Use the keypress handler:
[somelement].onkeypress = function(e){
e = e || event;
console.log(String.fromCharCode(e.keyCode));
}
See also: this W3C testdocument
if you want to use the keyup or keydown handler, you can subtract 48 from e.keyCode to get the number (so String.fromCharCode(e.keyCode-48))