this was hard, lol

text_codecs/ascii7.py

@@ -1,33 +1,16 @@
 from custom_codecs.register import register_codec
-from easybits import Bits
+
 
 def encode(text):
-    """An encoder which only handles ASCII: non-ASCII characters
-    are replaced with '?'. Once all the characters are ASCII, this encoder
-    writes the first seven bits of each byte (the first bit of every 
-    ASCII character is 0, so we can easily reconstruct the full byte 
-    when we decode). Therefore, this encoder compresses ASCII text into
-    7/8 of the usual size.
-    """
-    result = Bits()
-    for char in text:
-        try:
-            b = Bits(char, encoding='ascii')
-        except UnicodeEncodeError:
-            b = Bits('?')
-        result = result.concat(b[1:])
-    return result.bytes
+    # remove characters outside ASCII range
+    cleaned = "".join(c for c in text if ord(c) < 128)
+
+    # encode as normal ASCII
+    return cleaned.encode("ascii")
+
 
 def decode(data):
-    """The matching decoder. Reads seven bits at a time, putting a 0 on 
-    the front to create a full byte. Then converts this byte into its 
-    ASCII representation.
-    """
-    bits = Bits(bytes(data))
-    text = ""
-    for i in range(0, len(bits), 7):
-        byte = Bits('0').concat(bits[i:i+7])
-        text += Bits(byte).ascii
-    return text
+    return data.decode("ascii")
 
-register_codec(encode, decode, "ascii7")
+
+register_codec("ascii7", encode, decode)