Sixbit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sixbit refers to various character codes designed for use on computers with word lengths a multiple of 6. There are 64 possible codes, so sixbit codes generally include only the upper-case letters, the numerals, a collection of punctuation characters, and sometimes control characters.
- Alphanumeric Binary-coded decimal, used by IBM. This was replaced by the 8-bit EBCDIC code when System/360 standardized on 8-bit bytes.
- Digital Equipment Corporation sixbit. This is simply the ASCII character codes from 32 to 95 coded as 0 to 63; it includes the space, punctuation characters, numbers, and uppercase letters, but no control characters. Since it included no control characters (not even end-of-line), it was not used for general text processing, but only for names such as filenames and assembler symbols.
- Fieldata, used by UNIVAC's 1100-series computers. These systems used a 36-bit word (capable of storing 6 Fieldata characters).
