Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
EBCDIC

    /eb's*-dik/, /eb'see`dik/, /eb'k*-dik/,
   /ee`bik'dik`/, /*-bik'dik`/ (EBCDIC) A proprietary 8-bit
   character set used on IBM dinosaurs, the AS/400, and
   e-Server.

   EBCDIC is an extension to 8 bits of BCDIC (Binary Coded
   Decimal Interchange Code), an earlier 6-bit character set used
   on IBM computers.  EBCDIC was [first?] used on the successful
   System/360, anounced on 1964-04-07, and survived for many
   years despite the almost universal adoption of ASCII
   elsewhere.  Was this concern for backward compatibility or,
   as many believe, a marketing strategy to lock in IBM
   customers?

   IBM created 57 national EBCDIC character sets and an
   International Reference Version (IRV) based on ISO 646 (and
   hence ASCII compatible).  Documentation on these was not
   easily accessible making international exchange of data even
   between IBM mainframes a tricky task.

   US EBCDIC uses more or less the same characters as ASCII,
   but different code points.  It has non-contiguous letter
   sequences, some ASCII characters do not exist in EBCDIC
   (e.g. square brackets), and EBCDIC has some (cent sign,
   not sign) not in ASCII.  As a consequence, the translation
   between ASCII and EBCDIC was never officially completely
   defined.  Users defined one translation which resulted in a
   so-called de-facto EBCDIC containing all the characters of
   ASCII, that all ASCII-related programs use.

   Some printers, telex machines, and even electronic cash
   registers can speak EBCDIC, but only so they can converse with
   IBM mainframes.

   For an in-depth discussion of character code sets, and full
   translation tables, see Guidelines on 8-bit character codes
   (ftp://ftp.ulg.ac.be/pub/docs/iso8859/iso8859.networking).

   A history of character codes
   (http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/characcodehist.html).

   Here is a simple translation table:

   	   Least significant nibble ->

   	   0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
   	0  ... controls ...
   	1
   	2
   	3                 ... controls ...
   	4      â ä à á ã å ç ñ ¢ . < ( + |
   	5  & é ê ë è í î ï ì ß ! $ * ) ; ^
   	6  - / Â Ä À Á Ã Å Ç Ñ ¦ , % _ > ?
   	7  ø É Ê Ë È Í Î Ï Ì ` : # @ ' = "
   	8  Ø a b c d e f g h i « » ð ý þ ±
   	9  ° j k l m n o p q r ª º æ ¸ Æ ¤
   	A  µ ~ s t u v w x y z ¡ ¿ Ð [ Þ ®
   	B  ¬ £ ¥ · © § ¶ ¼ ½ ¾ Ý ¨ ¯ ] ´ ×
   	C   A B C D E F G H I ­ ô ö ò ó õ
   	D   J K L M N O P Q R ¹ û ü ù ú ÿ
   	E  \ ÷ S T U V W X Y Z ² Ô Ö Ò Ó Õ
   	F  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ³ Û Ü Ù Ú

   E.g. the EBCDIC code for "A" is hexadecimal "C1".

   (2002-03-03)