Group: International Macintosh Users Group (IMUG)
(A Forum for Multilingual / Multiscript Computing)

Date: May 19, 2005, 7-9 p.m.
Speaker: James Do
Topic: Computing in Vietnamese: Progress and Challenges
Location: Apple Computer, Apple Campus, 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino
Take Saratoga/Sunnyvale exit off 280, turn South into
Cupertino, turn left onto Mariani Avenue, left into
Infinite Loop.
Admission: $4, free for IMUG members
Contact: Roger Sherman, (650) 859-5981
roger [dot] sherman [at] sri [dot] com

Throughout its history, and especially in the era of computers,
Vietnamese writing has presented some unique challenges because of
several interesting dichotomies, beginning with the ideographic- and
Latin-based scripts. Unicode has served to unify and multiply the
presentation of Vietnamese-language information on the web, easing
both browsing and search. Nevertheless, actual usage of Unicode for
Vietnamese is far less than one might expect from the universal
availability of Vietnamese in modern computers. We will explore the
entire spectrum of the Vietnamese computing experience, and the road
ahead.

James Do been in electronic design automation for more
than twenty years. Covering almost that entire period, he has also
been deeply involved with standardization issues related to
Vietnamese computing, mainly through the Unicode Technical
Committee, the Vietnam Standards Committee (TCVN), and the
Ideographic Rapporteur Group (IRG). He is a founding director of the
Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation http://www.nomfoundation.org , and of
Pacific Links Foundation http://www.pacificlinks.org . One of his
hobbies to adapt fonts for Vietnamese, such as Vtopia and Vsibon.

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