The 1981 design specifications for the Egyptian National Scientific and Technical Information Network (ENSTINET) stipulated that major end-user facilities of the system should be bilingual in English and Arabic. Many characteristics of the Arabic alphabet and language impact computer applications, and there exists no universally accepted character encoding scheme equivalent to the ASCII standard for Latin alphabets. In order to overcome the native language barrier in the system, a native language interface to existing software was developed. The Arabic language software functions include an Arabic editor running under the UNIX operating system, an Arabic database search facility, and electronic mail, which were implemented for peripheral devices using the CODAR/UFD Arabic character encoding scheme. The Arabic database search facility has been developed by arabizing BRS/Mate, a menu-oriented front end to the native mode of Mini-Micro BRS/Search, a full text, state-of-the-art information management software system. Five references are provided. (MES)