Arabic NON-unicode fonts - Easy Char Mapping?

[mike miller]

Buy a Commodore 64.  The word processor included arabic, cyrillic, greek, 
hebrew and other fonts that were phonetically equivalent to the "normal" 
letters that they replaced.  It was fun (to some of us) to type letters in 
english and print them out in these other fonts.  If the recipient was 
familiar with those alphabets it was easy to sound out the original text.  I 
haven't found a modern alternative that works as well, but if someone else 
knows of one please let me know.  Then I'll be able to get rid of my 
Commodore 64.

Mike Miller
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Chabot" <brian at datasquire.net>
To: <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 10:25 PM
Subject: Arabic NON-unicode fonts - Easy Char Mapping?


> Does anyone know of an *easy* way to use normal letters *and* numbers to
> display their Arabic counterparts?
>
> Yes, Unicode has Arabic... but it's all mapped outside the normal range
> of a US keyboard's single keypress range.
>
> Basically I'd like to hit the "a" key for instance and see an 'alif
> (unicode 0627h) or "b" and see an Arabic ba (unicode 0628h)...  Also the
> same with typing a 1 and seeing an Arabic numeral 1 (like a, unicode
> 0627h) there.
>
> Yes, one *could* temporarily remap a keyboard.  Yes, one *could* create
> some sort of macro system... These are not "easy" solutions.  A font
> that already does this would be much easier.  Add it to a bidi
> compatible program and you're all set.
>
> Why?  Because a friend of mine is taking a class in Arabic and wants to
> have an easier time typing it out.... without splurging for a new
> keyboard etc.
>
> Yes, this is for Linux, so TTF would be nice...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian
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