Greek Fonts for B-Greek

Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Fri, 17 Jan 1997 18:37:20 -0500 (EST)

WAIT!

HALT!

STOP!

Dear Friends on the List generally, and on the B-Greek Staff:

I've been away for a week, returned to 260 messages in my email-box, with a
broken arm (limited to one-fingered typing), and witness the B-Greek List
about to go down the tubes.

Transliteration schemes and fonts have reared their ugly heads again.

For many reasons, the B-Greek List has been worth my time and effort, for
quite a few years; for this I have to thank the wisdom of ListOwner Marotta
and the evolution of some principles by which the List operates.

One of these principles has been that anyone able to use ancient Greek and
interested in the NT/LXX texts may participate--without having to:
Buy a new computer
Learn a new scheme of transliteration
Be required to use the above
Have Windows 95
Subscribe to an ISP which offers more than email
Be able to use Netscape
Use non-ASCII fonts
Etc., Etc.

I own seven computers; from only one of them can I access any Websites at
all. From some of my machines (in their present locations) I can only
access the Wellesley account by modem, and have no graphics. From some, I
use Juno, which (as one poster noted) would not allow the fonts, and
permits email only. In my several locations, I parallel various of our
List members. Right now, I am in my basement, with the temperature outside
so far below Zero that my car won't work (and I couldn't drive with my
broken arm, anyway). From this computer, I can't see anything but the
ASCII characters in my email. I would be blocked from accessing the List
from my home. Seeing a lot of garbage on my screen would destroy B-Gredek
for me. And the newcomers would certainly have it worse than I would.

Some Lists require use of a certain scheme. We have resisted that, and in
fact "officially" rejected it, agreeing on a fairly common scheme (not the
one I ordinarily use, incidentally) as the one to suggest to those who want
advice. But we have agreed that ANY scheme is OK, since we can usually
make out the point--and we all have a hardcopy of the GNT at hand (which I
always open up when I start to follow a discussion on the List).

I see appalling changes to this List, if we move toward uniformity--
especially one which will lock out most newcomers, and will in fact lock me
out unless I stay in my university office with their machine, or else put
up with a garbage-looking screen when receiving Greek text for fonts.

Please, don't force me off the List! (But if you really want to, here's a
quick way to do it, I guess.) Even if you used MY scheme, you'd force me
off.

[Took me half an hour to peck this out, with my cast landing on dozens of
wrong keys, and my Backspace working overtime to edit!]

Your pathetic, crippled colleague--

Edward Hobbs