Abstract: A processor is connected to a display screen to generate a screen display of individual characters in groups together with the selector indication. Such characters typically belong in a language set, e.g., English, Japanese, Greek, etc. The processor receives from the numeric keypad a user selection of a number "1-9" that is associated with a particular one of the individual characters in a group highlighted by the selector indication. An index-and-fetch mechanism, typically implemented as a computer program sub-routine, provides for an indexed fetch of a digital data representation in a font memory of a character indexed according to the number "1-9". The fetched digital data is then available for more general use by a larger computer system, for example in the form of an "ASCII" output character.