Internet Surfer 2.0/Internet Surfer 2.0 (Wayzata Technology) (1996).iso/pc/textfile/faqs/gree_faq/culture

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-26 | 39.8 KB

Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu soc.culture.greek:15912 news.answers:3600
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,news.answers
Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ira.uka.de!news.belwue.de!math.fu-berlin.de!news.netmbx.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!pythia.csi.forth.gr!ntua.gr!theseas!nfotis
From: [e-mail] (Nick C. Fotis)
Subject: (3 Oct 92) Soc.Culture.Greek Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Message-ID: <nfotis.719061691@theseas>
Followup-To: poster
Lines: 1030
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Nick (Nikolaos) Fotis)
Organization: National Technical Univ. of Athens
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 11:21:31 GMT
Approved: [e-mail]

Archive-name: greek-faq
Last-modified: 1992/10/15

Soc.Culture.Greek Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
========================================================
Last Change: 15 Octomber 1992

Items Changed:
--------------

[ I'll keep an up-to-date copy in ariadne.csi.forth.gr FTP area.
  Also note that I'm posting this FAQ to news.answers, so it'll be
  automagically archived for later reference .

    Also, I'm thinking of splitting this FAQ into two parts:
    one technical and one culture-related.
    What do you think?? -- nfotis ]

--

Lines which got changed, have the `#' character in front of them.
Added lines are prepended with a `+'
Removed lines are just removed. Use 'diff' to locate these changes.

I have included my comments within braces '[' and ']'.

Nikolaos Fotis

=======================================================================

First, I wish to thank publicly the following people:

Spiros Triantafyllopoulos <[e-mail]>
P." Iatroudakis           <[e-mail]>
Achilles Voliotis         <[e-mail]>
Yiannis Moschovakis       <[e-mail]>

for their help in making this list more clear and complete.

Second, that's only a hasty collection of texts and information as I
(or other people) remember it, so this file is worth only what you paid for it
(and even less! ;-) )

Subjects:
=========
1. What is the Soc.Culture.Greek newsgroup??
    a. Newsgroup charter  [ who has a copy ???]
    b. Network etiquette.
2. What's needed in order to have Greek characters in my computer?
    a. PCs
    b. PCs with MS Windows
    c. Mac
    d. Other
3. Internet/BITNET/UUCP University sites in Greece?
4. What standards exist for inclusion of Greek characters into ASCII text?
5. How do I write greek with troff/TeX/WP/... ??
6. Greek fonts into X Windows
7. Bookstores that carry Greek books
8. Greek cuisine -- recommended books??
9. Greek wines -- reference book(s)
10. The 12 Greek Gods : who are they?
11. Greek Popular Music        [ NEW SUBJECT]

Proposed future subjects:
[ Please send me info to stuff these subjects!! -- nfotis]

 What's the deal with a travel to Greece?
 Graduate studies in Greece that are interesting for non-Greeks?
    (eg. archaeology)
 Is there any decent backgammon program?
[any ideas/info/... ??]

==============

I ask the people to send me stuff in order to make this file more
complete. I'm just a kind of editor, and I cannot know everything.

YOU'll determine if this FAQ is good or not!

==============

1. What is the Soc.Culture.Greek newsgroup??
============================================

a. Newsgroup charter.  [ who has a copy ???]
---------------------

b. Network etiquette.
---------------------
[ Excerpted from Eugene Miya's Draft FAQ in comp.graphics.visualization: ]

We assume you have read news.announce.newusers and that you understand
network informalities.  This group is not moderated, and this is one
experiment in self-moderation (education).

If you have questions, ask you system administrator.  If you are the system
administrator, use MAIL, and ask your net neighbors.

Do not post TESTS here.  Special testing groups exist to acknowledge your
posts.  Test in misc.test, or in your locale: e.g., ba.test, ca.test, na.test,
etc.

Some people believe the charter should be posted.  The name of the group
should sufficiently convey the purpose of this group.

Flame wars: 1) Flame using mail.  Failing that 2) Cut down on the number
of groups in your Newsgroups: line.  3) Use Followup-To: a line with
fewer newsgroups.  Make certain you read all posts before responding, the net
is asynchronous enough as it is: the History of Dumb posts includes such
titles as
"What time is it?"  "The Space Shuttle blew up!" and "California just had an
earthquake."  See your local broadcast news.

Attribution: (Those lines frequently beginning with ">")  MINIMIZE.
Especially: don't post "Me, too" posts after 100 lines of attribution.
Remove especially long sigatures at the bottoms of posts.
Use email.  Show that you are intelligent and net savvy in your postings.
Edit carefully.

[If you feel that the ratio of inflammatory or relevant posts is too high for
 your tastes, go read the manual of your news reader in the section of kill
 files. This way, you can customize your news reader to not bother you with
 messages from certain people, or which contain particular keywords in their
 headers. This way, you can avoid all the headache associated with such posts -
 not a minor thing - nfotis ]

2. What's needed in order to have Greek characters in my computer?
==================================================================

a. PCs
------

[ The following information applies for AT-like PCs. For PS/2s, things
 are somewhat different, but I don't know many details -- nfotis ]

For english in GENERAL, you will have either a software or hardware solution:

For Monochrome, Hercules, and CGA your only hope is a Greek Chip Character
Generator. It is usually supplied by the Greek PC vendors. If you buy the
PC elsewhere (i.e. in the US) and bring it to Greece, tough.

