Bob,

This is actually something I've given a lot of thought to... whether a space is a control code or not. I'm not proud to say it, as it's as trifling a comp-sci issue as any i've ever addressed, but trifling thoughts can be very important, especially if they occur with any frequency (if you haven't, read The Mezzanine by Nicolson Baker... it's about all the thoughts we've all had over and over again all our lives, in the form of a novel, the whole plot of which is: a man's shoelace breaks, he goes to lunch, buys shoelaces and food, and comes back to work. Wonderful. It keeps you laughing and saying "I've wondered about that a MILLION times.." )

But anyway, each ascii list I've ever seen lists SPC as a control code. This has always bugged me because when manipulating text, spaces get treated just like characters. I put them into video memory just like the rest. Carriage returns, TABs, FFs, etc... all cause different actions. They need to be separately dealt with. But spaces? They're "empty" characters. The space has a character representation. Each space takes up "space" in video memory.

Of course I should remember that ASCII started with a teletype setup. To the people who designated SPC as a control-code, it meant "move the head one over."