Final Report: Ad Hoc Committee on Standardization of Computer Keyboards for Cyrillic

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Final Report: Ad Hoc Committee on Standardization of Computer Keyboards for CyrillicAuthor(s): Barry ScherrSource: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), pp. 84-95Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/307927 .

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FINAL REPORT: AD HOC COMMITTEE ON STANDARDIZATION OF COMPUTER KEYBOARDS FOR CYRILLIC

Barry Scherr, Dartmouth College

Introduction The task of standardizing computer keyboards for Cyrillic is necessary but difficult. The necessity arises from the proliferation of keyboards already in use. While a degree of chaos may be healthy and is certainly preferable to a state of completely stagnant order, too much chaos presents its own set of obstacles-those familiar with one piece of equipment will find it difficult to use another efficiently, and the transfer of information from one system to another becomes complex if not impossible. The difficulty results from a number of causes, not the least of which is fitting a 33-character alphabet onto keyboards designed for a 26-character alphabet. There have already been various solutions to this problem, but they too only complicate matters, for it is necessary to choose from among a host of possible schemes, all of which have strong advocates (and often detractors). The size of keyboards also varies, generally anywhere from forty-four to forty-eight keys. Arriving at a standardized keyboard turns out to be virtually impossible. Furthermore, we are dealing with a field that is still evolving rapidly. Even typewriters, which changed little during the past two or three decades, have become part of the computer age. Electronic typewriters, many of them able to serve as printers for computers, often have capabilities that few would have thought possible a short while ago. The so-called micro (or personal) computers can be quite powerful and versatile. No doubt some of our (and for that matter the industry's) standards will undergo future evo- lution as the capabilities of the equipment continue to expand. This docu- ment is intended not to be the final word but to provide the order necessary for the efficient use of computers by those interested in Russian.

As the Committee began its work, two problems related to our original task came to the fore. At first we were considering only a standardized keyboard for Russian, yet it is clear that many in our field are concerned with other East European languages. Our Committee ended up addressing this question only in passing, but we do have some recommendations to 84 SEEJ, Vol. 29, No. 1 (1985)



Computer Keyboards for Cyrillic 85

make in the third section of our report. The second issue is standardization of ASCII codes for Cyrillic. Since the codes determine how a computer stores information and are therefore critical for the transfer of data between different computers, we found it necessary to deal with this topic first. Thus three problems are discussed in this report:

1) standardization of ASCII codes; 2) standardization of keyboards; 3) East European languages other than Russian.

In our efforts to formulate recommendations that would achieve the widest possible support, we observed several principles. The first, and per- haps the most important, was to follow existing standards as closely as possible. To some extent this approach was dictated by necessity. For instance, the International Standards Organization (ISO) has indicated that it would not accept any suggestions regarding ASCII codes that did not closely adhere to the Soviet standard now in effect. The second principle was to consider practicality when choosing between competing standards. Thus placement of the period and of the underline keys follows that used by most American manufacturers, since regular typewriters often have repeating keys in those positions. The keyboard layouts discussed in section two of this report all try to stay close to the most widely used schemes, with variations dictated by the special requirements of trying to compromise between the most widely used Soviet and American approaches. The third principle was, wherever possible, to limit unusual placements of keys and changes in the ASCII code to symbols and the least common letters. The fourth principle, also important, was to suggest dual solutions for certain issues. This sort of compromise seemed to make more sense than to suggest a single standard that some would refuse to follow. Finally, we tried to make the dual solutions as compatible as possible, in order to reduce the chaos to a minimum.

I. Standardizing the ASCII Code for Cyrillic ASCII (American National Standard Code for Information Interchange) is the American system for coding information to allow for exchanging data among various computers and other processing equipment. ASCII in turn is compatible with the systems used by other countries; the ISO ensures that national codes adhere to an international standard. As Appendix I illus- trates, ASCII character codes may be represented by decimal, octal (base 8), or hexadecimal (base 16) numbers. Decimal numbers are often the easiest to employ for ordinary usage, though the binary system on which all com- puting is based makes octal or hexadecimal numbers much more conve- nient for technical purposes. In the standard ASCII code only numbers 33 through 126 (here and elsewhere decimal numbers will be used when refer- ring to ASCII codes) are reserved for signs, numbers, and letters; zero



