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 EBCDIC

 EBCDIC

Pronounced as "ebb-see-dick", EBCDIC is another aiphanumeric code like ASCII. EBCDIC stands for Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code. It uses 9 bits for each character-eight bits for the character and an extra bit for the parity. It was originally developed by IBM (International Business Machines) and is now used to represent characters in many modern computers.

The major problem with BCD (Binary Code Decimal) code is that only 64 (29) different characters can be represented in it. This is not sufficient for providing decimal numbers (10), lower-case letters (26), capital letters (26), and a fairly large number of other special characters (28 +).

Hence, the BCD code was extended from a 6-bit code to an 8-bit code. The resulting code is called the Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange code (EBCDIC). In this code, it is possible to represent 256 (2o) different characters instead of 64 as in BCD code. In addition to the requirement of various characters mentioned above, EBCDIC code also allows a large variety of printable characters and several non-printable control characters.

The control characters are used to control such activities as printer vertical spacing, movement of cursor on the terminal screen, etc. All of the 256-bit combinations have not yet been assigned characters, so the code can still grow as new requirements develop.

Because EBCDIC is an 8-bit code, it can be easily divided into two 4-bit groups. Each of these 4-bit groups can be represented by 1 hexadecimal digit. Thus, hexadecimal number system is used as shortcut notation for memory dump by computers that use EBCDIC for internal representation of characters. This results in a one-to-four reduction in the volume of memory dump.

Developed by IBM, EBCDIC code is used in most IBM models and in many other computers.