For EGA/VGA, there are plenty of user-defined fonts around. In Greece,
your vendor will typically supply with one, or there are free versions.
All it really is is the software version of the Character Chip.

In either case, the Greek Characters take over the high bytes (128+)
of the extended ASCII set the PC uses and replace the funny symbols
umlauts, funny puncuation, etc) with Greek letters. In the first case it
is done in hardware, second in software. Then there is a TSR program loaded
at boot time that switches (i.e. ALT-SHIFT toggles between the two.
This program is also supplied by the vendor.

A third SLOW case for CGA/Herc machines is to use SOFT fonts, i.e. characters
done in graphics mode. Extremely slow but inexpensive. A good Shareware
Greek word processor works that way. Details below.

This way you get to type greek to programs like text editors. When the text
is saved (extended or 8 bit text) you'll see the funny characters that
Greek is represented by.

Same deal with printers, i.e. the PRINTER character chip will have the extended
ascii set to include Greek. So when you print a file using DOS print, it will
come up OK. Alternatively, printers that handle soft (downloadable) fonts,
can download the fonts and then you print as usual.

A good word processor for Greek (and many other non english languages) is
INTEXT12. It can be found at various US ftp sites (oak.oakland.edu under
editors directory). Accepts the common denominator (herc/cga) and uses soft
fonts. Works OK for things like letters etc though I would not try anything
like a college thesis with it.

Commercial systems:
For more $$$, you can buy NOTA BENE (i believe) which has a very good Greek
mode for $500 or so. Several small vendors advertise Greek WP systems typically
in the back of, say, PC Magazine or Byte. Prices are in the $150-$500 range.
Also, the WordPerfect distributor here has made a Greek version of the software
and the manuals. PCwrite also does works well with Greek letters.

b. PCs with MS Windows
----------------------

Get wingreek13.zip from ftp.cica.indiana.edu's font directory. Has several
Greek fonts and Hebrew as well (!).  The fonts are straight windows fonts
and any application can see them with a bit of effort. MSWrite, the toy
word processor that comes with windows is a good example of a program that
can use the Greek fonts.

Several font vendors also supply their own fonts with ATM and TrueType. You can
also use the SYMBOL fonts which looks kind of silly (i.e. troff) but works
if everything else fails.

With the advent of Windows 3.1, the existing problem of printing to
IBM-speaking printers will be eliminated via the downloaded font system.
(The printers here in general know only the old IBM-PC character set, while
the MS Windows had ELOT-928 - you may guess the confusion that arose and
the need for more filters ;-) )

c. Mac
------

  Simple: Get the machine from Greek dealers! The MacOS is completely hellenized
(menus, messages, etc.) and basic applications are also hellenized and available
with Greek font support (eg. MS Word).

In general, you press the left-clover and Space keys to toggle
between Greek and English keyboard.

  The 'left-clover' key  is known in the Mac community as 'Command'
key. The trick should also work with the right Command-key on the Apple
Extended Keyboard. What happens when you do this is that you toggle the
'Keyboard' cdev (control device) from english to the local language. This
resides in the System Folder, and in theory you could rotate between more
than two keyboard mappings--e.g., greek, english, german and spanish. With
system 7 there is the inherent capability to include all available
'Keyboard' resources in a menu on the right side of the menu-bar of the
Finder, so that one could change the current setting easily. This has not
yet been fully implemented. If and when it does it will not affect the
individual application resources, in other words applications that are not
hellenized will not automatically become so.

From what I know, the Greek Apple dealers use a special set of ROMs,
soooo... they may put such a set on your machine, but not for free!

d. Other
--------

Amiga: there was a half-hearted attempt to implement Greek character sets
in the upper 128 positions. I don't know the current status of affairs in
this matter.

[ A netter offered his additions : ]
The Amiga always supported different fonts. I always write my greek letters
in a symbol font. But there are programs that support Adobe fonts and import
fonts from the MAC and IBM line of computers.
On top of that it is very easy to edit your own font.
Using most terminal programs is a question of selecting a menu entry and
you can get a diffrent font display on screen. Amiga also supports LaTex,
Postcript.
Also on a final note the latest version of the operating system (2.1?) you
can select the language you want and the Menu entries occur in the language
you wish (Translated not just change of fonts), easy script files can be
written and a click of a function key and you can swap between fonts.
So in general all Word processors, text editors, in fact all software
supports Greek ....

