What went wrong in Python1.6 ?

[Rhymes]

I've just read this in "Dive Into Python" online book...

-------
Actually, Python has had unicode support since version 1.6, but
version 1.6 was a contractual obligation release that nobody likes to
talk about, a bastard stepchild of a hippie youth best left forgotten.
Even the official Python documentation claims that unicode was “new in
version 2.0. It's a lie, but, like the lies of presidents who say they
inhaled but didn't enjoy it, we choose to believe it because we
remember our own misspent youths a bit too vividly.
------

Now I ask my self: what went wrong in that release? Where i could find
some further infos about this "miscarriage" ?

thanks in advance

--
Rhymes
rhymes at myself.com
" ride or die "