I still have some programs (in BASIC) on paper tape around here somewhere. Ran on the second computer I had access to (in the summer of '73). A PDP-8 with a whopping 16K of core memory. Bits you could see. There were four teletype terminals hooked up to it. Ah, the noise of information.

Anyway, ASCII is only about 40 years old, as a standard. Seems like ticker tapes and teletypes each used their own proprietary codes.

http://www.thocp.net/hardware/history_of_teletype_development_.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/teletype.html