86 Slavic and East European Journal

through 32 and 127 have special functions. These 128 possibilities represent two raised to the seventh power and are all that some of the smaller home computers can handle. The more powerful machines (such as the IBM PC and most of the other newer computers) are equipped to deal with characters expressed by eight bits (or two raised to the eighth power-256). In this extended ASCII code the numbers 128 through 175 (80 through 10F in hexadecimal) are sometimes used to represent the letters with diacritical marks found in certain West European languages (thus 133 is the value for a, 164 for n) as well as special signs, such as ¢. Numbers 176 through 255 are generally reserved for representations of patterns and mathematical signs, but these eighty numbers are also available for assignment to other characters. Indeed, use of the entire extended range (128 through 255) is far less regularized than is that of the standard portion.

The Soviet Union's equivalent of an ASCII standard for Cyrillic can be seen in the last four columns (12 through 15) of Appendix II. Note that it requires an extended ASCII code, since it uses numbers 192 through 254 (120 through 15E in hexadecimal). Also, letters are assigned values not in order of the Cyrillic alphabet, but roughly in that of the Latin alphabet. Albert Todd of Queens College has been developing an extended ASCII code for the ISO; it follows the Soviet order, adds the capital hard sign at the bottom of column 11, and includes the letters found in the Cyrillic alphabets other than Russian. Since this proposal appears to be close to adoption by the ISO, Appendix II is recommended by this Committee as the standard ASCII code for Cyrillic.

At the same time numerous machines that cannot handle characters in the extended ASCII code are still in use, and will be for some time to come. In such cases an ASCII code that replaces Latin characters with Cyrillic is recommended (see Appendix I). The order here also follows current Soviet practice, but the underline number retains its function so that the small hard sign is represented by number 42. In this code 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 60, and 62 are used to represent letters or signs that are important for Russian; the signs that they displace would normally not be needed for typing in Cyrillic. While the order is not exactly the same as in Appendix II, the differences are sufficiently minor so that the transfer of data could still be carried out with only a minimum of difficulty. The problem of dealing with texts that employ both Cyrillic and Latin letters is treated as part of a more general issue in section III of this report.

One major drawback to the Soviet standard (and hence to both the recommendations made above) should be noted. Programs that are written to alphabetize lists make use of the order in which ASCII values have been assigned to English letters. Generally a program will convert all upper case letters to lower by adding 32 to any capitals that occur, and will then arrange the list in increasing order of ASCII values. Thus jones (j = 106) is




placed before smith (s = 115), etc. Alphabetization is, of course, important for programs that are used to create vocabulary lists, bibliographies, etc. Since the Cyrillic letters are not assigned values in order of the Cyrillic alphabet, it will be more complicated to alphabetize Cyrillic lists. However, programming routines to cope with this problem are readily available on mainframe computers and minicomputers; they are now beginning to appear for microcomputers.

II. Standard Keyboards for Cyrillic The regularization of keyboards for Cyrillic is important both as a convenience, so that it will not be necessary to learn to type again whenever a different machine is used, and as an aid to those in the industry, so that both hardware (e.g., the "daisy wheels" for printers and electronic typewriters) and some of the specialized software can be standardized. At the same time it is now possible to reprogram individual keys on most personal computers; therefore, if an individual should strongly disagree with the standard keyboards recommended below, it will still be possible to design one's own configuration for personal use.

It has proven impossible to reach a consensus on any single configuration for the keyboard. Those who are primarily interested in computer- assisted instruction and related uses tend to favor a letter-by-letter transliteration system; the main rationale is that such a system is easier for students to learn. On the other hand, those who themselves type well in Cyril- lic or who plan to use computers primarily for word processing almost unanimously prefer the Soviet keyboard, or something close to it. Our solution is to propose two basic configurations: a Standard Cyrillic Keyboard, which is modeled on the Soviet layout, and a Student Cyrillic Keyboard, which employs a transliteration system. Appendices III through VI indicate both Standard and Student layouts for 47-key machines and 44-key machines. Many electronic typewriters and some computer keyboards have 46 keys; recommendations for those will be made below in discussing the 47- key layouts. Also, electronic typewriters as well as computer keyboards fre- quently are capable of producing extra characters on at least some of their keys, so that some of the sacrifices made in designing the layouts (especially for the 44-key machines) may eventually prove unnecessary as newer equipment becomes the norm.