[ Other machines?? Anyone who knows more here?? -- nfotis ]

3. Internet/BITNET/UUCP University sites in Greece?
===================================================

Note: If you don't know how to access eg. a machine in BITNET while
you're on the InterNet, call your sysadmins for help. I summarize here
the most aften asked question:

Q: I want to contact a person in , eg. GRPATVX1 in BITNET. How do I send
    mail to user@GRPATVX1 ?
A: Send the mail via a BITNET-InterNet gateway site, eg. via rice.edu as:
    [e-mail]
  Another good guess is a BITNET site close to the national BITNET gateway, eg.
    [e-mail] (via the Greek Inet gateway)

Similarly for registered Greek UUCP sites, use:

    [e-mail]

I want to stress that this is a usual *kludge* (ie. de facto usage). Don't
expect a BITNET site to use exactly these conventions. Use FAX/Phone to make an
initial contact with the sysadmins or the person you want to contact.

a. InterNet sites
-----------------

Stelios Sartzetakis <[e-mail]> is the administrator of the
national Internet gateway (ariadne.csi.forth.gr [139.91.1.1]) located
in the CS Institute in Crete. I'll ask him to send me a map of the
major Internet sites in Greece, so don't bother him asking for it
(please!).
One of the major sites that are connected via the ariadne to the Internet
is NTUA (or Athens Polytechnic, or EMP, or... well, I think you understand
what we are ;-) ), via the machine theseas.ntua.gr [147.102.1.1] . Note that
in this stage you cannot access other machines directly from InterNet, ie.
you first should log-in to theseas, and then to other machines at NTUA.

PLEASE NOTE: We are on a VERY SLOW SL/IP line at about 10 Kbits, so don't
swamp unnecessarily our line with 'ftp', 'telnet', 'finger', etc.etc.

There's also an X.25 network called network ARIADNE. The network is based
at NRC Demokritos, and they are gatewayed to the InterNet via the machine
leon.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr [143.233.2.1]. NTUA has also a connection to this
network via PADs.
In the machine isosun.nrcps.ariadne-t.gr [143.233.1.1] there's also an
account "pythia", which runs a BBS-like information system about the
ARIADNE network.

b. BITNET/EARN sites
--------------------

I have found an article from [e-mail] (Karl Schmuck [Bib])
last November, which described the results of a search in the
bitearn-database at [e-mail].
I have edited it somewhat, but I left (I hope) all the necessary information
inside. Note that some of these machines have also InterNet addresses
(at least for mail)

/* here's his query */
> sel * in bitearn where country contains gr
--> Database BITEARN, 12 hits.

Node: ARIADNE
Internet: ariadne.csi.forth.gr
Nodedesc: FORTH-Computer Science Institute
P_dakosmid: Damianos Kosmidis;Damian@ariadne;+30 81 229302,229368
P_dkosmidi: Damianos Kosmidis;Damian@ariadne;+30 81 221171,229368
P_ssartzet: Stelios Sartzetakis;STELIOS@ARIADNE;+30 81 229302,221171
Netop: p_dakosmid
Useradm: p_ssartzet
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

Node: GRATHDEM
A_member: Computer Center;153 10 Agia Paraskeuei Attikis;Athens Greece
Admin: p_akostopo
Dir: p_aarvilia
Nodedesc: EKEFE-Demokritos
P_aarvilia: ALEXIS ARVILIAS;AMBER@GRATHDEM
P_akostopo: A. Kostopoulos;KOSTOP@GRATHDEM

Node: GRATHUN1
A_member: University of Athens,;Computer Center,  Building T.Y.P.A;University Campus;Ilissia, Athens, Greece
Admin: p_sgrathun
Dir: p_svanakar
Nodedesc: University of Athens
P_sgrathun: STAVROS GRATHUN1;STAVROS@GRATHUN1;[phone]
P_svanakar: Stavros Vanakaris;STAVROS@GRATHUN1;[phone]
P_00000001: STAVROS;STAVROS@GRATHUN1
P_00000004: INSTALL;INSTALL@GRATHUN1
Netop: p_00000004

Node: GRCRUN11
Nodedesc: University of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
P_operator: Operator;OPERATOR@GRCRUN11;[phone] ext.26
P_ptzortza: P. Tzortzakis;POSTMAST@GRCRUN11;[phone]
P_00000001: POSTMAST;POSTMAST@GRCRUN11
Netop: p_operator
Useradm: p_ptzortza

Node: GRCRVAX1
A_member: University of Crete;Ampelokipi;Heraklion, Crete;Greece
Admin: p_jfragiad
Dir: p_jfragiad
Nodedesc: University of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
P_jfragiad: J. Fragiadakis;JFRAGIAD@GRCRVAX1;[phone]
Netop: p_operator
Internet: minos.cc.uch.gr

Node: GREARN
A_member: Research Center of Crete;P.O. Box 527;Heraklion, Crete;Greece
Admin: p_ptzortza
Dir: p_sorphano
Internet: grearn.csi.forth.gr
Nodedesc: Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas
P_operator: Operator;OPERATOR@GREARN;[phone] ext.26
P_ptzortza: P. Tzortzakis;PANTELIS@GREARN;[phone]
P_sorphano: S. Orphanoudakis;ORPHICS@GREARN;[phone]
P_00000001: POSTMAST;POSTMAST@GREARN
Netop: p_operator

