Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 92 19:15:22 PST
From:         "James M. Lindenberger" <USERJML@UBCMTSG.BITNET>
Subject:      Hebrew Woes
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.notabene

As a relative newcomer to the list, I have been reading the mail
for several weeks without contributing.  There have been a number
of general comments on problems with Lingua, especially in
Hebrew, but I wonder whether anyone has had the precise difficuties
I have encountered.

There are odd problems in writing and printing pointed Hebrew.
Specifically, if I write the only the consonants of a text
and then go back to add vowel points, what frequently
happens is that when I put the cursor on a given consonant and
press the key for the vowel, nothing happens.  No composite
character appears, no separate vowel, nothing!  Repeated keystrokes
make no difference.  Neither does moving the cursor about and
returning it to the same place, or toggling the various font
pools.  The behavior is inconsistent--frequently typing the
FIRST vowel in a word replaces the consonant character in the the
display to the correct composite character, but the SECOND vowel
will not function.

Sometimes a stand-alone vowel WILL appear, but several spaces
away from the cursor (the exact location is unpredictable).
It makes no difference whether I am in overstrike or
insert mode, or whether I am working in columns or not.

For some reason, if I move the cursor to the bottom of the file
and type the needed vowel as a stand-alone character (or if I
type another consonant elsewhere), then move the cursor back to
the original text and retype the desired vowel, the correct com-
posite character will invariably appear.  What is going on here?

There are also problems printing mixed fonts (pointed Hebrew-
Greek-Roman) with the Toshiba P321SL driver.  The first few lines
of Hebrew are OK, then I start getting upper ASCII characters
instead of some of the Hebrew signs (usually vowels), a few at first,
then gradually more and more.  Where there is Greek on the same
page (either below the Hebrew or in columns parallel to it), a
few of the Greek characters behave similarly, but the corruption
is on a smaller scale.  The same fault occurs in both 10
and 12-pitch.  It is less likely to occur when the Hebrew is
purely consonantal, but once it starts, it gets worse and worse.

What is particularly odd is the apparently cumulative character
of the fault, and its lack of consistency.  Once a given com-
posite character misprints, it tends to continue to do so.  For
example, in the first occurrence of "Hoshea," the word printed
OK.  At the second occurrence of the name, the SHIN + TSERE
printed as <ASCII 176> where the SHIN should be and <ASCII 177>
below it instead of the TSERE.  Later in the same line, where
there is BETH/DAGESH + SHEVA, the BETH/DAGESH prints correctly,
but the SHEVA is replaced in the printout by <ASCII 178>.  There
are so many possible permutations that I would have to experiment
a lot more to determine whether there are specific consonant +
vowel combinations that trigger the problem.

There is certain a logic to it:  for each of the first nine
misprints, the printed character is ONE ASCII NUMBER HIGHER than
the previous misprint, regardless of what the character was sup-
posed to be.  Then the sequence starts over.  Those must be the
slots Lingua downloads to.

The text file itself is not corrupted.  It will print perfectly
well on an HP II laser printer.

As I understand it, for printing with Lingua on a dot matrix
printer, ALL characters are downloaded in a constant stream, but
something is triggering a few of the resident characters to print
instead.  The trigger is related to printing in parallel columns.
If I have 3 columns on the first part of the page (with text in
English - Greek -  Hebrew), and additional Hebrew text below the
end of the columns, the non-columnar Hebrew text is scrambled as
described.  But if I block in the same non-columnar Hebrew text
and print it alone, without the preceding columns, it comes out
correct!

Can this possibly have something to do with a sporadic overflow
of the print buffer, or the like?  I can borrow a card to
increase printer memory, and see what happens.  It is too inter-
mittent a problem to be a simple matter of errors in the
Toshiba printer file as there were in my NB3.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem, and were you able to do
anything about it?

Jim Lindenberger
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, B.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------

P.S.

As one of the world's latest recipients of NB4 (did I see
recently there are some people still waiting?), I have what must
be close to the latest updated versions of the pertinent files
(details below).

Printer Files:
    T24-ML    PRD         964    AUG-26-92   1:16p
    T24-ML    PRN       12796    OCT-31-92   9:01a
    T24-ML    PRS         476    JAN-28-92   8:04p

Printer Font Files:
    T24-10    FNT       64282    AUG-26-92   4:08p
    T24-12    FNT       58598    AUG-26-92   4:11p
_________________________________________________________________

P.P.S.--See you at AAR/SBL.