Why I Hate Palmtops (was: Re: SGML, XML and SML)

[John Cowan]

rev-bob at gotc.com scripsit:

> Oh, to swipe a bone from the SML threads, here's another thing to
> toss in.  I have a hard time visualizing radical internationalization
> on a tiny screen.  Anglo-centric characters, I get.  Asian scripts
> and Cyrillic...well, those seem a bit out of range.

I don't know what Cyrillic is doing here: whatever can represent Latin
can represent Cyrillic (except a nixie tube, I suppose!).

> Again, am I
> missing something?  Call me strange, but I just don't see the pixel
> density on current palm/cell screens being big enough to display
> a reasonable amount of Kanji data.

Traditionally, Han characters are displayed at double the width
of alphabetic ones, in limited-resolution environments.  Considering
that in Chinese the ratio between romanized and Han forms of text
is 3.5:1 or so, and in Japanese it may be as much as 8:1 in particular
cases, this seems a very reasonable tradeoff.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan at ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin

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