Both the 47-key designs in the appendices are based on the keyboard that is used for the IBM PC. The Apple Macintosh also has 47 keys, but the key at the right end of the third row in Appendix III appears there at the left end of the first row; the key at the left end of the fourth row in Appen- dix III is at the right end of the second row on the Macintosh. Thus the rows on the Macintosh have 13, 13, 11, and 10 keys; those on the IBM PC have 12, 12, 12, and 11. To place the 47-key Standard Cyrillic Keyboard




onto the Macintosh computer, it will be necessary to move the %/= key from the extreme left of the bottom row to the left of the top row, while the E would move up one row. In the case of the Student Cyrillic Keyboard, the key at the right end of the fourth row would appear at the left end of the first row on the Macintosh, while that at the right end of the third row would be moved up to the right end of the second row. Similar adjustments would have to be made on other types of machines, such as the Kaypro, which have still different layouts for their keyboards.

Both Standard Keyboards (Appendices III and IV) place numbers in the lower case and signs in the upper case. Soviet keyboards (see Appendix VII) do the opposite. This change is made to reflect common American usage and was not objected to by anyone on our Committee. All four layouts place the period and the underline/hyphen key in the same location to take advantage of the placement for repeating keys on many American typewriters. All the configurations also include two signs not found on Soviet typewriters: a semicolon and an acute accent. These are both on the same key for the 47-key layouts; on the 44-key, the semicolon is above the 7 and the acute sign above the 6. The latter is also specified for value 39 of the ASCII code in Appendix I and is useful both as an indicator of stress and as a diacritic mark. The 47-key layouts both offer Soviet quotation marks; some Committee members questioned their necessity, but the majority felt they are needed to produce camera-ready copy if the computer is to be used as a word processor.

The 47-key Standard Cyrillic Keyboard is closest to the Soviet layout. The main differences are in the placement of the numbers and signs, as well as the location of the relatively little-used letters at the right of the bottom row on the Soviet keyboard. For 46-key machines we recommend dropping the percent and the equal sign, which are both on the same key in the Student as well as the Standard Keyboard configurations. Thus the 46- and 47-key layouts would be quite similar in appearance. The 44-key Standard Cyrillic Keyboard again moves around some of the less common letters, but the only one seriously affected is the rarely needed hard sign. The 47- key and 44-key Student Cyrillic Keyboards make use of suggestions from a number of people who have designed similar keyboards on their own. In those cases where there is no one-for-one transliteration equivalent, placement was determined by consideration of similarity or convenience. The "3" at the left end of the bottom row in the 44-key layout has to serve double duty as a letter and a number; this is not ideal for computer usage, but it is a model that many have already employed and that allows for a more satisfactory placement of the other letters than would otherwise be the case.




III. East European Languages Other Than Russian Cyrillic languages other than Russian are covered by the ASCII standard code indicated in Appendix II. Albert Todd is currently readying another proposal that will place in columns 10 through 15 of the extended ASCII code all the letters needed for typing the East European languages that employ the Latin alphabet. The ISO is recommending that the lower half of the ASCII code (numbers zero through 127) remain fixed, while the upper half be used for other alphabets. A special character or sequence of characters (still to be determined) will allow for switching among the lower half of the ASCII code and at least two different sets of characters in the upper half. An expansion of this system would allow for other alphabets (such as Old Church Slavonic) to be represented as well, and by using two bytes to represent letters it is possible to handle very large alphabets (each byte gives 256 possibilities; hence a two-byte representation allows for 256 x 256 or 65,536 possible characters). Essentially, this is already the solution employed by those programs that allow computer users to deal with two or more languages simultaneously (a description of one such system is found in Joseph D. Becker's "Multilingual Word Processing" in the July 1984 issue of Scientific American). A similar technique will allow for switching between English and Russian text on smaller computers that use only the Standard ASCII Code (Appendix I).

