From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Fri May 13 2005 - 12:01:32 CDT
If one should make the most out of a standard ISO keyboard, to cover
all Unicode characters, one might use the function keys to select a
script. With four modifier keys and 16 function keys, one can select
a maximum of 64 scripts. If right and left modifiers and be used
independently, one can select 256 scripts. Then, each symbol key can
choose 16 or 256 characters, depending whether left and right
modifiers can be used independently or not of each other. Say one use
48 symbol keys, then this gives a maximum of 3145728 characters. A
"script" in this sense can contain up to 12288 characters.
When finding a practical keyboards, then much attention has to be
spent on what works for the human. So one would not be able to cover
that many characters, in practise. But, in principle, one could, with
a standard ISO keyboard, find a layout that covers all Unicode
characters in such a way that each script can be selected with one
stroke, and then, within each script, each character can be chosen
with one keyboard stroke.
-- Hans Aberg
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