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UnicodeĀ® 1.0

Version 1.0 has been superseded by the latest version of the Unicode Standard.

The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, Volume 1 The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, Volume 2

Version 1.0 of the Unicode Standard consists of the core specification, The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, Volumes 1 and 2, and the code charts for this version. See also the Version 1.0.1 Notice Page.

The core specification gives the general principles, requirements for conformance, and guidelines for implementers. The code charts show representative glyphs for all the Unicode characters. This early version contained no machine-readable files for the Unicode Character Database; instead, the printed standard contained information about character properties and mappings.

A complete specification of the contributory files for Unicode 1.0 is found on the page Components for 1.0.1.


Online Edition

This online edition of The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, Volume 1 (ISBN 0-201-56788-1) and Volume 2 (ISBN 0-201-60845-6), provides a digital archive of this early version of the Unicode Standard, for historical purposes. To view the text, follow the navigation links on this page. Although this version is out of print, normative references to the Unicode Standard, Version 1.0 should continue to use the printed edition.

For this digital archive, both Volume 1 and Volume 2 are presented together. A full set of code charts was not available until the publication of Volume 2, so it does not make much sense to document Volume 1 alone.

Because the pdf files are scanned from hard copy, they are much larger than the pdf files for later versions, which were produced directly from the editing tools. Sizes of the individual chapters and other files are not individually noted, but most of them are large.

Overview

Unicode 1.0 is a major version of the Unicode Standard. It was the first published version of the standard.

The core specification, The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0 contains descriptions and properties for many characters. It was published prior to the publication of ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993. Volume 1 corresponds to Unicode Version 1.0.0, published in October, 1991. Volume 2 was published 8 months later. In addition to printing all of the unified CJK ideographs, Volume 2 made a number of small changes and corrections to Volume 1. At the time Volume 2 was published in mid 1992, the merger with ISO/IEC 10646 was already underway, but not all of the details of that merger had been fully decided. A few of the changes to the Unicode Standard specified in Volume 2 anticipated the merger, but more complete details were distributed in a separate short specification known as the Version 1.0.1 Notice Page.

Unicode 1.0 also contained some early implementation guidelines. Extensive mapping tables were printed in both volumes, including the earliest source references defining the Han unification. No online mapping tables or other property-related tables were posted online at the time, but starting in 1992 a diskette containing the mapping tables was made available on request from the Unicode Consortium office.

Unicode Character Database

Although no online data files were posted in 1992, and the format of UnicodeData.txt was not even invented until 1995, some information about character properties is now available for this Online Edition of Unicode 1.0. In 2004 an effort was made to reconstruct the likely intent of the Unicode Technical Committee regarding character properties for Unicode 1.0, using the UnicodeData.txt format, to facilitate comparison with later versions of the standard.

  1. Reconstructed Version 1.0.0 UnicodeData.txt
  2. Reconstructed Version 1.0.1 UnicodeData.txt

Those two reconstructed data files contain extensive caveats regarding their use. Note that the data they contain did not yet exist when Unicode 1.0 implementations were under development. The property values were reconstructed long after the fact, and are only posted for historical interest and research. The Version 1.0.0 data file is limited to the repertoire documented in Volume 1 of Unicode 1.0. The Version 1.0.1 data file includes the unified CJK ideographic repertoire from Volume 2 of Unicode 1.0, as well as the limited changes for Version 1.0.1 that were published in Section 1.3, Specific Changes to Align Code Positions and Repertoire in Volume 2. The Version 1.0.1 data file does not include the more extensive and detailed changes for Version 1.0.1 that were specified in the Version 1.0.1 Notice Page and which anticipated the Unicode 1.1 Unicode Character Database.