Code page
Code page is the traditional IBM term used for a specific variant of character coding for computers. Although the basis of many character sets is ASCII, ASCII uses a parity bit that is no longer used. Using this bit for data doubles the size of the possible character set, allowing another 128 characters to be added. No standard exists for these "extended character sets", and IBM referred to the variants as code pages.
Although IBM maintained a myriad of code pages, the term has in general use taken on the meaning character coding for the IBM PC. Since the original IBM PC code page was not really designed for international use, several incompatible variants emerged:
- 437 -- Original PC extended character set
- 850 -- Multilangual
- 858 -- Multilangual with euro
- 860 -- Portugal
- 865 -- Nordic
- 868 -- Urdu
- 899 -- Symbol
- 904 -- Taiwan
- 1088 -- Revised Korean
- 1114 -- Taiwan
The IBM PC code pages have now been obsolted by international standards, specifically ISO 8859-1 and Unicode.
Other code pages of note are:
- 10000 -- Macintosh Roman (followed by several other Mac character sets)
- 12000 -- Unicode little-endian, 12001 big-endian
- 20000 -- CNS Taiwan, followed by other national character sets