Node: GRGBOX
Internet: grgbox.csi.forth.gr
Nodedesc: FORTH-Computer Science Institute
P_00000001: Pantelis Tzortzakis pantelis;Pantelis Tzortzakis [e-mail]
P_00000002: Pantelis Tzortzakis   Pantelis;Pantelis Tzortzakis   [e-mail] [phone]
Techinfo: p_00000001
Useradm: p_00000001 p_00000002
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

Node: GRIMBB
Nodedesc: Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
P_00000001: SYSTEM;SYSTEM@GRIMBB
Useradm: p_00000001
Internet: Nefelh.cc.uch.gr

Node: GRIOANUN
A_member: University Campus;Dourouti;GR 45110 Ioannina; GREECE
Admin: p_paslanis
Dir: p_sdanielo
Member: UNiversity of Ioannina
P_paslanis: Panos J. Aslanis;UOIC02@GRIOANUN;30-651-91298
P_sdanielo: Stylianos Danielopoulos;E270A01@GRIOANUN;30-651-91807
P_00000003: CDCE;CDCE@GRIOANUN
Netop: p_00000003

Node: GRPATEI
Nodedesc: Technological Institute  of Patra
Phone: [phone]
P_1: Marios Xatziprokopiou;manager@grpatei;[phone]
Site: Technological Education Institute of Patra
A_site: TEI Patras;Koukouli Patra;Greece
Dir: P_1
Admin: P_1
Techinfo: P_1
Useradm: P_2
P_2: ;postmast@grpatei
P_mxatzipr: Marios Xatziprokopiou;manager@grpatei;[phone]
P_mzatzipr: Marios Xatziprokopiou;manager@grpatei;[phone]
P_postmast: ;postmast@grpatei

Node: GRPATVX1
A_member: P.O. BOX 1122, 26110 Patras, Greece
Admin: p_kkaranas
Dir: p_thadzila
Member: University of Patras
Nodedesc: Computer Technology Institute, Univ. of Patras, GREECE
P_kkaranas: Kostas Karanasios;NETMGR@GRPATVX1;[phone]
P_ngrpatvx: NETMGR GRPATVX1;NETMGR@GRPATVX1;[phone]
P_thadzila: Prof. Thanasis  Hadzilacos;THH@GRPATVX1;[phone]
Netop: p_ngrpatvx

Node: GRTHEUN1
A_member: Aristotelion University;Computer Center;Thessaloniki Greece
Admin: p_mgrtheun
Dir: p_pargyrak
Nodedesc: University of Thessaloniki
P_mgrtheun: MAINT GRTHEUN1;MAINT@GRTHEUN1;[phone]
P_pargyrak: Panos Argyrakis;CACZ11@GRTHEUN1
P_00000003: OPERATOR;OPERATOR@GRTHEUN1
Netop: p_00000003

c. UUCP sites [ added the catalog here ]
-------------

I found a map of UUCP sites in Greece in pit-manager.mit.edu:
/pub/usenet/comp.mail.maps. Here follows an edited listing:
(I removed obviously out of date entries, because the last update was
at 19 Feb '91 -- you can route mail to any of these sites through ariadne)

ariadne:
(IP gateway also): ariadne.uucp = ARIADNE.BITNET
Check above for details about ariadne (in the IP nodes list).

aello:
Dimitris Hatzopoulos, [e-mail], [phone],
121 Tsimiski Street, GR-546 21  Thessaloniki, Greece
FidoNet nodes 2:410/1 2:410/0 2:41/0 - Network Host system for Greece.
This is a FidoNet <-> UUCP/Internet gateway site serving the FidoNet
nodes of Greece.  (FidoNet Region 41 - Network 410)

algo:
Algosystems sa
Dimitris Verikios, [e-mail], [phone], 9345858, x9352873,
Sygrou 183, Athens, Greece 17121.
Systems Integrators specialized in UNIX and Networks
SCO, EXCELAN, CABLETRON, DYNATECH and TATUNG distributor.

cmsu:
National Technical University of Athens
George Vlontakis, [e-mail], [phone],
Pathsivn 42, Athens, GREECE

ctc:
Computer Technologies Company (ctc)
Sakis Psonis, Melanippi Chryssoulaki, [e-mail], [phone], x6570676,
452, Mesogion Avenue, 153 42 - Athens, GREECE

dias:
Computer Technology Institute (cti)
Kostas Karanasios, [e-mail], [phone], x991909,
P.O. Box 1122, 261 10 Patras, Greece
dias.uucp == GRPATVX1.BITNET; CTI's Network Mail Gateway to EARN
Connected via GREARN; Help : [e-mail]

eetaa:
Hellenic Agency for Development & Local Government sa
[e-mail], [phone],
Solonos 10, 10672, Athens, Greece

elsyp:
Hellenic Information Systems sa
Savvidis S. Dimitrios, Matzarakis Dimitrios, [e-mail],
[phone], 6820017, x6811555, Kifisias 16, Marousi, Athens 151 25, Greece

