From alb@sct.gouv.qc.ca Wed Feb 14 21:38:10 1996 Received: from socrate.riq.qc.ca (socrate.riq.qc.ca [199.84.128.1]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA28505 for ; Wed, 14 Feb 1996 21:38:02 +0100 Received: from riq2470 (riq-128-87.riq.qc.ca) by socrate.riq.qc.ca (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA28973; Wed, 14 Feb 1996 15:38:19 -0500 Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 15:38:18 -0500 Message-Id: <9602142038.AA28973@socrate.riq.qc.ca> X-Sender: alb@riq.qc.ca X-Mailer: Eudora Light pour Windows Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: wellsprs@csa.c03mhs.mhs.compuserve.com From: "Alain LaBont:e':" Subject: Re: Telephone query about Canadian keyboard standard Cc: i18n@dkuug.dk, william_sullivan@vnet.ibm.com, caibmk4d@ibmmail.com (Paul Naud), CAIB2HV8@ibmmail.com (Frank Friedmann), mary_williams@vnet.ibm.com At 10:03 14/02/1996 EST, wellsprs@csa.c03mhs.mhs.compuserve.com wrote: > >Hello Alain > >I just had a phone call from a fella in California who would like >to know what platforms support the CSA (English/French) >Keyboard. Would you be able to give me an idea where I >might find such information? If not, it's ok. So far it's only supported by OEMs on DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95... and some that I know of are also looking for its support in Windows NT and OS/2. And it's an industrial standard for Apple in Canada. It's their only "French" keyboard throughout the country. I know when it was a prelimiary standard, AT&T also put it on its UNIX systems. I don't know now that it is a national standard. The preliminary keyboard was also implemented on IBM 327x terminals in the Quebec government by IBM (all what was required were keycaps and a controller diskette, thanks to a nice technology). I'm not sure if this was upgraded for the national standard but it would not have been complicated to do so. I and many others have been making pressure on Microsoft and IBM for years for incorporating this as a standard everywhere on all software platforms but none has made the official move yet... for unknown reasons which makes the case obscure. Microsoft implemented (against its will, see later on the story below!) the *preliminary* standard in Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, and NT but there was slight a bug in it which they never corrected (the sad but true story is that Canadian Microsoft marketing had refused to do the job before the release of 3.0 when the preliminary standard existed and that a programmer in Seattle had [subversively!] made the interface because he had a physcical keyboard in his/her hands; so they lost face when the product was released as they were still saying they would not do it until somebody discovered that it was there; after that they said: it is there, don't bother us with that; that's a company who pretends to listen its customers!!!) They never corrected the bug nor made the upgrade to the national standard, but they still provide the bugged interface (reprogrammed each time because interfaces are incompatible among these systems) with all new releases of Windows. For IBM, they say there is not a sufficient market and that there is no demand, which is wrong: the Quebec and Canadian governments (in bilingual areas only, in the latter case, but this is a relatively big market) demand it and IBM points to OEMs for both physical keyboards and drivers (with the result that I can't use it on OS/2, and I guess the same is true for AIX). This is the Candadian standard keyboard landscape. If somebody who is listening can do something, please help us spreading the word. That's the only Canadian standard in the area of keyboards, it seems reasonable that majors implement it. Most users who tasted it don't want to go back. Only Apple did behave as a good corporate citizen in this whole story and *all* their users are satisfied (I never met one dissatisfied about that keyboard which is objectively much better than the previous IBM defacto standard [in which to do a c cedilla you need to type 2 keys, while it is the only French character with a cedilla]; the IBm de facto standard was not designed by French-speaking people, and that is obvious when one uses it). Regards. Alain cc CA-I18N, IBM people, unfortunately no Microsoft email contact