[PD] splitting a symbol into individual characters & ascii

I am trying to make a pair of abstractions for serial communication:

1. pd2ascii: converts any message into ascii codes
2. ascii2pd: converts ascii codes into any message

ascii2pd is done and working, but pd2ascii is difficult to implement because there is no efficient way to split a symbol into it's individual elements as in converting symbol bob into list b o b

I tried:

1. ascii library but it is not maintained anymore and has some bugs.

2. ascseq but it is scheduled so structures like the following are

impossible:

[AAAA< | [t b a] |
|
[13< [ascseq 0] | / [print]

It will output "65,13,65,65,65" instead of the expected "65,65,65,65,13"

3. Toxy but it suffers the same limitations as ascseq

Anyone have any suggestions for try number 4?

Tom