epstech:
Epsion Software
Akis Fytas, [e-mail], [phone], 9427719,
377 Syngrou Avenue, P. Faliro, GR-17564, Athens, Greece
Software House specialized in XENIX/UNIX applications

ermhs:
Computer Technology Institute (cti)
(read dias' entry above)
CTI's Network Mail Gateway to EUnet; Help : [e-mail]

evelyn:
BetaTech Engineering Associates
Sotiris Vassilopoulos, [e-mail], [phone], x9953378,
Al. Ikonomou 4, 167 77 - Helleniko, Greece

gget:
General Secretariat of Research & Technology
Dimitrios Papaioannou, Marinos Skolarikos, [e-mail], [e-mail]
[phone], 14-18 Mesogeion Avenue, Athens 115 10, GREECE

intra:
Intrasoft sa, Res & Dev Department
Vassilis Kolias, [e-mail], [phone], 7701692(int.50), x7782444,
2 Messogion Str., Athens Tower, 11527 Athens, Greece

mrtath:
General Secretariat of Research & Technology (read gget's entry above)

sirius:
Technical University of Crete, Lab of Dynamic Systems and Simulation
Vangelis Voudourakis, [e-mail], [phone],
Ag. Markou st., Chania, Crete, Greece 73132

statik:
Ntua, Institute of Structural Analysis and Aseismic Research
Vlasis Koumousis, Panos Georgiou, [e-mail], [phone], x7784603,
Heroon Polytecneiou, Zografou, Athens, 157 73, GREECE

sungr:
Atko sa
Tasos Pikounis, Kostas Matrozos, [e-mail], [e-mail],
[phone], 7784967, x7798849, 74 Mesogeion Ave., Athens 153 42, GREECE

vergina:
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Thessaloniki
Dimitris Mitrakos, Michael Strintzis, [e-mail], [phone] 219783,
Thessaloniki 54006, Greece
Greek Academic Research Network ARIADNEt address (X.25) 1310010003

omalos:
Technical University of Crete, Chania
Manolis Fragonikolakis, [e-mail], [phone],
Ag. Markou st., Chania, Crete, Greece 73132

xanthi:
Democritus University of Thrace
Christos Chamzas, [e-mail], [phone],
Xanthi, Greece GR 67100

cteam:
COMPTUTER TEAM sa
VALI LALIOTI, [e-mail], [phone], 535312, 546547, FAX 544844
Karatasou 7, THessaloniki, Greece 546 26
Systems Integrators specialized in AIX and Networks (NOVELL)
Development of Software aplications in AIX, DOS, NOVELL
IBM PS/2, NOVELL, RISC 6000, INTERMEC distributor

lesbos:
Panayiotis Papachiou, [e-mail] [e-mail], [phone]
G. Kortesi 73, Kallithea, Mytilene, Greece 81100

ach:
Apple Center Heraklio
Maria Troullinou, [e-mail], [phone],
Crysostomou 26, Heraklion, Crete, Greece 71110

ambit:
Ambit Ltd
John Kozatsas, [e-mail], [phone]
5, Polemistwn str. GR-164 52 Argyroupolis, Athens


4. What standards exist for inclusion of Greek characters into ASCII text?
==========================================================================

NOTE: The greek typewriter character set is (assuming you follow the
Greek alphabet):

     a b g d e z h u i k l m n j o p r s t y f x c v

and `w' (lower-case only) is final sigma.

Also there are accents and diaeresis marks in Greek. Your keyboard driver
should provide for those special characters.
[I don't know if it's a standard (I think so, I never saw a mention)]

For 7-bit transmission: there's an ELOT standard, but we don't bother with it,
since we use always 8-bit ASCII (at least between us).

For 8-bit characters, there are 3 standards:
a. ELOT-928. It was assigned an ISO number(ISO8859-7), so its an
international and official standard.
Here in NTUA, we use it in our Unix machines (because it didn't
interfere with 'vi' metacharacters, as I was told ;-) )
Notice that this standard concerns ONLY the storage of 8-bit text files,
ie. it doesn't bother with keyboard mapping, etc. Besides the character
encodings, it provides also an escape sequence when you're switching
to/from it.

b. The de-facto standard: IBM PC character set [ 437 ]. The dealers
settled early enough on a standard 8-bit ASCII set for both Greek and
English letters.
Unfortunately, they didn't standardize on the combination of keys that
was necessary to activate the TSR programs, etc. It's a simple matter to
make a program that converts between the ELOT-928 and this format and
vice versa (in fact, we use such a program to transfer Greek files
between UNIX and PCs).

c. When IBM introduced PS/2s, there was a provision for Greek letters in
their character sets. Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom, they decided
to make it incompatible with the existing standards, either the de-facto
IBM or the ELOT-928. So the term IBM-compatible took a new meaning
(sarcasm indended). In any case, I suppose there are converters between
these character sets.

d. Mac: YAS (Yet Another Standard). The programmer who wants to use Greek
letters in his program, faces a strange character set (as told by others).
As a user, because you're buying from one source, there's no big trouble.
There's at least one converter between all these formats (Chameleon), but
I don't have recent news here.
Note: Apple had 2 different versions of the Greek alphabet implemented, so
be sure to get the latest ROM revisions if you want to run a hellenized
application.

