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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+\title{Omega: an extension of the \TeX\ System.
+ March 16th, CERN}
+\author[Michel Goossens]{Dr. Michel Goossens\\
+CN Division, CERN\\
+CH-1211 Geneva 23, \\Switzerland\\
+\emph{Phone:} (+41 22) 767-3363, \emph{Email:} \texttt{goossens@cern.ch}}
+\begin{article}
+\begin{multicols}{2}
+The \TeX\ program was originally developed in the
+mid seventies by Donald Knuth to typeset
+mathematical texts in the English language. Since
+then \TeX\ has made inroads in broader and broader
+areas of scientific, literary and other scholarly
+activities in many countries around the world. In
+1991, Knuth froze \TeX, in the interest of
+stability, among other reasons. However, he
+allows the \TeX\ code to be used as the basis for
+further developments, so long as the resulting
+system is distributed under a different name.
+
+The $\Omega$ package is an extension of \TeX\ developed by John
+Plaice (Universit\'e Laval, Canada) and Yannis
+Haralambous (Lille, France). Its first release,
+currently under beta-test, aims primarily at
+improving \TeX's multilingual abilities.
+
+On Thursday, March 16th, 1995, $\Omega$, the first
+generally available extended version of \TeX, will
+be presented to the world at CERN (Geneva,
+Switzerland). In $\Omega$ all characters and
+pointers into data-structures are 16-bit wide,
+instead of 8-bit, thereby eliminating many of the
+trivial limitations of \TeX. $\Omega$ also allows
+multiple input and output character sets, and
+uses programmable filters to translate from one
+to the other. Internally, $\Omega$ uses the
+universal 16-bit Unicode standard character set.
+These improvements will not only make it a lot
+easier for \TeX\ users to cope with multiple or
+complex languages (e.g., Khmer, Arab, Indic,
+Chinese, Japanese) in one document, but will also
+form the basis for future developments in other
+areas, such as native color support and hypertext
+features.
+
+The standard distribution of $\Omega$ also includes the Unicode \TeX\
+encoding, a new standard font encoding that is a superset of Unicode
+for --- at this moment --- the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Arabic
+character sets. The first font using this encoding, Universal Computer
+Modern, is based on existing \MF\ code prepared by different national
+\TeX\ users' groups. The UCM font is built using the Virtual \MF\
+mechanism, which ensures that users can use the alphabets that they
+need without having to manipulate huge files.
+
+The presentations on the 16th of March will take place in the CN
+Amphitheatre (Bld. 31, 3rd Floor). They will start with a general
+introduction of the $\Omega$ system, explaining how it is or can be
+implemented on various computer platforms. Then, the presentation of
+examples of high quality typography will show how the use of the
+Unicode/ISO 10646 character code makes it easier to handle a complete
+set of Cyrillic, Latin, Greek, Arab, Hebrew, and other characters in
+one document. At the end of the day a round-table discussion will
+allow the participants to provide input to the $\Omega$ team about which
+features they would like to see improved or added to the system. All
+participants will obtain a free copy of the software to take home with
+them. More technical discussions between implementors can be organized
+for the next day.
+
+This day is sponsored by GUTenberg, the \TeX\ local user group
+of the French speaking community. Other sponsors would be much
+appreciated since we would like to invite as many
+representatives from different LUGs and language communities as
+possible to let everyone benefit from the possibilities of this
+new system for typesetting complex languages.
+
+Information about $\Omega$ can be found in the Proceedings of the 1994
+TUG Conference, \emph{TUGboat} 15(3). Contact TUG at
+\texttt{tug@tug.org} for ordering these (over 240 page) proceedings if
+you are not (yet) a member of TUG. A somewhat updated version of the
+same material appeared in the Proceedings of the 8th European \TeX\
+Conference in Gdansk, which
+can be obtained by sending 15 DM (postage included) to
+\begin{quote}
+W{\l}odek Bzyl,
+Instytut Matematyki,
+Uniwersytet Gda\'nski,
+Wita Stwosza 57,
+PL 80-952, Poland.
+\end{quote}
+
+To register for the $\Omega$ day, or to receive further details, contact the
+author.
+
+\end{multicols}
+\end{article}