Re: Bopomofo keyboards in Taiwan

Michael Everson wrote:

>
> At 13:40 -0400 2005-08-31, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > > No one manufactures keyboards without letters engraved on them.
> >
> >Seems like it might be cheaper to manufacture lots of identical keycaps
> >than 80 or so different keycaps as on a standard keyboard.
>
> The marketplace thinks other than you do, apparently.

Really? Has it been tried?

The typing classroom in every school in the country had 30 or 40
typewriters with blank keys. That's quite a market right there.

> > > >Vai, obviously, can't use a 47-key keyboard.
> >>
> >> I can type all 340 characters in my Vai +
> >> extended punctuation set, on a 47-key keyboard,
> >> just fine.
> >
> >And you're going to "engrave" all 340 symbols on the keycaps?
>
> No, because the keycaps are already engraved with Latin. T + A = TA.

WHY ARE YOU INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING. The "Latin" approach to typing
Vai is NOT a good (let alone ideal) solution -- because it would require
an entire different level of education to get syllabically-writing
people to grasp the concept of segmentation.

Is your local computer dealer going to provide these lessons along with
every unit sold?

> > > I wonder, idly, what you think you mean by that
> >> phrase, but it really doesn't matter to me. It's
> >
> >I mean someone who thinks the way he does something is the best way for
> >everyone else to do that something.
>
> I offer a suitable tool for inputting a large number of characters on
> hardware available.
>
> >Especially if he's a First World technocrat telling a Third World person
> >how to do that thing.
>
> Pish-posh. I am "telling" no one any such thing. And you've offered
> nothing constructive in this discussion.

None is so blind as he who will not see.

> >If they are told that it's the only way, then they have nothing to
> >measure it against.
>
> I have already said, many times, that if you or anyone else has an
> alternate scheme I would be interested in offering it as a choice to
> Vai users. None of you has got out your pencils and tried to meet the
> brief I set before you, so far.

There may be quite a few "anyone else"s to do so. I personally have no
knowledge of the Vai language or its relatives, and its script.

> > > This insinuation is contemptible. You have
> >> insulted me, and you have insulted the good Vai
> >> experts with whom we worked to encode this
> >> marvellous writing system.
> >
> >What's marvelous about it?
>
> How sad that you don't take joy in it.
>
> >Who _are_ your Vai contacts?
>
> They are named in the Vai proposal document which you have refused to read.
>
> >If they're not associated with the power elite, how did they get out
> >of the country?
>
> None of your damn business, I am sure.

If you won't identify your consultants (not merely by name, of course),
there is no way to evaluate how legitimately they represent the people
you claim they represent.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...