New Japanese Era Support for z/OS On April 30, 2019, the Japanese Heisei era will end and on May 1, a new era named Reiwa, will come into effect, reflecting a change to the Japanese imperial reign. Besides the new era name, a new ligature (symbol) has also been defined representing the Reiwa era. A new FIXCAT has been created to identify ++PTFs that provide new Japanese era support: Category Description Keyword IBM.Function.Reiwa Fixes that enable and support the new Japanese REIWA/K Reiwa era. For z/OS V2.1, V2.2 and V2.3, the following support has been identified: • PTF for APAR OA56512 which provides support for the new ligature in z/OS Unicode Services. • PTFs for APARs PH05611 and PH08908 which provides support for the new Japanese era name and ligature in Language Environment. • Web deliverable for the z/OS Font Collection which provides support for the new ligature in over 40 WorldType fonts. This support will be made available by April 26, 2019 from: http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/downloads/ • PTFs for APARs PH12469 and PH13040 which provides support for the new ligature in AFP Outline and AFP Raster fonts included in z/OS Font Collection. Other IBM products on the z/OS platform impacted by this include: • IBM Personal Communications (PCOMM). For availability of fixes, see: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10882282 • IBM Host On-Demand (HOD). For availability of fixes, see: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10882284 • IBM Host Access Transformation Services (HATS). For availability of fixes, see: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10882288 This Flash will be updated with additional information as it becomes available. Please check back periodically. © 2019, IBM, Washington Systems Center Version 8/18/2019 http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs z/OS: New Japanese Era Support Page 1 .