LOG QUAKE
Job 10 on TTY25 18-Apr-89 02:17:05

NOTEPAD is ready.
Last Name: pesht
Password:

Good. Are you using a terminal that prints on paper?

- y

Thank you.

The following activities are available to you:

Open Membership

* 1 Coordination With NOTEPAD Systems International
2 Soviet Armenia Earthquake Situation Reports:
3 Disaster Site Situation Reports:
4 Armenian Relief Agencies General Discussion:
5 Inter-Agency Clearinghouse Coordination:
6 Health and Welfare Coordination:
7 PRIORITIES & REQUESTS
8 ARMENIAN EARTHQUAKE Network Biographies:
9 Network Mailbox: February 1989
10 Private Notes: March, 1989
* 11 Private Notes: April 1989

Assigned Membership

12 Coordination with The Institute for Automated Studies USSR
13 Radio Austria/IASNet/NSI Coordination
Please type the number of the activity you wish to join.

# 1

The Title of the Activity is:
Coordination With NOTEPAD Systems International

Note 146 From Breck (Ren) To Pesht (Levon) 17-Apr-89 10:28AM-PST
Thank you Levon for the situation up=date. I will be filing
the last one we have received from the Office of Foreign
Disaster Relief later today or tomorrow. Hope all is well.
Hrair and I are continuing our discussions regarding the
node and computers. Apple turned us down on the
Macintoshes we had requested. So have to take another tack.
I am meeting on the 25th with the NASA people on the telemedicine
applications in Yerevan...more later. Ren

You are up to date.

ACTION: Select Activity 11

The Title of the Activity is:
Private Notes: April 1989

Note 7 From Bejikian (Jirair) To Pesht (Levon) 17-Apr-89 9:26AM-PST

Date .-- Athens, the 17th of April, 1989
Ref. .-- QUAKE-HN1-170489
To .-- Mr. Hrant NAZARIAN
From .-- Jirayr BEUDJEKIAN
Subject .-- Computers and Armenian
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I received your message dated the 17th of April, 1989.

Together with this message I am sending you a short utility which will down-
load the Armenian characters in the IBM and compatible computers (PC, XT and
AT). As you will notice, the Armenian characters will be downloaded starting
at ASCII character 128 in the normal order. I use a slightly different prog-
ram to have the Armenian characters and additional graphic shapes downloaded
in the ACSII table, and then, based on that, I prepare programs to function
in Armenian.

My choice for the character locations is based on the fact that I don't want to lose any of the latin characters, because the first 126 characters of the ASCII table are essential for programming in any of the high-level languages (Basic, Pqscal, Fortran, Cobol or C). Also, I don't like the idea of changing ROM chips inside the computer to obtain a new character set; specially that now the EGA graphic board is becomming a standard, such a software tool will be quite enough to download the Armenian character set into the computer and use it in programming.

I will be sending you, by mail, one or two diskettes containing the few fol-
lowing programs:
- HISCREEN.EXE -- which downloads the Armenian characters for the screen;
- HIPRINT .EXE -- which download the Armenian characters for the printer
(IBM, EPSON, STAR or compatibles);
- HIKIR .FNT -- Armenian character set for the HP laser printer;
- TYPERITE.EXE -- A utility which transforms the IBM computer into a biling-
ual (Armenian/Latin) electrical typewriter;
- EDITHILA.EXE -- An Armenian/English text editor with laser support;
- EDITHIDO.EXE -- The same as EDITHILA.EXE but for dot matrix printers; a text prepared with this editor can be loaded by any of the high-le- vel programming languages, so you can write programs using Ar- menian prompts and messages, then compile and execute them.
Please note that this package is new and you may find errors
in it. I would be glad if you can mention them to me for debug- ging.

A similar set of programs will be sent to you by Mr. Hrair BALIAN from the U- nited States. We are mailing those programs from two places to insure that at least one of them reaches you, in case one gets lost in the mail.

I would be thankful if you can elaborate further on the state of computer
science in Soviet Armenia: for what types of applications computers (mainly
personal) are being currently used? what types of software products do you
have and prepare? what programming languages do you use? and as much as you
can. I would also be glad if you can elaborate on the subject of how can I
and other software engineers from the Diaspora take part in making computers
much more useful in Armenia, and available for use in any of the fields that
they are being used in the countries where we live. Please mention if you
find the programs I am sending you are useful or not. In the place where I
work there are a lots pf packages -- programming languages, utilities, desk
top publishing software etc. Do you think sending you a list of what I have
would be useful? I have seen a "shopping list" sent from Soviet Armenia con-
cerning computer products. Can you send me that list?

This has been a long message; I hope my interest and questions do not offend
you or your colleagues. You need be in our places to understand what it looks like to be living in the Diaspora and having the opportunity of doing some- thing -- no matter small -- for the Motherland.

Please inform Dr. Peshtmaldjian that I am studying the project by Mr. Melik-
Shakhnazarov. I was also very interested in the project "Search" presented
by Mr. Vaganian and am studying that too. I captured them only two days ago,
and it would probably take another few days before I refer back to them.

Regards to all,
Jirayr

------------------------------------------------------------------------------The program mentioned above, written in BASIC..........
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1000 REM
1005 REM ##################################################################
1010 REM # #
1015 REM # This is a small utility which dowloads the Armenian charac- #
1020 REM # ters in the character set of your IBM PC, XT, AT or compatible #
1025 REM # computer provided that the computer is equipped with a Color #
1030 REM # Graphics Adaptor or an Enhanced Graphics Adaptor (CGA or EGA). #
1035 REM # The Armenian characters, downloaded starting at ASCII location #
1040 REM # 128 will be visible on the graphic screens. #
1045 REM # [ Prepared by Jirayr BEUDJEKIAN and Haroutioun MILIKIAN ] #
1050 REM # #
1055 REM ##################################################################
1100 Z%=128
1120 DEF SEG=0
1130 POKE 124,48: POKE 125,1: POKE 126,200: POKE 127,90
1140 PAGE%=PEEK(127)*&H100+PEEK(126)
1150 ADDRESS%=PEEK(125)*&H100+PEEK(124)
1160 DEF SEG=PAGE%
1170 FOR K%=128 TO 212
1180 START%=ADDRESS%+(K%-128)*8
1190 FOR I%=START% TO START%+7
1200 READ J%: POKE I%,J%
1210 NEXT I%
1220 NEXT K%
2000 REM
2001 REM
2002 REM
2070 CLS: LOCATE 14,9: PRINT " The Armenian characters have been installed in your character"
2075 LOCATE 15,25: PRINT "set starting at ASCII code 128."
2080 Y=TIMER
2085 WHILE TIMER