Bible for Macs; Sanskrit wordprocessing (65)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Thu, 20 Apr 89 00:09:16 EDT


Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 862. Thursday, 20 Apr 1989.


(1) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 89 06:17:32 PDT (9 lines)
From: Hanna Kassis <USERHEK@UBCMTSG.BITNET>
Subject: CD-ROM of biblical texts for Mac? (21)

(2) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 89 13:23 (31 lines)
From: Wujastyk (on GEC 4190 Rim-C at UCL) <UCGADKW@EUCLID.UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Sanskrit word processors for the PC

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 89 06:17:32 PDT
From: Hanna Kassis <USERHEK@UBCMTSG.BITNET>
Subject: CD-ROM of biblical texts for Mac? (21)

The entire text of the Hebrew Bible (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) is
available for the McIntosh. I have never used it (I am not a Mac user).
A descriptive blurb, MacHebrew Scriptures (US$ 99.95) and McHebrew
Scriptures Converter ($US 79.95) art available from Linguist's Software,
PO Box 580, Edmonds WA 98020-0580, Tel. (206) 775-1130.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------35----
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 89 13:23
From: Wujastyk (on GEC 4190 Rim-C at UCL) <UCGADKW@EUCLID.UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Sanskrit word processors for the PC

Dear Jude,

I saw your query on HUMANIST about your colleague's need for a
word processor for Marathi under DOS. Multilingual Scholar
and ChiWriter are both possibilities. In both, you see the
Devanagari on the screen. This is usually a necessity for
speakers of the languages. I have not used either, so I am afraid
I can't really advise. But my understanding is that both are good.
There are others too, such as Duan Huang (sp?), which similarly
drive the screen in graphics mode. See JJ Hughes, Bits, Bytes & Biblical
Studies, for references and critiques.

Scholars trained in the West would
often prefer to type a standard transliteration, and have the
PC turn it into Devanagari for them. This is *much* easier
and faster than typing Devanagari itself, which requires
tons of SHIFTed, ALTed and CTRLed keys. The only satisfactory
system I know of for the transliteration approach is TeX. TeX
is available free for the PC (I am thinking of SBTeX, with a
Beebe driver and the DVIEW previewer), but the Devanagari fonts
have to be bought for $119 (see my article in TUGboat 9.2).
You will also need help from another TeX user to get started:
the learning curve is steep. But the results one gets from TeX
in terms of quality and flexibility of output are unbeatable by
any other system today, and I include Monotype.

Dominik

[A humorous aside. To the question, "Can it be done with TeX?" the
answer is invariably "Yes!" To the question, "Is it easy?" the
answer is invariably, "No!" As Dominik says, however, the results
are quite good. --W.M.]