Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 cce.zizkov AT volny.cz wrote:

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> On Wed, 12 May 2004, Paulo Orvalho wrote:
> 
> > I do load a font for the pt_PT.map keymap at startup
> > setfont lat4-16.psf...
> 
> Hurray!  It really helps to have people of different backgrounds in this
> mail list.  I work as a translator, and when I load Russian the lines also
> turn into A, or other extended ASCII characters (plus or minus) instead of
> the line drawing characters in the default upper ASCII set.
> 
> In console mode, semigraphic symbols use to be part of the 8bit
> character set. So you may get diacritical characters instead of lines
> and frames if you need non-English fonts. There are at least two
> workarounds:
> 
> 1. Most languages do not really need 255 differenct characters, but
> will be satisfied with a part of the 8bit set. So some fonts have
> been written that maintain semigraphic symbols and implement the 8bit
> characters only for a a certain language.
> 
> Example: Czech users of MC can load a reduced font (IIRC in console
> and even in X) that displays all the frames correctly while giving
> access to Czech characters, too. For Cyrillic this solution probably
> will not be possible, because there are too many Russian characters,
> covering almost the whole 128-255 range.

There are four Cyrillic fonts commonly in use.  Windows uses CP1251, there 
is ISO 1899-5 (both of these include non-Russian Cyrillic), KOI8 is just  
Russian (or there is a Ukrainian version of it) and then there is CP866.  
The first three put Cyrillic characters in extended ASCII 126-223 (or 
part of that range).  CP866 (original DOS Russian, I think) reserves that 
range for box characters.  It is what I usually load, but I must have got 
the odd-looking frames when experimenting with other fonts.

So I tried cp864, which provides a lot of Latin characters with 
diacritics, and it also preserves the box characters.  I am on my DOS 
computer right now so cannot look at what kbd.tgz provided but there is 
probably a cp864 or its equivalent in the large collection there.

If not, it can be copied from fntcol16.zip at simtel and used in linux.
You might need to remap the keyboard or something to use this font instead 
of lat4.

cp852 provides the E. European diacritics and also MOST Of the box 
characters are preserved but there are a few diacritics in the normal 
box-character range.  I guess there were just too many to avoid the range 
entirely.   4 a's with various squiggles attached (plus upper case).

> 
> 2. Mercyful software that allows to use 7bit semigraphical characters
> instead of 8bit frames, lines etc.
> 
> Example: If you start mc with parameter -a frames and lines are
> displayed only with -, +, and |.

This is clever.  I wish there were a way to also set all programs to 
display properly in mono.  When using the gui font-setting program for 
console mode I cannot read the first letter of each font on my mono VGA 
monitor.  Dark on dark.  Older DOS programs often had a mono switch.


> Regards
> Christof Lange
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
>  Christof Lange <cce.zizkov AT volny.cz>
>  Prokopova 4, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic
>  phone: (+420) 222 78 06 73 / 222 78 20 02
>  http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov
> 
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