UTF-18

UTF-18 is a Unicode character encoding introduced by the standards document RFC 4042 in 2005. UTF-18 and its sibling UTF-9 allow for efficient coding of Unicode characters on machines based on 36-bit words, using 18 and 9 bits per code point, respectively. Although they are completely valid in a technical sense, they are largely humorous, as virtually all computers designed after the early-mid 1980s use word sizes of powers of two, making these encodings largely obsolete.

Links

 * RFC 4042
 * April Fools' Day Request for Comments: Very short Wikipedia entry on RFC 4042