Defining special characters

[jmc at wuphys.UUCP]

  I need help.  I have a C64 at home which is being
used as a terminal; but it has no special character
keys e.g.  `|', ``', `@', etc.

  My plan was to define these keys by setting a
variable equal to them (e.g. set pipe=|).
But naively doing so fails; unix recognizes it as
the symbol `|' but not as a pipe.  Someone told me to
try using the ascii values.  My question to you people
out there is how does one reference the ascii value?
I know that ascii for <BELL> is 07 but how do I tell
the machine I mean ascii 07 and not the number 07?

  Maybe this is the wrong way to go about it.  If
anyone has a better suggestion please mail it to me.

                                Jimmy Chen
                             ihnp4!wuphys!jmc
-- 

Oh, yeah.  The signature line.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road.
A: His brother-in-law was on the city council and got
   him a job painting those big X's on the street.