[Indic-computing-users] (Fwd) From Kannada to keyboards - char density ?

[Dr. U.B. P. <pav...@vi...>]

Can someone answer this? I haven't heard of Oberon S3.

-Pavanaja

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From:           	ea...@ab...
To:             	pav...@vi...
Copies to:      	ea...@ab...
Subject:        	From Kannada to keyboards - char density ?
Date sent:      	Thu, 20 Mar 2003 06:27:39 -0800


Dr U B Pavanaja,
     I found my way to your URL via: 
     BBC: Ashok Khosla ->  "From Kannada to keyboards"

I'm trying to find out if it is feasible to add 'indian' 
scripts to
the operation system (Oberon S3) which I use. 

Because I intend to semi-retire in Kerala, Malayalam is the 
most
interesting to me.   Here is some dialogue that I had on the
user-groups and which shows my aims and my still unanswered 
question:
"How many Malalee/Kannada characters are displayed (average), 
with the
resolution of 80 latin chars per line ?"

some of my queries:  ----------
> >    Btw, the unicode chart does show how to render the basic
> > characters, but not all the glyphs. Please see
> > http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0D00.pdf
> 
> OK this is a MAJOR problem; 
> eg: Vowel 0D07 has 5 horizontal lines = 9 layers.
> And then if you accomodate the difference in line thicknesses,
> double this; to need 20 pixel high characters.   And retaining the
> traditional proportions, some chars will be 40 pixel wide.  You
> can't write many chars to a line.   How much info can Simputer's
> display show ?
> 
> If the char-set is like latin or Cyrillic (Russian) the task is
> trivial: Just go to an Keralan school(s) with a few scrap machines
> (oberon flies on 386 + 4Mb) and demonstrate to a few student: 1.
> select a new (possibly existing, to be modified) font-set-file. 2.
> select one (at a time) of the 256 char-values. 3. set the char size
> - matrix of pixels. 4. Draw the char as you think it should look by
> toggling the pixels. 5. save the new/updated pixel patterns in the
> chosen font-set-file.
> 
> After they have made the font-set and started writing stories, some
> will suggest improvements/modifications.  After some time a nice
> font-set will emerge.  This is not a technical task, rather an
> artistic one.
> 
> Native oberon runs: DOS based, linux based or StandAlone and is
> available free from the university: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/ As I
> remember the DOS based (recomended for beginners, since no separate
> partition is needed) installation is about 1.5 Mb A 3 button mouse
> is highly recomended.
> 
> As previously stated: my motivation is to build an Indian user base
> of oberon users, to add contributors which benefits me as a co-user.
> Also to help select staff for my projects.
> 
> As linux has great advantages over microsoft for India, oberon can
> even much more, leaverage low power (1st-world scrap) computers than
> linux.  Linux is very slow and bulky compared to single user
> multitasking oberon.    ----------------

NB. oberon is non-peemptive multitasking, with 'look and feel 
alike'
ports for dos-based, linux-based or stand-alone.  The 
simplest is to
just install the dos-based. 

Perhaps the oberon way of having a 'pixel matrix' for each 
char,
is not applicable ?    Are glyphs patterns: such that "b" an 
"p" could
be considered as being constructed by the same pair of 
glyphs, which
are repositioned ?

As noted above the existing Oberon makes writing latin, 
greek,
cyrillic fonts a trivial task and I want to leaverage 
existing
advantages.

This would be great for Indian schools especially considering 
the free
software and minimal hardware requirements.

Any opinions would be appreciated.  Thanks,


-- Chris Glur.  


------- End of forwarded message ----------------------------
--------------------------------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes