In the mid-1980s, software development in Kannada was started mainly to meet the needs of desktop publishing in Kannada.[2] In those days, the Kannada keyboard was non-existent and existing English keyboard was used to enter Kannada characters. Shabdaratna, Venus, Prakashak, and Sediyapu were some of the Kannada editing software that were developed in those days. They started the era where computers started to replace typewriters and typesettings for Kannada publications.[2] These were joined by more advanced software like Srilipi and Akruti which were Windows compatible. Shabdaratna was released with an advanced version called Winkey and another editing software called Surabhi was also released.[2] In the mid-1990s, Windows started to replace DOS as the operating system of choice as Kannada software began being developed for Windows. The biggest customer for these Kannada software was the Government of Karnataka.[2] Each of this Kannada software was developed using a specific format and hence portability of data across applications proved to be difficult. A Kannada document written and saved using one application could not be opened in the other. Some other issues that needed attention was the standardisation of a keyboard for entering Kannada characters and also to see how Kannada can be used in other software apart from the then existing desktop publishing applications.
Comments are closed.