A Windows-compatible Bijoy came to the market in 1993 (on 26 March, the Independence Day of Bangladesh). The first edition of Bijoy was developed only for use in Macintosh computers. Jabbar established his own company, Ananda Computers and has continued to improve Bijoy and develop new software. The keyboard layout and font designs were created by the inventor himself while the software programming was done by an Indian programmer. Success came after one and a half years of continuous work, and the first edition of Bijoy was released in December 1988.

Jabbar wanted to overcome many of the limitations associated with the existing options by developing a new Bangla interface with a new layout. The main challenge was to accommodate the 50-letter Bangla alphabet, along with additional vowels and conjoined letters, within a standard Macintosh (and later, Windows®) keyboard, and to create an acceptable QWERTY layout standard.Īt that time there were at least two other Bangla keyboard layouts: the “Munir” keyboard, which was developed in 1965 for use in typewriters, and the “Shahid Lipi,” which can be said to be the first complete Bangla typing interface. He started looking for ways to extend the technology for publications in Bangla. Although the use of computer technology for publications at that time was limited, he was impressed when he saw an English language weekly using a Macintosh® computer. He quickly realized that technological facilities for Bangla publications were almost non-existent. Jabbar’s intent to publish a weekly Bangla newspaper in 1987. Jabbar’s “Bijoy” software and keyboard are now the most popular, widely used Bangla typing option in the world. With the advent of personal computers in the 1990s for office and home uses, his invention gradually became popular among the public and private sectors, educational institutes and individual users in Bangladesh and parts of India. Understanding the need for and potential of a feasible Bangla Script Writing Interface, Mustafa Jabbar, a Bangladeshi journalist, took the initiative to develop the software and appropriate Bangla keyboard layout, which virtually changed the printing and publishing industry in Bangladesh.

Bangla keyboard bijoy