[ Others?? ]

5. How do I write greek with troff/TeX/WP/... ??
================================================

If you don't have any way to find Greek fonts, use the Symbol font.
It works, albeit as a last resort.

TeX: I heard that there's a pre-version 3.0, 7-bit Greek font, somewhere
in the princeton.edu [128.112.128.1] anonymous FTP area. Silvio Levy
is the author. Also, John Charalambous has written an 8 bit version of
Levy's font. Both fonts are at least on ymir.claremont.edu
[134.173.4.23] - a VMS machine.

Yiannis Moschovakis <[e-mail]> has written an upgrade of the
7-bit fonts for TeX 3.0 and up. His package makes possible to use an
IBM Greek text file as input to TeX 3.0 (I haven't used it yet).

This package is available at math.ucla.edu (128.97.4.254), directory
pub/greektex.

[ Added by a netter ]
The Package KDgreek is a complete implementation of fonts and macros
for TeX and LaTeX with sample files, examples and style file for
typesetting modern and ancient greek.
A variety of fonts in different maginification is included.
It is used mainly in Europe and is available in Europian ftp sites. Home
site
        sappho.doc.ic.ac.uk     (146.169.21.14)
        /pub/tex/kdgreekNEW.tar.Z
Alternative sites
        uk.ac.tex (The European TeX Archive)
        src.doc.ic.ac.uk (The UKUUG archive)
as well as in other minor sites.

The package works under UNIX and DOS and the PC (archiving) version includes
files for emtex as well as a filter for the "standard" IBM extended ascii
greek font. For an extensive description of the package see discussions
in comp.text.tex (announcement of first release late 1991 and newer releases
and bug fixes 1992).

BTW the fonts are 8-bit and work with most of the comercial or public domain
font previewers or printing software.



There's also 1 commercial font [who? where? how much??]

Troff: We have a set of plain Greek (ie. no italics, no boldfaces, etc.)
To be more specific, a program here reads ELOT-928 text, and, when it
encounters a Greek character, it spits out a set of Troff commands.
Obviously, it's a hack, but It works. I would like to see a more general
solution, though.
NOTE: There's an effort here to make a better (and documented) solution
for Unix and X11 or vt220's. You'll read an announcement when its in
a distributable state.

WordPerfect: Even before there existed a Greek dealer, WP had support for
Greek letters in its 3-byte format. I don't know more details, but you'll
get best results if you get one of these Word Processing packages from
Greece.

6. Greek fonts into X Windows
==============================

From: [e-mail] (Philip Dye)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,brown.graphics
Subject: Re: Is there a way to get Greek fonts into ``idraw''?

---
>Does anyone know how Greek characters can be brought into idraw?
>I am trying to draw figures for a paper and am frustrated by
>the lack of support for using Greek letters in the figures in
>the program idraw.
>       -Alan Arehart
>        [e-mail]

Idraw (like all x applications) uses the 'X Logical Font Description' for
specification of screen fonts.  Using this specification one includes enough
information for the X server to locate a font.  To get a list of the
available fonts from a given server use the 'xlsfont' command.  So to
determine a specification for the Adobe Symbol one might use the following:

  % xlsfonts | grep -i symbol

  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--10-100-75-75-p-61-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--11-80-100-100-p-61-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-74-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--14-100-100-100-p-85-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--14-140-75-75-p-85-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--17-120-100-100-p-95-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--18-180-75-75-p-107-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--20-140-100-100-p-107-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--24-240-75-75-p-142-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--25-180-100-100-p-142-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--34-240-100-100-p-191-adobe-fontspecific
  -adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--8-80-75-75-p-51-adobe-fontspecific

Each of the above specifies a specific X11 screen font.  As much of the
information is common, a simpler specification will still result in precise
match.  For example, '*-symbol-medium-*-240-*' uniquely identifies a font.
If the given pattern does not uniquely identify a font, the first available
font, as listed by the xlsfonts program, is used.

In addition, idraw requires that one specify a postscript font and point
size to associate with the screen font.

Adding the following to your X11 defaults (or resources) will enable for
symbol font items in idraw.

idraw*font12:         *-symbol-medium-r-*-100-*      Symbol             10
idraw*font13:         *-symbol-medium-r-*-120-*      Symbol             12
idraw*font14:         *-symbol-medium-r-*-140-*      Symbol             14
idraw*font15:         *-symbol-medium-r-*-240-*      Symbol             24


7. Bookstores that carry Greek books
====================================

Here are some addresses of stores/institutions
selling/publishing Greek books/periodicals/newsletters, in no particular
order:

US/Canada :
-----------

University of Toronto Bookstore
214 College Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 3A1
tel.: [phone] (ancient Greek)
            978 7923 (modern Greek)
(ask for the books used by the Classics department
 ancient/modern Greek courses)

Modern Greek Studies Association
Box 1826, New Haven, Connecticut 06508
U.S.A.
(ask for their Journal of Modern Greek Studies,
 their newsletter, bulletin, conferences, etc.)

