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EthCITA (Ethiopian Computing and Information Technology Association, Inc.)

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October 3, 1995

Selam EEDN:

The Board members of EthCITA/EEDN, together with the owners of EthiO Systems, an Ethiopic software developing company based in Houston, TX are pleased to announce the release of the first multi-paltform web browser and publisher for documents written in any of Ethiopia's langauges using the Ethiopian script.

Using any of the latest Web browsers and the WashRA fonts that come together with WashRA, an Ethiopic software developed by EthiO Systems, users can now publish and browse Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna or any other Ethiopian language documents written in the unique and thriving Ethiopian Script.

WashRA will be the official EthCITA/EEDN Ethiopian web documents publishing tool. Documents written using this software and web browser are already linked to the home-page of EthCITA/EEDN. The "Ethiopian Literary Column" , one of the links on the home-page has sample documents written in Ethiopian script.

Since the Web has already become the most important feature of the Internet with incredible opportunity for communication and the proliferation of the on-line creative arts and the like, the EthCITA/EEDN Board members together with EthiO Systems would like to encourage the EEDN community to visit the various home-pages maintained by Ethiopians and contribute articles of both literary and science& technology contents along with other popular subjects.

To publish and browse documents in Ethiopian Script, you need:

1) Netscape Version 1.2 or any other web-browser with options for selecting fonts.

2) WashRA software which contains the copy-righted WashRA fonts developed by EthiO Systems.

You may contact EthiO Systems at

E-mail: Ethiosys@neosoft.com

tel: 713-995-4360

P.O.Box 36921

Houston, TX

The Board members of EthCITA/EEDN would like to take this opportunity to thank the owners of EthiO Systems who have brought Web publishing universally for Ethiopian script users. EthCITA/EEDN will continue encouraging and endorsing products that contribute towards expanding computing and information technology advances to the Ethiopian community.

With Best Wishes,

EthCITA and EEDN Board members

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The following information is supplied to give more technical information on WashRA.

Why WashRa?

[1] WashRa is a powerful system to prepare and browse Ethiopian Web Document (EWD).

[2] WashRa font are based on Ethiopian ASCII encoding standard developed by Ethio Systems. Ethiopian

ASCII devides Ethiopian Script into two tables, called Haddis Character Set I and II. Haddis Character Set I is adequate either for writing or browsing Ethiopian Web Document (EWD).

[3] WashRa offers the Ethiopian Script font with the industry standard PostScript Type-1 and TrueType format. This ensure the visibility of browsing Ethiopian Web Document accross different platform including MS Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

[4] WashRa is versatile and flexible in working with several HTML (HyperText Mark up Language) editors to produce Ethiopian Web Document. Authors can use as simple as MS Write, or the Windows 95's WinPAD to prepare their EWD.

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