Strip all non-printable ASCII characters

sh

Challenge 1, 24 23 chars

tr -dc \ -~<a.txt>b.txt

Bonus: variations on the set of characters to delete.

tr -dc " -~
"<a.txt>b.txt                       # preserves printables + line feed

tr -dc "[:space:] -~"<a.txt>b.txt   # preserves printables + whitespace