Dear Petr Ovchenkov, and others,

You write:

 > the common practice is switch to another language register

I think this is a very effective solution that should be
used in the West to keep an ASCII keyboard instantly available,
rather then suffer the sort of difficulty I mentioned:

 > I notice that on a French Windows keyboard, \ requires a
 > double modifier key!!!!! Also ` and ~ are *highly*
 > inaccessible (3 keystrokes each). In a generic editor here in
 > France, TeX is not well served by Wintel.

By preference I work with Macintosh computers on which keyboards
are almost totally programmable. With little effort and no
expense, you can change the codes emitted by the keys and also
(within limits) the function unleashed by most key
combinations. So I have programmed an ASCII keyboard, and even a
Cyrillic keyboard fitting standard fonts to each.  Any sign of
such programmability for Wintel machines (or Lintel or ...)??

These comments diverge from the point of my question which
rather seeks to get acceptable results for *everyone* on the
most *mediocre* and *varying* equipment anywhere in the world
outside of Russia. Hence the emphasis on ASCII.

I'll explain my line of thought on this track as soon as
I get rid of needless conflicts with the realities of Russian
typing -- such as Mikhail has just pointed out.

Cheers

Larry S