Question

Consider the following statements.

1. ASCII is a character encoding standard.
2. Unicode was developed to support characters from many languages.
3. EBCDIC is commonly associated with IBM systems.

• A. 1 and 2 only
• B. 2 and 3 only
• C. 1, 2 and 3
• D. 1 only

Answer 1

Answer:

C. 1, 2 and 3

Character Encoding Standards

• ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange): A 7-bit character encoding scheme that represents 128 characters, including English alphabets, numerals, and control codes. It is the fundamental standard for early telecommunications and computing.
• Unicode: A universal character encoding standard designed to represent text from virtually all human languages. Unlike ASCII, it uses variable-length encodings (like UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32) to accommodate over 149,000 characters, including emojis and historical scripts.
• EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code): An 8-bit character encoding developed by IBM in 1963. It was primarily used on IBM mainframe and midrange systems. It is structurally distinct from ASCII, which causes significant compatibility issues when data is transferred between mainframe and non-mainframe environments.

Key Comparative Data

1. ASCII: Limited to 128 (7-bit) or 256 (Extended ASCII) characters.
2. Unicode: Supports internationalization (i18n) by providing a unique code point for every character across multiple scripts.
3. Compatibility: Most modern systems utilize UTF-8 (a part of the Unicode standard) as the default encoding to ensure seamless interoperability across platforms, while EBCDIC remains largely restricted to legacy IBM architecture.