Returns a copy of self that has ASCII-8BIT encoding; the underlying bytes are not modified:

s = "\x99"
s.encoding   # => #<Encoding:UTF-8>
t = s.b      # => "\x99"
t.encoding   # => #<Encoding:ASCII-8BIT>

s = "\u4095" # => "䂕"
s.encoding   # => #<Encoding:UTF-8>
s.bytes      # => [228, 130, 149]
t = s.b      # => "\xE4\x82\x95"
t.encoding   # => #<Encoding:ASCII-8BIT>
t.bytes      # => [228, 130, 149]