EBCDIC is the character encoding the rest of the computing world left behind, but mainframes never did. This converter translates between ASCII text and IBM EBCDIC code page 037 in both directions, byte by byte.
How it works
EBCDIC maps each character to a single 8-bit value, but the layout is nothing like ASCII. Encoding looks each ASCII character up in the CP037 table and emits its EBCDIC byte in hex; decoding reverses the lookup:
text → CP037 table → EBCDIC hex bytes
hex → reverse CP037 → ASCII textThe critical gotcha is that letters are not contiguous. In CP037 the letters A to I, J to R, and S to Z sit in separate blocks with gaps between them, so incrementing a byte does not move to the next letter as it would in ASCII.
Tips and notes
- Always confirm the code page. CP037 is the US English variant; other countries use different EBCDIC pages that map punctuation differently.
- When decoding, separate bytes with spaces or commas, for example
C8 85 93 93 96. - Never assume alphabetical arithmetic on EBCDIC bytes — use the table, which is exactly what this tool does.