Re: IIGS question: language specific character support.

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Deacon Blue <scavenger@apexmail.com> wrote:

> As I understand the Apple IIGS is fitted with a 'BIOS-like' control
> programme that may be entered during boot.

The Control Panel.  It can be accessed at boot time and also at almost
any time while the computer is running.

(Some settings changes will only take effect next time you reboot.)

> Will any IIGS machine be able to support  language specific
> keyboards/characters (for instance nordic type characthers) from this menu!,
> much like you would on a Mac or Win-system.

The built-in (text) Control Panel lets you select the display and
keyboard character sets, but the display character set only affects
software which uses text mode.  Any software which operates in graphical
modes, particularly native IIgs software which runs on a Mac-like
desktop, will ignore this setting.

The number of characters which are affected by the display language is
quite small: about six characters, if I remember right.  It doesn't give
you anything like a complete set of characters in the language.

When running native desktop software, the IIgs uses Mac-like fonts,
which have most of the accented characters required for western European
languages based on the Roman script.  

In the desktop environment, the IIgs also supports keyboard mapping
similar to the Mac, which lets you use the Option key to access the full
range of characters in each font.

I haven't played around with the keyboard language settings, and
experimentation with Bernie to the Rescue doesn't reveal anything useful
(except that it doesn't handle it properly).  My real IIgs isn't
particularly accessible at the moment.

I know that the keyboard language setting will affect text programs, but
I don't know what effect it has for desktop programs.

In case it is useful...

The available display languages are:

U.S.A.
U.K.
French
Danish
Spanish
Italian
German
Swedish

The available keyboard languages are all of the above plus:

Dvorak
French Canadian

> As with the other A2's this is done in the hardware.

The display and keyboard settings for text mode, yes.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P O Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand