Code page: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:32, 15 January 2004

Revision as of 12:48, 16 February 2004

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[[fr:Page de code]]

'''Code page''' is the traditional [[International Business Machines|IBM]] term used for a specific variant of character coding for [[computer]]s. Although the basis of many character sets is [[ASCII]], ASCII was a seven bit code, with the 8-bit representation of ASCII either setting the top bit to zero or using it as a [[parity bit]]. Using this bit for data doubled the size of the possible character set, allowing another 128 characters to be added. No standard the existed for these "[[Extended ASCII|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: