In addition to the standard ASCII characters, PETSCII consists of a range of block graphic characters, such as circles, quarter circles, straight and angled lines of varying thickness, crosses, checkered 'flags', etc, allowing quite sophisticated graphic patterns to be built without resorting to bitmapped graphics (which the PET lacked). There were also cursor and screen control codes, and, in the VIC-20 and later machines, color codes. As with all almost-but-not-quite ASCII character sets, software conversion was needed when communicating with standard ASCII systems.

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