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000364_news@newsmaster….columbia.edu _Tue Dec 16 11:48:34 1997.msg
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From: fdc@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Frank da Cruz)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Subject: Re: Asian Language Support in Kermit95
Date: 16 Dec 1997 16:48:30 GMT
Organization: Columbia University
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Message-ID: <676bcu$7kp$1@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu>
References: <34958C77.D320DD1B@hp-santaclara-om3.om.hp.com>
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In article <34958C77.D320DD1B@hp-santaclara-om3.om.hp.com>,
John Graf <john_graf@hp-santaclara-om3.om.hp.com> wrote:
: Can someone give me a short tutorial on Asian terminals? What character
: sets are used? Are there some standard character sets (eg. Unicode)?
: For Windows, do the standard fonts work, or do you need special fonts
: that match the particular host application?
:
By Asian, you probably mean Chinese, Japanese, or Korean (often classed
together as "CJK"). For each, there is a long story, far too long to tell
here. But briefly, each of these writing systems is encoded in many
different and incompatible ways, according to national, international, and
vendor-specific standards or conventions.
Kermit protocol and software includes the ability to convert between
incompatible character sets. The repertoire of character sets that are
handled depends on the specific Kermit program and version, and the
function for which conversion is required. MS-DOS Kermit can, for
example, convert a fairly wide range of Japanese character sets (JIS X
0208, DEC Kanji, Japanese EUC, etc) to and from the native PC "Shift JIS"
code page, during both terminal emulation and file transfer.
C-Kermit, K95, and IBM Mainframe Kermit can convert Japanese character
sets during file transfer only, but have no explicit support for Chinese
or Korean.
The ability to handle CJK terminal emulation depends not only on the
Kermit software itself but also on the underlying operating system. For
example, MS-DOS Kermit's Kanji terminal emulation works only with DOS/V, a
Japanese version of DOS, which provides the Shift JIS display code page as
well as the keyboard input methods that allow switching among Roman,
Katakana/Hiragana, and Kanji, and entry of non-Roman characters using
Roman letters.
Kermit 95 contains no explicit support for CJK terminal emulation, but
that does not necessarily mean that it can't be used for this purpose.
The requirements would be:
a. The host uses the same character set as the PC (so Kermit 95 can
be told to SET TERMINAL CHARACTER-SET TRANSPARENT). This might be
Shift-JIS (CP982) or a Windows encoding.
b. The PC provides its own input and display methods. In the case of
Windows or OS/2, this generally means that a Chinese, Japanese, or
Korean version version of Windows or OS/2 must be installed. US
versions of these operating systems do not include CJK support; not
even Windows NT, which is Unicode based -- the CJK characters are
simply omitted from its monospace Unicode font (Lucida Console, the
only one suitable for terminal emulation).
We do not have any reports of successful CJK terminal emulation with K95
under these circumstances, nor do we have reports to the contrary.
However, we do know that MS-DOS Kermit, which does not contain any
explicit support for Chinese character sets (such as GB or Big5) can be
used for Chinese terminal emulation under the same conditions; see the
article on the subject in Kermit News #6:
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/newsn6.html#chinese
After the GUI version of Kermit 95 is released, we will be in position to
add explicit CJK support to K95; its present status as a console
application throws up numerous impediments to this.
- Frank
P.S. In addition to CJK, which are often classed together because they
share a (very) large number of Han / Kanji ideographs, there are, of
course, numerous other Asian character sets: the Indic sets, Thai,
Burmese, Lao, Vietnamese, and many others. Each of these has its own
story, and none are presently supported explicitly by Kermit software,
but any of them might still be used under the conditions noted above.