Princeton University Press
Princeton Modern Greek Studies
41 William Street
Princeton, NJ 08540
U.S.A.
tel.: [phone]
      (800) PRS ISBN or 777 4726 (orders)
(ask for a list of their books on modern Greek studies)

Pella publishing company, inc.
337 West 36th Street
New York, NY 10018
U.S.A.
(ask for a list of their books in general)

Schoenhof's Foreign Books
Cambridge, MA.
tel: [phone].

Greek books can be purchased in Montreal at the Greek Community Centre.
For more info. (prices, etc.) write to:

Communaute Hellenique de Montreal
Centre des Etudes Helleniques
5777, ave. Wilderton,
Montreal (Quebec),
Canada H3S 2V7

Attn. M. Chatzinikolaou
Tel. [phone]  (until 17:00 EDT)
     [phone]  (after 17:00 EDT)

UK :
----

[ Can anyone bring us the FAX/phone numbers ? - we think that the area code
 is 071, but we aren't sure ]

The Hellenic Book Service
122 Charing Cross Road WC2
London
phone [phone]

Zeno
6 Denmark Street WC2
London
phone [phone]

Kimon Bookshop
87-88 Plender Street NW1
London
phone [phone]


Located in Greece:
------------------
Olympic Book Center
16 Efroniou
116 34 Athens
Greece

Avastatikes Ekdoseis
Bibliopwleio Diovusiou Notn Karbia
Asklnpiou 67
GR-106 80 A0HNA

Ekdoseis - Palaiobibliopwleio "KOYLTOYRA"
Mavtzarou 4-(Solwnos 54)
GR 106 72 A0HNA

Ekdoseis - Bibliopwleio Stratns G. Filippotns
Solwnos 69 & Asklnpiou
GR 106 79 A0HNA

Ekdoseis Aposperitns
Eressou 9
A0HNA

Ekdoseis Dwrikos
Ippokratous 72
A0HNA

Ekdoseis Epikairotnta
Mauromixaln 60
GR 106 80 A0HNA
FAX : [phone]

Ekdoseis Pella
0eof. Papadopoulos & Yios O.E.
Kwletth 15 & Emm. Mpevakn
A0HNA

Ekdoseis Stoxastns
Mauromixaln 39
GR 106 80 A0HNA
FAX : [phone]

Ekdoseis Kardamitsa
Ippokratous 8
GR 106 79 A0HNA


8. Greek cuisine -- recommended books??
=======================================

Look at gatekeeper.dec.com (anonymous ftp), under the directory
pub/recipes (there's also a compressed tar file that contains all
the files). Familiar names were:
(I just did a 'dir', and these were some names I found familiar)

avgolemono, avgolemono-2, baklava, briami, kourabiedes, lamb-kebab,
lasagna-1..4, margarita-1, meat-kebabs, melomacarona, moussaka,
spanakopita, spanakopita-2


9. Greek wines -- reference book(s)
==================================

Lambert-Gocs, Miles. "The Wines of Greece". Faber & Faber
London, 1989(?)

It contains over 2 hundred Greek wine brands, their characteristics,
history of large and small producers, etc.etc.


10. The 12 Greek Gods : who are they?
======================================

It's rather easy to remember most of the 12 Gods of Greek Ancient
Mythology. The most easy to remember are:

Zeus, Hera, Athena, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Ares, Apollo, Hermes,
Demeter, Artemis

The number 12 is the most troublesome:

> From: [e-mail] (Richard Wallace)
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek
> Subject: Re: REQUEST: Greek Gods

The most usual list has Hestia as number twelve. She was the goddess of
hearth and home, and so a rather passive figure, and from time to time
people seem to have thought that she didn't really earn her place, and
put someone else in instead.

So far as I know, Hades is one of the twelve only in the list in Plato's
Phaedrus (and perhaps, by implication, in the Laws),
and there Plato makes it quite clear that HE has made the
decision to leave Hestia out. I think Hades does not figure in the
normal lists because they are the twelve OLYMPIAN gods, and Hades does
not normally come to Olympus (though Poseidon does).

Sometimes you get Dionysus instead of Hestia. He is a rather aberrant
god anyway (either because he was a late-comer to Greek religion or for
some other reason) - in any case he doesn't normally appear in the list.

There is some evidence that there was a local tradition at Olympia which
substituted Kronos, Rhea, and Alpheios (the local river god) for
Hephaistos, Demeter, and Hestia, and there are other cases of the
insertion of local gods into the list in particular localities,
presumably out of local patriotism.

Mostly, they referred to them simply as 'the twelve', no doubt leaving
it open to each individual to write in his own list!

[ Personally, I feel that Dionysus was mentioned most often in the
 mainland Greece mythology, at least in Attica -- nfotis ]


11. Greek Popular Music
=======================

   [This is from an article originally posted to soc.culture.greek by
Jon Corelis.]

