On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 11:53:33AM -0500, Ambrose Li [CCCGT] wrote: > I noticed while searching for something that it was felt that > the original Big5 is "not used anywhere in the world", and this > feeling was put into the POD of some perl module. Unfortunately, > this statement is false.
I'm responsible for that statement. :-)
> Pre-OS-X MacOS's by default (by which I mean the system fonts
> which come with these OS's) use this original encoding.
Interesting. Under my impression, MacOS9 uses the 'MacChineseTrad'
encoding (supported by Encode.pm), instead of the Big5-1984
standard. Whilst it indeed lack the Eten/CP950 extensions, it also
contains Apple-specific percularities that are not included
in Big5-1984, as documented here:
http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/APPLE/CHINTRAD.TXT
In particluar, its use of 0x81/0x82 as metric-indicating characters
and shortening of the lead byte range to 0xA1-0xAC differ from TCA/RDEC's
original spec. Also, its use of PUA characters as variant tags is
different with other organization's Big5 maps.
Hence, imho, it would be a stretch to call the MacChineseTrad encoding
the original Big5-1984, although it is probably the closest to it.
Thanks,
/Autrjius/
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