InScript keyboard

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Not to be confused with InScript (JavaScript engine).

InScript (Indian Script) is the standard keyboard for Indian scripts. It is a touch typing keyboard layout for computer. This keyboard layout is standardized by Government of India for inputting Indic text.[1] It was developed by C-DAC, an India based software company. This is the standard keyboard for 12 Indian scripts including Devanagari, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu etc.

InScript keyboard is inbuilt in most of the major operating systems including Windows (2000, XP, Vista), Linux and Mac OS. It is also available in some mobile phones. It is available in Windows Mobile 5.x and 6.0, 6.1 via Eyron's Hindi Support.[2]

Contents

[edit] Keyboard layout

Devanagari InScript bilingual keyboard layout

InScript has common layout for all the Indian scripts. Most Indic scripts are derived from Brahmi, therefore their alphabetic order is the same. On the basis of this property InScript keyboard layout scheme was developed. A person who knows InScript typing in one script can type in any other Indic script using dictation even without knowledge of that script.

[edit] History

The first InScript keyboard was standardized in 1986 under the auspices of the DOE (Department of Electronics at the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology). It was subsequently revised in 1988 by a DOE committee and modifications were made to accommodate nukta extended keys as well as to add certain matras which were felt to be lacking. The last revision to the BIS document was made in 1992, after which the document has not undergone any revision. This was partly because very few new characters were added to the ISCII code-set and these if at all were handled by extending and generating out the character by the use of the nukta. The BIS document specifically mentions such characters. Hence the InScript keyboards were felt to be self-sufficient. With the advent of Unicode, a few new characters were added to each code-page; characters for which the BIS document had not made any provision. In addition Unicode introduced the concept of ZWJ and ZWNJ, as well as that of normalization.

These new features had marked repercussions on storage as well as inputting and an urgent need was felt for a revision whereby each new character introduced in Unicode would be accommodated on the keyboard and a uniform manner of entering data as well as storing data would be devised. With this urgent requirement in mind, CDAC GIST involved in the initiative all major players: IBM, Microsoft and Red Hat Linux and hence in 2008, a joint meeting was organized between CDAC GIST and senior representatives of these multi-nationals to devise a common and uniform strategy for inputting and equally important for storage. This would enable the creation of one single keyboard and more importantly one single storage, essential for all high-end NLP. A task-force was created with two major briefs:

  1. Evolve a design policy which would retain the major features of the existing Inscript keyboard.
  2. Accommodate on the keyboard every character proposed in Unicode 5.1 and also ensure that the design could accommodate all future additions. This resulted in a document by thejoint deliberations of all these companies described as proposal for “Enhanced InScript keyboard layout 5.1”.

[edit] References

  1. ^ TDIL - Inscript Keyboard
  2. ^ [1]

[edit] External links
QWERTY based
Alternative layouts
Non-Roman
For mobile devices
Chorded keyboards
Historical
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