bytes 0x20-0x7E decode directly to their identical ASCII character, and the special byte 0x9B decodes to a newline.

It's the exact inverse of ASCII to ATASCII Converter, recognizing precisely the byte values that tool produces and nothing more.

How ATASCII to ASCII Converter Works

The input is split on whitespace into 2-digit hex tokens (case-insensitive); a token equal to 0x9B decodes to a newline character, while a token in the printable range 0x20-0x7E decodes to its identical ASCII character.

Any other byte value is rejected with an error, since it's neither a printable ATASCII byte nor the EOL marker this converter's encoder companion produces.

When To Use ATASCII to ASCII Converter

Use it to read text out of an Atari 8-bit disk image, cassette dump, or emulator memory trace, with line breaks reconstructed correctly.

It's also the fastest way to confirm an ASCII to ATASCII Converter round trip for multi-line text.

Often used alongside ASCII to ATASCII Converter, ASCII to Hex Converter and Hex to ASCII Converter.

Features

Advantages

Correctly reconstructs line breaks from ATASCII's real 0x9B EOL byte instead of leaving them as an unrecognized value.
Shares its byte-to-character mapping directly with ASCII to ATASCII Converter, guaranteeing a clean round trip.
Rejects genuinely out-of-scope byte values explicitly rather than silently dropping or mangling them.

Limitations

Only recognizes 0x9B as special; it doesn't attempt to decode ATASCII's other Atari-specific control codes (cursor movement, screen clear, etc.), since those have no ASCII equivalent to decode into.
Assumes clean 2-digit hex byte tokens; malformed or odd-length hex is rejected rather than guessed at.

Examples

Decoding printable bytes

Input

48 69 21

Output

Hi!

Each byte decodes directly to its identical ASCII character.

Decoding the ATASCII EOL byte

Input

41 9B 42

Output

A
B

Byte 0x9B decodes to a newline, reconstructing the line break between "A" and "B".

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

If a byte value fails to decode, check whether it's one of ATASCII's non-EOL control codes; this converter intentionally doesn't attempt to map those.
Pair with ASCII to ATASCII Converter to build a known-valid multi-line test sequence before decoding unfamiliar dump data.

Developer Notes

Imports ATASCII_EOL_BYTE (0x9B) from ascii-to-atascii-converter so the EOL byte value is a single shared constant; each token is parsed with parseInt(token, 16) and checked against that constant before the general 32-126 printable-range check runs.

ATASCII to ASCII Converter Use Cases

Reading text and line breaks out of an Atari 8-bit disk image, cassette dump, or emulator memory trace
Verifying an ASCII to ATASCII Converter round trip for multi-line text
Demonstrating exactly how ATASCII's 0x9B EOL byte differs from ASCII's 0x0A linefeed

Common Mistakes

Expecting byte 0x0A to decode as a newline; in ATASCII that byte isn't the EOL marker, only 0x9B is.
Feeding in ATASCII's other Atari-specific control-code bytes expecting a character back; this converter only recognizes the printable range and the EOL byte.

Tips

If your decoded output is missing line breaks you expected, check whether the source dump actually used 0x9B or a different byte for its line endings.
The rejection error names the exact unrecognized byte and its position, useful for spotting stray control codes in a mixed dump quickly.

ATASCII to ASCII Converter