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Since the 70s, different committees of the Department of Electronics and the Department of Official Language have been evolving different codes and keyboards which could cater to all the Indian scripts due to their common phonetic structure. Earlier effortscould not keep the ASCII code intact. The BIS standards IS 13194:1991 conforms to the earlier standard IS 10402:1982, "8-bit coded character set for information interchange". It is intended for use in all computer & communication media which allow usage of 7 or 8 bit characters. In an 8-bit environment, the lower 128 characters are the same as defined IS 10315:1982, "7-bit coded character set for information interchange" also known as ASCII character set. The top 128 characters cater to all the ten Indian scripts based on the ancient Brahmi script. In a 7-bit environment the control code SI can be used for invocation of ISCII code set, the control code SO can be used for reselection of the ASCII code set. The common INSCRIPT keyboard overlay allows typing of all the ten Indian scripts. This overlays fits on any existing English keyboard. Alternating between the English and Inscript overlay is achieved through the CAPSLOCK key. The INSCRIPT keyboard, provides a logical and intuitive arrangement of vowels and consonants. It is based both on the phonetic properties and the relative usage frequencies of the letters. Not only does this made the keyboard much easier to learn, but also enables a person to type subsequently in all the Indian scripts. The ISCII code table is a super-set of all the characters required in the ten Brahmi-based Indian scripts. An optimal keyboard overlay for these scripts is made possible by the phonetic nature of the alphabet. The differences between scripts primarily are in their written forms, where different combination rules get used. There are manifold advantages in having a common code and keyboard for all the Indian scripts. Any software which allows ISCII codes to be used, can be used in any Indian script, enhancing its commercial viability. Furthermore, immediate transliteration between different Indian scripts becomes possible, just by changing the display modes. The 8-bit ISCII code retains the standard ASCII code, while the Indian script keyboard overlay is designed for the standard English can co-exist with Indian scripts. This approach also makes it feasible to use Indian scripts along with existing English computers and software, so long as 8-bit character codes are allowed. The ISCII code (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange, co-exists with the standard English code: It contains only the basic alphabet arranged in an order which conforms to that in most of the Indian dictionaries. As the display rendering depends entirely on the composition methodology, it is possible to view the same text in different styles prevalent in the script. It is possible to transliterate the text to Roman script, using additional signs oon the letters (diacritic marks), for removing ambiguities. It is even possible to have the initial letters capitalised in the Romann text.
ISCLAP is a two byte code, which can be used within 7-bit (such as POCSAG, FLEX) as well as 8-bit (such as RDS) Paging environments. ISCII code (Indian Script Code for Iformation Interchange) standardised by Bureau of Indian Standards (IS 13194:1991) defines a superset of alphabet required for Indian scripts. These alphabet codes, require some context-sensitive pre-processing before they can be displayed or printed. The Pager industry, however, felt a need for a simpler code, for display- only applications as in pagers. Most of the microcontrollers used within Pagers may not have the processing power or the code- space for handling ISCII code, while they can use a separate Character-Generator ROM which can store thousands of characters, as needed for Chinese. Like the Chinese character set, the ISCLAP character set has a few thousand characters for each Indian Script, these however can be just placed one after the other in the manner of English characters. Unlike the ISCII code, ISCLAP code does not have any context-sensitivity, but can still render almost all the combinations of ISCII characters used in the modern scripts. The ISCLAP code was evolved in April 1996 by Telecom Engineering Centre(DOT) in association with Department of Electronics, AIR R&D, National Informatics Centre and Bureau of Indian Standards. Brahmi based Indian scripts .India has two families of scripts - one based on the ancient Brahmi script, and the other on the Perso-Arabic script. The Brahmi script (400 BC) had a phonetic alphabet. The consonants had implicit `a' vowel. Vowel-signs had to be attached on them to indicate a different vowel. Consonants without the intervening `a' vowel were depicted by combining the I shapes. Brahmi also had an `Anuswar' sign to indicate nationalisation. |
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