Original: American Standard Code for Information Interchange, ASA X3.4-1963, American Standards Association, June 17, 1963 a major revision in 1967,USA Standard Code for Information Interchange, USAS X3.4-1967, United States of America Standards Institute, July 7, 1967 and the most recent update in 1986.
Simplified: ASCII is an abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.