Editing EBCDIC (section)

== Criticism and humor ==
{{Self-contradictory|othersection|date=May 2024}}
[[Open-source software]] advocate and software developer [[Eric S. Raymond]] writes in his ''[[Jargon File]]'' that EBCDIC was loathed by hackers, by which he meant<ref>{{cite web|url=http://manybooks.net/titles/anonetext02jarg422.html|title=The New Hacker's Dictionary|last=Raymond|first=Eric S.|year=1997|author-link=Eric S. Raymond|page=310}}</ref> members of a subculture of enthusiastic programmers. The Jargon File 4.4.7 gives the following definition:<ref name="CATB"/>
{{Blockquote|text = EBCDIC: /eb´s@·dik/, /eb´see`dik/, /eb´k@·dik/, n.
[abbreviation, Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code] An alleged character set used on IBM dinosaurs. It exists in at least six mutually incompatible versions, all featuring such delights as non-contiguous letter sequences and the absence of several ASCII punctuation characters fairly important for modern computer languages (exactly which characters are absent varies according to which version of EBCDIC you're looking at). IBM adapted EBCDIC from punched card code in the early 1960s and promulgated it as a customer-control tactic (see ''[[connector conspiracy]]''), spurning the already established ASCII standard. Today, IBM claims to be an [[open system (computing)|open-system]]s company, but IBM's own description of the EBCDIC variants and how to convert between them is still internally classified top-secret, burn-before-reading. Hackers blanch at the very ''name'' of EBCDIC and consider it a manifestation of purest evil.
|source=The Jargon file 4.4.7}}<!-- Public domain: [http://catb.org/jargon/quoting.html] -->

EBCDIC design was also the source of many jokes. One such joke, found in the Unix [[fortune (Unix)|fortune]] file of [[4.3BSD]] Reno (1990)<ref>{{citation|url=https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Reno/share/games/fortune/fortunes|title=4.3BSD-Reno/share/games/fortune/fortunes}}</ref> went:
{{Blockquote|text = ''Professor: "So the American government went to IBM to come up with an [[Data Encryption Standard|encryption standard]], and they came up with&mdash;"<br/>Student: "EBCDIC!"''}}

References to the EBCDIC character set are made in the 1979 computer game series ''[[Zork]]''. In the "Machine Room" in ''[[Zork II]]'', EBCDIC is used to imply an incomprehensible language:
{{Blockquote|text = This is a large room full of assorted heavy machinery, whirring noisily. The room smells of burned resistors. Along one wall are three buttons which are, respectively, round, triangular, and square. Naturally, above these buttons are instructions written in EBCDIC...}}

In 2021, it became public that a Belgian bank was still using EBCDIC internally in 2019. A customer insisted that the correct spelling of his surname included an [[Germanic umlaut|umlaut]], which the bank omitted, and the customer filed a complaint citing the guarantee in the [[General Data Protection Regulation]] of the right to timely "rectification of inaccurate personal data." The bank's argument included the fact that their system used EBCDIC, as well as that it did not support letters with [[diacritics]] (or lower case, for that matter). The appeals court ruled in favor of the customer.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=Court_of_Appeal_of_Brussels_-_2019/AR/1006| title = Court of Appeal of Brussels - 2019/AR/1006 - GDPRhub}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Eden |first=Terence |author-link=Terence Eden |date=25 October 2021 |title=EBCDIC is incompatible with GDPR – Terence Eden's Blog |url=https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/10/ebcdic-is-incompatible-with-gdpr/}}</ref>