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>what would our code look like if ASCII didn't have escape codes?

ASCII is the layer that doesn't have escape codes (although it does have a single code for ESC), ascii is just a set of mappings from 7-bit numbers to/from mostly-printable characters

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At least a full fourth of the ASCII code points, 0x00-0x1F, are not printable. A bit more, as we should add del (0x7F) and, according to some though more controversially, space (0x20).

the full forth may not be "printable if you define printable as using toner and ignoring positioning". But they aren't escape codes.

What would you call the lower 32 or so codes then? Control codes?

Codes 0x00 to 0x1F are called control codes (and in some contexts (such as use of ASCII control codes with TRON character set) 0x20 is also considered to be a control code). The code 0x7F is also a control code. (The PC character set (which is a superset of ASCII) has graphics for those codes as well, although in plain ASCII there are no graphics for the control codes.)

they are explicity defined as escape codes in terms of inputting them, but not in terms of receiving them. They are not by any stretch escape codes. See ANSI (which ASCII is a part of) if you want to learn about ESCAPE codes.

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