Once the ISO has adopted a standard code for the distinctive East Euro- pean letters and has determined how it will label the various sets of codes, it will be possible to proceed to deal with matters such as Old Church Slavonic. However, the recommendations for Russian contained in this report will remain valid and should continue to provide guidance for this most widely used of the East European languages.

As for the matter of keyboard configurations in the other East European languages, the Committee is opposed to the adoption of transliteration systems, but instead recommends that keyboards follow the standards employed in each country. The reason is that there seems little need of student-oriented configurations for languages that are not widely studied in the United States. The great majority of the work on computers for each of these languages will no doubt involve some sort of word processing, and in all such instances a standard keyboard layout seems most practical.

IV. Concluding Remarks Thus our main recommendations are as follows:

1. To adopt an ASCII code for Cyrillic as presented in Appendix II. 2. To recommend, for smaller computers, the ASCII code presented in

Appendix I.




3. To adopt a Standard Cyrillic Keyboard as described in Appendices III (for 47-key machines) and IV (for 44-key machines).

4. To recommend that the Student Cyrillic Keyboards follow the configurations provided in Appendices V (47-key machines) and VI (44-key machines).

5. To suggest that word processing for East European languages for Rus- sian employ the standards recommended in section III, with the under- standing that certain specific details remain to be worked out by the ISO.

We would like to acknowledge the initiative taken by the 1983 AAT- SEEL Executive Council, which recognized the problems caused by the proliferation of Cyrillic keyboards and therefore established the Ad Hoc Committee.

Finally, it is the pleasure of the Chairman to acknowledge the wide interest and numerous helpful suggestions that came from many individuals in addition to those on the Committee. In particular, Timothy D. Browning of the University of Wisconsin, David Miles of the University of Washing- ton, and R. Craig Woods, of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Services, made important contributions to the Committee's work in arriving at its final recommendations.

Members of the Ad Hoc Committee

Robert Baker David Bethea Middlebury College University of Wisconsin

Charles Gribble Richard L. Leed Ohio State University Cornell University

Donald Ostrowski Peter F H. Priest Russian Review Rose-Hulman Institute of Tech.

Gilbert Rappaport David Robinson University of Texas Ohio State University

Ernest Scatton Richard Schupbach SUNY-Albany Stanford University

J. Thomas Shaw Albert Todd University of Wisconsin Queens College

Joseph A. Van Campen Robert Whittaker Stanford University CUNY-Lehman College

Donald K. Jarvis (ex officio) Brigham Young University and 1983-84 President of AATSEEL

Chairman: Barry Scherr Dartmouth College

Editor's note: The foregoing report was accepted by the Executive Council of AATSEEL at its annual meeting on 27 December 1984; it was presented to the membership of the Association at the business meeting on 28 December 1984.




Decimal Octal Hex ASCII Decimal Octal Hex ASCII

33 041 21 80 120 50 P n 34 042 22 " 81 121 51 Q a 35 043 23 # 82 122 52 R p 36 044 24 $ 83 123 53 S c 37 045 25 % 84 124 54 T T

38 046 26 & b 85 125 55 U y 39 047 27 86 126 56 V K 40 050 28 ( ( 87 127 57 W B 41 051 29 ) ) 88 130 58 X b 42 052 2A * 89 131 59 Y bi

43 053 2B + No 90 132 5A Z 3 44 054 2C 91 133 5B [ u 45 055 2D - - 92 134 5C \ 3 46 056 2E 93 135 5D ] m 47 057 2F / 94 136 5E A

