EBCDIC
IBM's rival to ASCII.
Where it came from
EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code) was designed by IBM in 1963 for its System/360 mainframes. It evolved from punched-card codes and predates ASCII's final form.
IBM bet on it; the rest of the world bet on ASCII. Decades later, EBCDIC still runs on mainframes in banks and insurers — a legacy that refuses to die.
How it works
Like ASCII it is 8-bit, but the code points are arranged completely differently: 'A' is 0xC1 in EBCDIC but 0x41 in ASCII. Control characters sit in odd places.
Moving text between a mainframe and the web means translating the two. UWC converts EBCDIC ↔ ASCII in your browser for those legacy integrations.