What is 01000001 in text?

The bits 01000001 give 65, which is the character A.

Why does my text show dots?

A dot marks a byte outside the printable range 32 to 126, such as a control code.

Split it into two bytes. Each byte gives one character, and the byte order decides which character comes first.

Text in a binary stream is a sequence of character codes.

To read it, split the bits into groups of 8, then read each group as a number.

Each number is the code of one character.

The bits 01000001, which give the character A. Edit the expression or select a bit to flip it.

Expression

text · 8 bits

Byte order

Read each byte of the value above as a character: The steps follow the value above.

The character of each code in common use
Character	Decimal	Hex	Binary
	13	0x0D	00001101
	10	0x0A	00001010
space	32	0x20	00100000
0	48	0x30	00110000
A	65	0x41	01000001
a	97	0x61	01100001
~	126	0x7E	01111110

A serial monitor converts every byte it receives to a character.

A hex dump of a file shows the bytes and the characters side by side.

A field of a protocol frame often holds text next to a numeric field.

A group of 8 bits is one byte. A stream with a length that 8 does not divide has a partial byte at the end.
A code below 32 is a control code with no shape. Beetwise shows a dot for it.
The code 13 is a carriage return and the code 10 is a line feed. Both end a line, and Windows uses the pair.
A byte above 127 is not valid ASCII, so the character depends on the code page.

The full editor holds many values, evaluates expressions across them, and reads live values from a serial port.

What is 01000001 in text?: The bits 01000001 give 65, which is the character A.
Why does my text show dots?: A dot marks a byte outside the printable range 32 to 126, such as a control code.
How do I read a 16-bit value as text?: Split it into two bytes. Each byte gives one character, and the byte order decides which character comes first.