What are all the methods available to type Tamil in computing machines?
1. English Transliteration method.
In PC DOS days, ADAMI and THIRU were used for this method. Presently, Keyman's eKalappai and NHM Writer are available free.
2. Tamil Character Reform (Phonetic) Typewriter method.
This was introduced by Microsoft in Windows, as the default keyboard with three baskets. Tamil is considered a complex script by the Unicode Consortium and Microsoft.
3. Grammatic Typewriter method.
Tamilnet99 keyboard implements this method.
4. Diacritic Typewriter method.
Even now, newspapers have their own nonunicode font files for this method of typing.
5. VUTAM Type_As_You_Write method.
New for Unicode Tamil typing.
ADVANTAGES:
To propagate and encourage typing Tamil the way we learnt to write it, that is, VUTAM Type_As_You_Write, I've uploaded two articles bringing forth the advantages of this method over others, in ta/wikipedia. Disadvantages of using other methods of typing Tamil, as against the VUTAM Type_As_You_Write method, are discussed at length in these articles. All related issues like data integrity, sorting and searching, grammatical and reform issues are also dealt with in these.
The first deals, in English, with the advantages of VUTAM over other schemes. Please:
<< Click Link: WIKI1.
The second, a gist of the English version, is in Tamil. Please:
<< Click Link: WIKI2.
To know about 'simpler implementation' of VUTAM, mentioned in these articles, please:
<< Click Link: Simpler.
(My special thanks to Yahoo's Geocities for offering this free web site)