Beta Code

Description

Beta Code uses the ASCII character set to encode ancient Greek and other non-Latin scripts. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) project at the University of California, Irvine developed Beta Code in the 1980s to enable the electronic coding, searching, and transmission of polytonic Greek texts on computers that did not have the capacity to to display Greek fonts at the time.

In Beta Code, the entirety of the Greek alphabet and diacritical marks, including breathings, accents, and iota subscripts, are represented using a combination of Latin letters and symbols:

λόγος → LO/GOS

ἄνθρωπος → A)/NQRWPOS

See the Beta Code page on Wikipedia for a complete list of Greek characters and their Beta Code equivalents.

The standardized encoding made it possible for large digital text collections, such as the TLG, the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) Greek Inscriptions, and the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri, to store and transfer Greek texts in plain text before Unicode was widely adopted.

Today, almost every database supports Unicode, but Beta Code is still useful for preserving data, citing scholarly works, and ensuring compatibility with legacy digital classics projects.

TL;DR:

Beta Code is an old system that lets people type ancient Greek using regular English letters and symbols. It was made by the TLG project so that computers without Greek fonts could store and search Greek texts. It helped build early digital Greek databases, and while not used as much today, still is helpful for compatibility with legacy projects.