© 1981 by British Computer Society
An ideographic language front end processor for accessing English language computer systems
Man-Machine Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering Science, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
A scheme is described which enables users to interact with a timesharing computer in an ideographic language such as Chinese. The host computer runs a completely unmodified English-based operating system, the necessary translation being performed by a preprocessing microcomputer which constitutes the ideographic terminal. The two systems communicate through a serial line, and the host sees the preprocessor as an ordinary (English) terminal. After brief consideration of the terminal's keyboard and display, we examine the software problems of translation for five examples subsystems an interpreted programming language, text editor, document preparation software, interactive data base management system, and the command level of the operating system itself.
Received December 1979.
* Man-Machine Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, Essex