🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul24.012801.27893@news2.cis.umn.edu>,
saranen@epx.cis.umn.edu (David Saranen) writes:
>I've been exchanging e-mail for about a year in cyrillic, but the
>methods have been very system-dependent. I've been corresponding with
>a programmer in Russia who has written a program to send e-mail
>in mixed English/Russian using roman/cyrillic using only 7-bit
>characters.  The program works now, but the user must highlight areas
>to be displayed in cyrillic. The untranslated cyrillic is readable
>(with some difficulty). We are now trying to automate the translation
>process, so that text typed by the sender in cyrillic appears to the reader
>in cyrillic.  That should be completed in a few weeks.  
>
>The next step is to a MIME reader that will handle multiple languages
>or character sets - dependent only upon both parties having the 
>appropriate fonts and character encoding schemes. 

What does MIME mean please?

>
>The program already has a user configurable keyboard. Currently it runs
>on a pc under windows, but I'm looking to port it to X-windows and
>motif. One of the problems with cyrillic is that there are too many
>standards. The encoding used at least has the benefit of being common
>in Russia on pc's. Extensions to use other fonts will be an interesting
>experience.  The program should be available for beta testing hopefully
>in August.  I will post again when the program is available.
>
>I'd also be interested in hearing from people working on MIME, on
>pc's, and anyone interesting in extensions for Mac's or Amigas.
>Thanks
>-Dave
>saranen@epx.cis.umn.edu

I seem to remember seeing it mentioned that Arthur C. Clarke had
put in one of his novels, the one about the United States Quincentennial
celebrations, published around the time of the Bicentennial of 1976,
the concept of a keyboard with keys that each had an array
of small light emitting diodes in them, so that the keyboard plan
that one wished to used would be software selectable and the designs
of the characters would be lit up on the keys.

I have often wondered whether anyone has ever made a keyboard of
this type, even as just an experiment, as the light emitting diode
arrays are widely available.

This would surely be a keyboard of great usefulness for anyone wishing
to use English, Cyrillic and Indian languages on different occasions.