title: EBCDIC code page does not convert lower case 'a'
body: <p>I'm attempting to convert a string of characters from ASCII to EBCDIC using an IBM codepage. The conversion is correct except for lower case 'a' which is converted to an unprintable character.</p>
  
  <p>Here is a piece of a groovy script running in Windows 7 that illustrates the problem.</p>
  
  <pre><code>groovy:000&gt; letters='abcdABCD'
  ===&gt; abcdABCD
  groovy:000&gt; String.format("%04x", new BigInteger(1, letters.getBytes())
  ===&gt; 6162636441424344
  groovy:000&gt; lettersx=new String(letters.getBytes('IBM500'))
  ===&gt; ?éâä┴┬├─
  groovy:000&gt; String.format("%04x", new BigInteger(1, lettersx.getBytes()))
  ===&gt; 3f828384c1c2c3c4
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>After converting to EBCDIC all the characters in the string are valid except the first one, a lower case 'a'. Try as I might I can't find any information on this problem. I've tried a number of IBM code pages with the same results (IBM01140, IBM1047 etc.)</p>