From: kd@doc.ic.ac.uk (Kostis Dryllerakis)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: INTERNATIONALIZATION: JAPAN, FAR EAST
Date: 15 Dec 1992 15:14:29 GMT
Organization: Imperial College, London, U.K.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: sophia.doc.ic.ac.uk
Keywords: Han Kanji Katakana Hirugana ISO10646 Unicode Codepages


In article <1992Dec14.185028.9757@fcom.cc.utah.edu>, you write:
> I know a lot of the Japaneese 386BSD community can not email out of Japan,
> so this is an open letter to them, and to Atsushi MURAI and other people
> there who are active in this newsgroup.
> 
> What kind of internationalization would best enable you to use 386BSD?
> 
>       o       Kanji support?
>       o       Kana (Katakan/Hirugana) support?
> 
> ... rest of the article follows

        Although I know this is not exactly an answer to your question I would like
to point out that except from Japanese members of the BSD community there also exist
other nationalities with similar problems. Speaking for myself I can tell you my
wishes for an international version of BSD that will allow usage of greek character
sets. 

Point 1: One has to be able to enter latin and greek characters at the same
         time. The way it is currently done in greece is by extending the
         128 ASCII set to include the greek characters int the upper 128
         positions. All 8-bit clean programs can therefore at least output
         the greek chracters on screen. The produced character sets havebeen
         internationally accepted at ISO standards and at IBM internal standards
         (ELOT fonts). For PC with VGA (or higher specification) cards you will
         expect downaloadable fonts.

Point 2: In order to enter the greek characters together with the accented ones
         a keyboard driver at low level must handle the interaction toggling 
         at the press of a hot-key between greek and latin keyboard translation
         modes.

From these points two (simple enough) features will be needed: A console driver that
will allow font loading for the default font and a keyboard driver (customisable for
each country) that will allow remaping of the keyboard at kernel level. If the two 
points are followed then compatibility will be given with the current approaches in 
Greece.

        Preliminary attemps have already been made (I personally work under X-windows
with greek ISO-standard characters without many problems) but a coordinated effort
for internationalisation is indeed necessary. Note that the rest of the operating systems
are currently "externally touched" in order to support the greek language i.e.
bu hacking your way out.

	And for those who are worried about the further usage of greek in the
BSD system I beleive that enough tools exist to allow printing and editing of
greek based texts (groff, TeX and all the 8-bit clean utilities like vi).

Kostis

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K J Dryllerakis                                 Deparment    of    Computing
Logic Programming Group                         Imperial  College,    LONDON
Janet: kd @uk.ac.ic.doc                         Tel:  +44(71) 589 5111 x5089
Uucp : kd@icdoc.UUCP                            Internet:    kd@doc.ic.ac.uk
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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd