The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code) is a binary coding scheme developed by International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation for the operating systems within its larger computers. EBCDIC is a method of assigning binary number values to characters (alphabetic, numeric, and special characters such as punctuation and control characters). In the early 1960s IBM adapted EBCDIC from punched-card code. EBCDIC was the code for text files used in IBM's OS/390 operating system for its S/390 servers, and continues to be used by corporations for their legacy applications and data (those that have been inherited earlier generations of technology).
EBCDIC is functionally similar to the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) coding scheme that is widely used with smaller computers. However, IBM's PC and workstation operating systems do not use EBCDIC but the industry-standard ASCII code. Conversion programs permit different operating systems to change a file back and forth between EBCDIC and ASCII.
In an EBCDIC file, each character is represented by an 8-bit binary number (a byte), thus allowing for the encoding of 28 = 256 possible characters. This is in contrast to the 7-bit binary number (128 possible characters) used in the standard ASCII format. Although EBCDIC is not widely used with personal computers, it is well-known and internationally recognized, primarily as an IBM code for the corporation's mainframes and minicomputers. EBCDIC currently exists in at least six mutually incompatible versions. Although most characters are the same in ASCII and EBCDIC, some ASCII characters do not exist in EBCDIC (e.g., square brackets--[]) and EBCDIC contains some characters (e.g., the "cent" sign--¢--and the "not" sign--¬) that are not in ASCII.