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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site water.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!water!jmlang
From: jmlang@water.UUCP (Jerome Lang)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Re: Overseas STs
Message-ID: <268@water.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 02:16:54 EST
Article-I.D.: water.268
Posted: Fri Mar 21 02:16:54 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Mar-86 07:00:20 EST
References: <1658@mtgzy.UUCP> <2896@ukma.UUCP> <2898@ukma.UUCP>
Reply-To: jmlang@water.UUCP (Jerome Lang)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 32
Summary: 

In article <2898@ukma.UUCP> knnngt@ukma.UUCP (Alan Kennington) writes:
>The Bios listing suggests a French version, but
>that could conceivably have gone only to Quebec. Perhaps the English
>language component of TOS will be rejected by the Ministry of Culture.
>And what is this new French computer language coming out soon? I've seen
>a sample of French Basic. If anyone has a copy of French Basic for the ST
>I would gladly know about it.

This French version of the Bios (looking carefully at it)
actually uses an AZERTY keyboard -- same logic as with QWERTY, those are
the first letters in the top row.  This keyboard layout is not used in Quebec,
or in French Canada for that matter, we use a bilingual QWERTY keyboard.
This presents an interesting problem as this latter keyboard possesses
a dead key -- you type a ` or a ^ and the carriage (or cursor) does not advance,
allowing you to overstrike with the letter you want accented.  This is
fine for typewriters, but is a ****&&*** for computers. The difference
between the AZERTY keyboard and the bilingual QWERTY actually delayed the
introduction of a French ST in Quebec. (Should be available by now, I haven't
checked.) 
	About French Basic; with a 'decent' BASIC, they only thing needed to
"frenchise" it is to change the token lookup tables.  I haven't looked
at the internals of STBasic but I presume it can be done in a similar fashion.
My experience is that it is not worth the trouble -- you learn a few
odd words (odd for non-anglophones), and you're ready to go.  This is
nothing compared to learning a human language.  You get used to seeing
bilingual code -- variables and comments in French, the keywords in English.
It also helps to identity the parts of your code that got borrowed from
the net.
-- 
Je'ro^me M. Lang	   ||				    jmlang@water.uucp
Dept of Applied Math       ||			  jmlang%water@waterloo.csnet
U of Waterloo		   ||  	 jmlang%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa