ASCII itself was first used commercially during 1963 as a seven-bit teleprinter code for American Telephone & Telegraph's TWX (TeletypeWriter eXchange) network. TWX originally used the earlier <answer>five-bit ITA2</answer>, which was also used by the competing Telex teleprinter system. Bob Bemer introduced features such as the escape sequence. His British colleague Hugh McGregor Ross helped to popularize this work –  according to Bemer, "so much so that the code that was to become ASCII was first called the Bemer-Ross Code in Europe". Because of his extensive work on ASCII, Bemer has been called "the father of ASCII."
What did TWX use before ASCII?
five-bit ITA2