Questions tagged [ebcdic]

For questions related to the character encoding system, created by IBM for their System/360 range

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6 votes
4 answers
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Is the substitution "ss" for "ß" on mainframes due to the SS being the largest customer of IBM punched cards outside the USA? [closed]

When I was a child, my German teacher (in a non-German speaking country) told us that the typed form for the letter "ß" in use in mainframes at that time was "ss" instead of "...
Fabby's user avatar
  • 567
10 votes
0 answers
269 views

What used EBCDIC code pages 1 thru 5?

For US English, the most commonly used EBCDIC code page is 37, which is one of the CECP code pages (Country Extended Code Page). The old IBM globalisation database has a 1986 copyright date for code ...
Simon Kissane's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
343 views

Why did IBM decide to use 8 bits for EBCDIC?

Why did IBM decide to use 8 bits for EBCDIC? 7 bits per character seems reasonable, since 2^7 = 128 symbols which is enough for all English letters and special symbols.
No Name QA's user avatar
13 votes
5 answers
3k views

When did IBM start to use ASCII?

I’m trying to figure out when IBM switched to ASCII and when ASCII became a worldwide standard. Moreover, did IBM make ASCII standard worldwide? What I have found: According to Wikipedia, IBM System /...
No Name QA's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
463 views

Is the "IBM standard character set manual" around?

From Wikipedia's code page article: Originally, the code page numbers referred to the page numbers in the IBM standard character set manual Is any version of this publication available? I'd be ...
Adám's user avatar
  • 659
32 votes
2 answers
4k views

Why wasn't EBCDIC designed with contiguous alphanumeric characters?

Inspired by this question on ASCII, I have wondered similar things about EBCDIC. At work we have an EBCDIC file that gets sent to a mainframe (I presume an IBM one) and to view it on my laptop I ...
Captain Man's user avatar