48 060 30 0 0 95 137 5F 49 061 31 1 1 96 140 60 ' 50 062 32 2 2 97 141 61 a A 51 063 33 3 3 98 142 62 b B 52 064 34 4 4 99 143 63 c 53 065 35 5 5 100 144 64 d J 54 066 36 6 6 101 145 65 e E 55 067 37 7 7 102 146 66 f q) 56 070 38 8 8 103 147 67 g F 57 071 39 9 9 104 150 68 h X 58 072 3A : 105 151 69 i H 59 073 3B 106 152 6A j 60 074 3C < o 107 153 6B k K 61 075 3D = 108 154 6C 1 J 62 076 3E > 109 155 6D m M 63 077 3F ? 110 156 6E n H 64 100 40 @ o 111 157 6F o O 65 101 41 A a 112 160 70 p n 66 102 42 B 6 113 161 71 q 5 67 103 43 C l 114 162 72 r P 68 104 44 D a 115 163 73 s C 69 105 45 E e 116 164 74 t T 70 106 46 F p 117 165 75 u Y 71 107 47 G r 118 166 76 v X 72 110 48 H x 119 167 77 w B 73 111 49 I H 120 170 78 x b 74 112 4A J i 121 171 79 y bI 75 113 4B K K 122 172 7A z 3 76 114 4C L n 123 173 7B { II 77 115 4D M M 124 174 7C 3 78 116 4E N H 125 175 7D } Ilm 79 117 4F O o 126 176 7E q

Appendix I: Suggested ASCII Standard for Cyrillic (regular ASCII code)




h 0 n 0 )o 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 b 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 () 0 1 1 1 1 h 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 h 0 1 0 1 0 1 I 1 0 0 1 1 0 1

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15

o o o o 00 ·* * 0 @ P ' p * * .No io n OK n

o 0o 01 * * ! 1 A Q a q * * ) b a S A S1 o o I o 02 · · " 2 B R b r Jb Jb 6 p B P

o o 1 03 * * # 3 C S c s * * , hb c L C o I o o 04 * * o 4 D T d t * h h a T A T

o Io 0 l05 * · % 5 E U e u · U uI, e y E Y

o i I o 06 * * & 6 F V f v * C t a )K

o I 1 07 ' 7 G W g w * e r B F B

o o o 08 · ( 8 H X h x · i I x b X b

o oi 09 ·* ) 9 I Y i y u* i T H bl H bI

i iool2·· ,< L\ l ·I ··

0 111 * * + K [ k { I K wI K WI

I 0 0 12 * , < L \ 1 I * * Y Y 3 3 1I 3

o 1 13 · * - = M ] m } · * s S M m M I1 I 1 14 * * > N n U * r H a H q

15 / ? O _ o * b o b O0

Appendix II: Todd Proposal for Extended ASCII Code: All Cyrillic Slavic Characters

b. b. b. b.




!1 @2 #3 $4 %5 6 &7 8 (9 ) - +

Q W E R T Y U I O P {[ }]

A S D F G H J K L ; '

I\ Z X C V B N M < > ?

Appendix III: Standard Keyboard Configuration (47-key machine)

!1 @2 #3 $4 %5 6 &7 (9 0 -

Q W E R T Y U I O P 1/4 17

A S D F G H J K L

Z X C V B N M ?mach

Appendix IV: Standard Keyboard Configuration (44-key machine)




! @2 #3 $4 %5 6 &7 '8 ( ) - +

Q W E R T Y U I O P {[ }]

A S D F G H J K L ;

z X C V B N M < >

Appendix V: Student Keyboard Configuration (47-key machine)

! @2 3 $4 %5 ¢6 &7 8 9 )

Q W E R T Y U I O 14

A S D F G H J K L :

Z X C V B N M , ?

3 X: + u B BX H M 3 '. £ S

Appendix VI: Student Keyboard Configuration (44-key machine)



Computer Keyboads for Cyrillic 95

I+B/ I'·ml 12-/ 13// 14··1 15:i 16 1 17 1 Is-- I IOwi I L4 1 I·I I·I I·I 1·I I ·11·II I ·i

I·il·I 1·I 1 ·-i 1·I I·i l ')i [I I·il·I 1M/ 1UI I 711b/lE/1 H)/ I

iiT i 12-1 1 /1 14-1 15:i Is,i 17.1 18!1 1 I 14 1n I·I I·I I·i I·I 1 ·-i 1;1 l i o

1BI IAl Inl I P1I0/ In/ l i O [I I·i lcl 1M/ 1UI IT/ Ibl I ii i I j L J

Appendix VII: Standard Soviet Keyboards for 46-key and 42-key typewriters



Documents

Final Report: Ad Hoc Committee on Standardization of Computer Keyboards for Cyrillic