>Okay. Considering that you took the time to ask the question, I'll take the
>time to answer it. The answer to your question is that all of the above
>numbers are numerical values for the character ":". For example, the
>numerical value of 3A, in HEX, is the ASCII value for the character ":". As
>is the octal value of 72. All the above numerical values represent the same
>character and all are equivalent with respect to their bases.
>
Good, you've got it. I wasn't sure you had made the connection with the 
ASCII code. As for why--I remembered a comment wondering about colons in 
a recent post on this topic. I thought it was yours, but now I can't seem 
to find it.

If you're clear now on the distinctions between characters and strings 
and values this may not be useful, but earlier today I thought of a 
simple exercise you might want to try: Complete this FN without using any 
string symbols ($) or quotes ("). That means you'll have to build the 
string yourself, using POKEs. Your goal is to have the the final PRINT 
statment print the word String. Refer to p. 66 of the Reference Manual, 
and use firstVar% to calculate addresses for poking.

LOCAL FN printWordString
  DIM firstVar%,myString$
  '=======================
  'Insert your code here. You should need 7 POKE statements.

  '=======================
  PRINT myString$   'Make this print the word "String".
END FN

Enjoy the sunshine.
 0"0
 =J= a  y
  "