Re: Unicode status
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
6 Dec 1996 05:18:57 GMT
Followup to: <m320dbzepr.fsf@kepler.no.net>
By author: Aaron Ucko <amu@mit.edu>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> > What I was thinking of was an extension to the output
> > handling. Especially it should be possible to write a graphics
> > mode console (like the TGA driver) that is capable of displaying
> > all characters. There are three + n problems to be solved to
> > implement this:
>
> Although this can certainly be done, it is by no means clear that it
> should be; true text modes are, and will always be, faster than
> comparable graphics modes. Linux already allows 512-character fonts;
> while 512 is certainly less than 65536, it is plenty for many people.
> Nevertheless, it shouldn't be too hard to get GGI to support it if
> people are interested and don't mind the relatively slow performance.
>
> As for fonts, somebody has produced a free font with a lot of Unicode
> characters; I don't remember where it is, though.
>
There is no need for GGI for this. If that performance level is
acceptable, a consoled will do plenty. I have had thoughts about
doing just that for a while, in particular to handle scripts with
mandatory ligation, such as Arabic and Devangari, as well as of course
CJK ideographs.
-hpa
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