31 To have Greek characters in my computer - Mac
Description
This article is from the Greece FAQ, by Nikolaos (Nick) C. Fotis, nfotis@theseas.ntua.gr with numerous contributions by others.
31 To have Greek characters in my computer - Mac
From: Stephan.Anagnostaras@um.cc.umich.edu
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I am a Mac user, and I noted an error on your FAQ. It suggests that Greek
Macs have a special ROM. This is not the case (as you could've guessed,
Apple isn't interested in producing 100 versions of 3 different ROMs).
Foreign-language is implemented through different versions of
the System, and are really only very minor modifications to
the System (just changing the menus and dialog boxes). The
keyboard translations are done through keyboard files, which
can be added to any system (so any system can be bilingual or
trilingual, etc., except you would need to mark up the keyboard).
Anyway, each international version of the system comes with the
proper keyboard installed, and you can add them as you please,etc.
All Apple systems up through 7.01 were free; there was a $35 charge
for 7.1 or if you were upgrading from an older system and wanted
to have the manuals. In any case, anyone can still get ANY
version of System 7.01 for free. Most international versions
are available from FTP.APPLE.COM (under software/mac/sys.soft)
via anonymous FTP. However, I'm not sure the Greek one is on there.
In any case, anyone should be able run it, provided they have
the proper uptodate version.
In any case, I'd recommend for most people in the US to just
use "Symbol" if they want to type in Greek every so often. If
they are in Greece, just copy the system disks and reinstall
the new system.
-- end
The MacOS is completely hellenized (menus, messages, etc.) and basic
applications are also hellenized and available with Greek font support
(eg. MS Word). If you have already a machine, and you want to add Greek
support, there are other solutions:
From: John Amanatides <amana@cs.yorku.ca>
-----------------------------------------
1) Linguist's Software has typefaces for a wide variety of world
languages and gives several options for those interested in Greek.
First, you can purchase the Greek operating system for the Mac version
6.0.3 (yes, those menus are now in Greek). This includes GrTimes and
GrHelvetica (Type 3) as well as several bit-mapped system fonts.
Second, if you just want to use Greek on your Mac, they offer GrTimes
and GrHelvetica in both Type1 and TrueType along with a keyboard driver
for System 7 (this is the same keyboard layout as the Greek OS; the
advantages of this is that you can exchange documents with Greek
Macs). Finally, they have their own TrueType and Type1 typefaces in
the LaserGreek package: SumbolGreek, Graeca+Graeca-Oblique,
SSuperGreek. These are of particular interest to Greek scholars since
they include extra dicriticals for ancient/N.T. Greek. LaserGreek +
Greek OS is $130, LaserGreek + GrTimes, GrHelvetica, and System 7
keyboard driver) is $140.
Linguist's Software
PO Box 580
Edmonds, WA 98020-0580
USA
(206) 775-1130
2) MacCampus of Germany provides Greek and other Eastern European
typefaces. The Greek typefaces come in two flavours: those that are
based on the official Apple Greek keyboard layout (for both Greek OS
Macs, and others when they have the appropriate keyboard driver) and
those based on the Symbol font layout. MacCampus provides a keyboard
driver so that you can use the former type on non-Greek Macs.
The typefaces available are:
Modern Greek (Greek layout):
GrTimes, GrHelvetica, GrCourier
Classical Greek (extra diacritics, Symbol layout):
Agora (serif, like GrTimes), Parmenides (light, sans-serif)
MacCampus typefaces are distributed by FontShop, which has offices in
many countries. The North American address is:
FontShop 401 Wellington St. West,
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5V 1E8
(416) 348-9837
Their international address is:
Bergmannsr. 102
D10961 Berlin
Germany
+49(030) 69 58 95
In general, you press the left-clover and Space keys to toggle
between Greek and English keyboard.
The 'left-clover' key is known in the Mac community as 'Command'
key. The trick should also work with the right Command-key on the Apple
Extended Keyboard. What happens when you do this is that you toggle the
'Keyboard' cdev (control device) from english to the local language. This
resides in the System Folder, and in theory you could rotate between more
than two keyboard mappings--e.g., greek, english, german and spanish. With
system 7 there is the inherent capability to include all available
'Keyboard' resources in a menu on the right side of the menu-bar of the
Finder, so that one could change the current setting easily. This has not
yet been fully implemented. If and when it does it will not affect the
individual application resources, in other words applications that are not
hellenized will not automatically become so.
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