GB 18030-2000 is a new Chinese standard that specifies an extended codepage and a mapping table to Unicode. GB 18030 was first published on March 17, 2000. After feedback from the worldwide software industry, the codepage was changed, and a new mapping table was released on November 30, 2000. The text of the standard is expected to be republished in March of 2001.
This codepage standard is important for the software industry because China has mandated that any software application that is released for the Chinese market after a certain date must support GB 18030. Initially, this date was specified as January 1, 2001. It has been changed to September 1, 2001. |
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