BCD

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Binary-coded decimal

In computing and electronic systems, binary-coded decimal (BCD) is a class of binary encodings of decimal numbers where each decimal digit is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four or eight. Special bit patterns are sometimes used for a sign or for other indications (e.g., error or overflow).

In byte-oriented systems (i.e. most modern computers), the term unpacked BCD usually implies a full byte for each digit (often including a sign), whereas packed BCD typically encodes two decimal digits within a single byte by taking advantage of the fact that four bits are enough to represent the range 0 to 9. The precise 4-bit encoding may vary however, for technical reasons, see Excess-3 for instance. The ten states representing a BCD decimal digit are sometimes called tetrades (for the nibble typically needed to hold them also known as tetrade) with those don't care-states unused named pseudo-tetrad(e)s or pseudo-decimal digit).

BCD's main virtue is its more accurate representation and rounding of decimal quantities as well as an ease of conversion into human-readable representations, in comparison to binary positional systems. BCD's principal drawbacks are a small increase in the complexity of the circuits needed to implement basic arithmetics and a slightly less dense storage.

BCD (character encoding)

BCD ("Binary-Coded Decimal"), also called alphanumeric BCD, alphameric BCD, BCD Interchange Code, or BCDIC, is a family of representations of numerals, uppercase Latin letters, and some special and control characters as six-bit character codes.

Unlike later encodings such as ASCII, BCD codes were not standardized. Different computer manufacturers, and even different product lines from the same manufacturer, often had their own variants, and sometimes included unique characters. Other six-bit encodings with completely different mappings, such as Fieldata and Transcode, are sometimes incorrectly termed BCD.

Many variants of BCD encode the characters '0' through '9' as the corresponding binary values.

History

Technically, binary-coded decimal describes the encoding of decimal numbers where each decimal digit is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four.

With the introduction of the IBM card in 1928, IBM created a code capable of representing alphanumeric information, later adopted by other manufacturers. This code represented the numbers 0-9 by a single punch, and used multiple punches for upper-case letters and special characters. A letter had two punches (zone [12,11,0] + digit [1–9]); most special characters had two or three punches (zone [12,11,0,or none] + digit [2–7] + 8).