Author: Hla Min (Lifelong Learner)

This post covers basics of Burmese typing, spelling, and word processing.

Remington produced typewriters for English.

Olympia was commissioned to produce typewriters for Burmese. The “red” keys were used to type vowels; the carriage did not go forward. The “black’ keys were used to type consonants. Back-spacing for half a step was necessary on the “standard” edition to type “tha gyee”. Manual dexterity was needed to type some “pa sint” characters. the “office’”edition had extra keys.

IBM produced Selectric typewriters. “Golf” ball-like character sets had to be installed/replaced.

Wang Computers provided word processors for various languages. Ko Htay Aung worked at Wang for a while on the “Burmese” language project.

Burma Research So

ciety (BRS) used transliteration for its publications. For example, “k-o-l” combination represents “ko”. The scheme was used on Macintosh.

UCC had projects to do Burmese word processing. Saya Myo supervised a project for Ma San Yu Hlaing for “collation” (needed for sorting). Saya TAG and his team (Ko Htay Aung, Ko Soe Myint, …) worked on Cromenco System Three for printing and processing. U Soe Win and team worked on Calcomp graph plotter.

Chinese characters were input on the early systems using (1) large tablets (2) three corner method (3) Romaji, …

The evolution has seen various type face/font families, keyboard layouts, Unicode support, …

We miss the days when we had type perfectly or reasonably well on typewriters using messy carbons.

Also, planning to cyclostyle double-si

ded printing (odd numbered pages first, then repeat with even-numbered pages).

Burmese Language Commission bowed to higher authorities to revise the spelling at least two times.

Fines were imposed on authors and publishers spelling the established way. (e.g. “ta”) instead of the preferred way (e.g. “tit”) despite the scholars pointing out the old inscriptions at “Bo ta htaung” (not “Bo tit htaung”) pagoda.

CTK (Children’s Treasury of Knowledge) project was delayed to correct the spellings.

It was not easy to write in those days without facing censorship. It was taboo to quote “Dhammata” poem (by Ananda Thuriya). It was a crime to write about the “setting sun”.

The list is not exclusive.

(1) ICL 1900 series use GEORGE (General Organization Environment) O/S Operating System.

ICL1902S uses GEORGE-2.

Some other models use GEORGE-3.

(2) ICL1902S comes with several software packages.

Saya U Aung Zaw and team install the software and the patches (during the period reserved for them).

(3) PLAN (Programming Language for Nineteen hundred series) is the Assembly Language.

(4) FORTRAN (Formula Translator) and COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) are the programming languages used for scientific computing and business applications.

The language compilers detect for syntax and semantic errors and output a form that can be read by a “consolidator” or “linking loader”.

(5) There are application software packages. Examples are :

FILAN (File Analysis) is used for the processing of Population Census data.

CSL (Control and Simulation Language) is available for discrete event simulation.

ICT (International Calculators and Tabulators) evolved into ICL (International Computers Limited). The British Government was partly responsible for the merger of several British Companies such as ICT and LEO.

ICL 1900 series cover a range of machines : ICL 1901 to ICL 1907.

The “basic” machines have “A” in the name, e.g. ICL 1901A

The “enhanced” machines have “S” in the name, e.g. ICL 1902S (the one used at UCC).

The following configuration was used at UCC.

Some upgrades were made using the budget for “Population Census Data Processing” Project.

ICL 1902S computer with 2.5 D (dimensional) core memory and a console typewriter

Two ICL 2101 Card Readers

ICL 1933 Line Printer

Two ICL 2802 EDS (Exchangeable Disk Store)

Each controller controls two EDS 8 disks

Four ICL 2506 Magnetic Tape 9 track NRZI (Non Return to Zero Inverted)

The computer has piano-like keys for “bootstrapping” and for “testing”.

Some ICL computers use a 5-track Paper Tape Reader. There are pros and cons for using “punched cards” versus “punched paper tape’.

Punched cards were used in the early looms and in the Hollerith Machines used for processing US Population Census Data. Hollerith founded a company, which evolved into IBM.

Punched paper tape were used in the early transmission systems.

Three UCC engineers (U TAG, U HM and USW) underwent training at the ICLETC (ICL Engineering Training Center) in Letchworth, UK.

ICL provided a resident engineer to maintain the computer system and a resident programmer/analyst to guide the system programmers and selected application programmers.

A flat bed CalComp Graph Plotter was added. Calcomp provided on-site training for the graph plotter.

KMZ wrote :

I believe I still have a key chain from Ko Soe Myint Gyi. He had a “ဆွမ်းအုပ်” drawn on Calcomp and laminated it to create the key chain. He gave it to me when I met him and KZ at Wynn Myint Aung’s house. They were on some tour visiting Washington DC area in the mid-80s.