   Greece has an exceptionally rich and varied musical tradition, so
that it's difficult to know where to start.  But the most popular Greek
music, both in the country and with foreigners, is probably music of the
two types called "rebetika" and "laika."

   Rebetika music has sometimes been called the Greek blues, and
although musically it's not like the blues at all, the comparison is an
apt one in that like the blues, rebetika music grew out of a specific
urban subculture and was associated with a certain type of life-style,
in which poverty, oppression, sex, alcohol, drugs, and violence played
prominent roles.  Rebetika music basically grew out of the culture of
the Greek refugees from Asia Minor in the early 1920's.  These people
were settled in Athens and other areas and continued to live for the
most part in their own communities, usually under conditions of great
hardship.  They  created through the fusion of the Anatolian musical
modes they brought with them with native mainland Greek musical
traditions a unique new type of music called rebetika (no one really
knows where the name came from) which reflected both the rough,
oppressed condition of their lives and the resilience, toughness, and
good humor which enabled them to survive.

   Rebetika is also similar to the blues in the development of its
social position.  In the twenties and thirties it was popular with the
urban poor who created it, later it became scorned as "low-class" music,
and then in the sixties it experienced a revival, becoming immensely
popular among young people, some of whom formed their own rebetika bands
to revive the music of the great rebetika artists of the past.

   Giving a discography for Greek music is always a bit difficult, since
records tend to rapidly go in and out of print.  But I'll give the names
of a few popular records which are probably still available.  Perhaps
the best place to start is with the soundtrack album from the film
"Rebetiko," issued in Greece by CBS records.  This film, which told the
life story of a typical rebetika singer, included numerous musical
numbers, some of which were old rebetika songs, others of which were
especially written for the film in rebetika style.  Rebetiko is one of
the very best Greek records ever, and remains immensely popular in
Greece.

   For the real thing -- collections of rebetika taken from the original
recordings of the 1920-1950 period -- an excellent series is the six
volume Rebetiki Istoria, issued in Greece by EMI.  If you can find all
six of these, you'll have about the best introduction to rebetika you
could hope for.  A very interesting record issued in the U.S. is
Greek-Oriental Smyrnaic-Rebetic Songs and Dances (Arhoolie/Folkloric
9033,) which concentrates on the early rebetika style which still
retained much of its Eastern flavor.

   As for other records, it's probably better to give the names of some
of the better artists rather than listing individual records that may
no longer be in print.  So look for the names Toundas, Tsitsanis, Markos
Vamvakaris, Rosa Eskanazi, Sotiria Bellou, Papaiouannou, and Rita
Abatsi.

   Fortunately for us English speakers, there exists a very good book in
English on rebetika:  Road to Rebetika by Gail Holst (Third ed., 1983,
Athens, Harvey.)  This book is sometimes found in university libraries
in the U.S., and can probably be obtained by your local library via
interlibrary loan service.  You could also try writing the publisher at
Denise Harvey & Company, Lambrou Fotiadis 6, Mets, Athens 407, Greece,
and see if you get a response.  It may be a bit of trouble to track this
book down, but it's absolutely worth it if you want to investigate this
type of music.

   The other type of music is a looser category sometimes called
"laika," which basically means just "popular music."  This is the music
"everyone" listens to -- sort of like rock music in the U.S.  And like
rock it includes music of many different subtypes.  Again, it will
probably be better to give names rather than individual recordings.
One of the best, and probably the most popular, of the artists in this
field is George Dalaras, who has worked in a wide range of genres --
recently he has branched out to include Spanish music in his
repertoire.  Another good artist, who has often worked with Dalaras, is
Haris Alexiou.  These two are perhaps the best introduction to laika
music at its best.  A singer with a smaller but devoted following is
Arleta (she goes by her first name only,) who tends to do relaxed but
often very beautiful folk-type songs, with minimal acoustic
accompaniment.  The composers Hadjidakis and Theoradakis have
innumerable records and have to some extent become popular outside of
Greece.

   Perhaps I should also note that there is a certain amount of overlap
between rebetika and laika:  Dalaras has recorded several rebetika
albums, Alexiou usually includes some rebetika songs on her records, and
Hadjidakis frequently uses rebetika songs as the basis for his
orchestral arrangements.

   A final note for anyone who plans a trip to Greece:  the best place
I've found to buy Greek music is the record shop Pop 11, at Pindarou 38
(corner of Tsakalof) in the Kolonaki section of Athens.  They have a
huge selection, the staff are knowledgable and speak English, and they
take credit cards.  The staff will also be able to advise you on places
to hear rebetica and other Greek music in Athens.

=======================================================================

End of FAQ
--
Nick (Nikolaos) Fotis         National Technical Univ. of Athens, Greece
HOME: 16 Esperidon St.,       UUCP:    mcsun!ariadne!theseas!nfotis
      Halandri, GR - 152 32   or InterNet : [e-mail]
      Athens, GREECE          FAX: [phone]