History

History of Persian Computing

This page is a chronological history of Persian Computing.

Chronology

1970's

1973-01-11, ISIRI 820 becomes the Iranian standard for Persian keyboard layout on typewriters. [standard]

1980's

1982, DecoType starts working on Advanced Composition Engine (ACE).
1982, Arab Standardization and Metrology Organization publishes ASMO 449, a 7-Bit coded character set to encode the Arabic language, which later evolves into ISO/IEC 8859-6, the basis for Arabic script encoding in Unicode. [ASMO 449] [ASMO]
1988-07-05, ISIRI 2900 becomes the Iranian standard for encoding of Persian in computers. (ASCII-based 8-bit shape-based/visual encoding.) [standard]
1988-07-05, ISIRI 2901 becomes the Iranian standard for Persian keyboard layout in computers. [standard]
198x, PE2, a DOS-based Persian-enabled text editor is developed by National Iranian Oil Company and used widely by corporations and typesetters. [screenshot]
198x or 199x, Sharp Word Processor (واژه‌پرداز شارپ) is developed by Madiran. [screenshot]
198x or 199x, Iran System encoding is developed by Iran System Co. and is widely used by the public. [WP]

1990's

1991, Zarnegar (first version) was released for DOS. [Zarnegar] [WP]
1992-07, Dictionary search program (dic.exe), an English-to-Persian dictionary DOS-based application is released by Virayeshgar Co. Ltd. [screenshot]
1992-12-06, ISIRI 3342 becomes the Iranian standard for encoding of Persian text in computers. (ASCII-based 8-bit semantic/logical encoding.) [standard] The standard introduces PSP (Pseudo Space or فاصله مجازی) as 0xA1 and PCN (Pseudo Connection or اتصال مجازی) as 0xA2, which later become ZWNJ (U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER) and ZWJ (U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER) in the Unicode Standard.
1992, The FarsiTeX Project is formed, to develop FarsiTeX, a free Persian/English bidirectional typesetting system based on Donald Knuth's TeX and Leslie Lamport's LaTeX. [FarsiTeX]
1994-08-29, ISIRI 2901 is updated to incorporate new encoding by ISIRI 3342. [standard]
1995, Cinema '76, one of the first Persian Multimedia CD-ROMs, with Persian HyperText, is released.
1997/1998, Negara, a publishing platform for newspapers, with Persian full-text search, is made available to some publications, including Khordad and Fath newspapers. The system uses Windows-1256 encoding on both sides: the Windows native app for the back-office, and the public web interface powered by Microsoft IIS. [private conversation, @behnam's collection]
199x, Various Persian versions of Windows 3.1x (and Windows NT 3.1) released in Iran, each having their own 8-bit (and possibly Unicode-based 16-bit) encoding.

2000's

2000, Zarnegar for Windows. [Zarnegar] [WP]
2000, FarsiWeb Project started at Sharif University of Technology. [PC-Ref]
2000, Persian Computing and FarsiWeb mailing lists are formed. [partial archives] [partial archives]
2000-04-22, Persian Digital Library, goes online with a collection of Hafez poems, encoded in Unicode. A few months later, Ahmad Shamlou's selected poems are added to the collection. [archive.org homepage, news]
2001-09-20, Rial Sign is proposed for encoding in Unicode, by Roozbeh Pournader of FarsiWeb Project. [N2373]
2002, Persopedia, an online library of Persian poetry goes online, using Dorj Argham's data (with their permission), powered by Microsoft IIS. [archive.org]
2003, Sharif FarsiWeb, Inc. started business. [PC-Ref]
2003-12-18, ISIRI 6219 becomes the Iranian standard for encoding of Persian text in computers. (Unicode-based semantic/logical encoding.) [standard]
2005, Persopedia switches to Unicode. [archive.org]
2007-04-08, ISIRI 9147 becomes the Iranian standard for Persian keyboard layout in computers. [standard]
2008-06-11, Ehsan Akhgari publishes an implementation of [ISIRI 9147] for Windows, supporting ZWNJ on "Shift+Space" position. [ehsanakhgari.org]
2009, Persian Computing mailing list was moved to Google Groups.
2009, Google adds Persian Transliteration web app. [google.com] [PC]
2009-06-30, First official version of Persian Firefox is released by Mozilla. [mozilla.org]

2010's

2011-08-10, Behnam Esfahbod publishes two keyboard layouts for Windows, ISIRI 9147 and Enhanced Microsoft Persian layout, supporting ZWNJ on Shift-Space position. [PC]
2013, Persian Computing Community introduces Persian Typography mailing list. [PT]
2013, IranNastaliq font is released. [yjc.ir]
2014, Microsoft adds Persian (Standard) keyboard layout, implementing ISIRI 9247. [behnam.es] [PC]
2015, Leila Typeface, first functional handwriting-style Persian font, is released by Reza Bakhtiarifard. [Behance] [PT]
2017-07-05, Persian Computing website is moved to GitHub. [PC]
2017, Arabic Type-Making in the Machine Age (The Influence of Technology on the Form of Arabic Type, 1908–1993) book, by Titus Nemeth, is published. [Brill]
2017, Persian keyboard is added to Apple iOS. [BBC]
2017, Apple introduces San Francisco Arabic, a new Perso-Arabic system/UI font for macOS, iOS, etc. [Apple-Forum]
2017, Kanun, first Perso-Arabic chromatic font was released by Kourosh Beigpour. [G+] [Granshan]