computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

, Russification involves the localization of

computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ('' computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', ...

and

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

, allowing the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

of a computer and its software to communicate in the

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

using

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...

. Problems associated with Russification before the advent of

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

included the absence of a single character-encoding standard for

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

(see Cyrillic script#Computer encoding).

History of the MS-DOS Russification

The first official Russification of

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

was carried out for MS-DOS 4.01 in 1989/1990, released on . In

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, the Russification project manager and one of its main developers was Nikolai Lyubovny (Николай Любовный). A Russian version of MS-DOS 5.0 was also developed in 1991, released on . Based on an initiative of Microsoft Germany in March 1991, derivates of the Russian MS-DOS 5.0 drivers used for keyboard, display and printer localization support (DISPLAY.SYS, EGS.CPI, EGA2.CPI, KEYB.COM, KEYBOARD.SYS, MSPRINT.SYS, COUNTRY.SYS, ALPHA.EXE) could also be purchased separately (with English messages) as part of Microsoft's ''AlphabetPlus'' kit. This enabled English issues of MS-DOS 3.3, 4.01 and 5.0 to be set up for Eastern European countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Russification of Microsoft Windows

A comprehensive instruction set for computer Russification is maintained by Paul Gorodyansky. It is mirrored in many places and recommended by the U.S.

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

References

External links

Modern Online (Virtual) Keyboard for Russian (not just alphabet order)

User interfaces Russian language Russification Computing in the Soviet Union {{comp-sci-stub

History of the MS-DOS Russification

Russification of Microsoft Windows

See also

References

External links