ascii stands for: the american standard code for information interchange and was finalized at 1968. (ASCII Chart) maybe that is no date for dave winer, but for some parts of the world things changed since than.

i updated the XML-RPC spec to remove the word ASCII from the definition of string type, and changed the copyright dates from 1998-99 to 1998-2003. (winer)

"To understand the original intent of the ASCII control codes, you have to think of teletypes, using paper tape, configured in a multidrop system with relay logic used to turn on or off individual teletypes in the bunch ... (Understanding ASCII Codes)