sjmaxq-- If you're going to write Hindi, a devanagri font and a keyboard are about all you'll need. With roughly 33 consonant glyphs and about 13 vowels, I count the combinations (maatraas) at over 400), but since most of these are simply the consonants and the vowels conjoined in a sytematic fashion, nothing special is needed. If you were going to write Sanskrit, though, you'll need about 200 extra compound consonant signs, and those are not quite as simple as the CV compounds. Ideally, you'd want to type words phonetically, unless you want to learn a new layout for a Hindi keyboard. You don't mention which OS you're using; probably Windows. If you're using Win2K or XP, you can go to the Control Panels > Regional Options; select the Indic checkbox; then under the Input Locales tab, select Hindi. (I found this on the web, and have used it for installing Japanese input systems, but I couldn't find a keyboard for Hindi, so you might have to install something extra from the OS CD-ROM.) The only way, I've been able to typeset Sanskrit has been to use a program called TeX (and some auxiliary programs designed for translating a Roman representation into Devanangri; see link below. I agree with shanks though that writing by hand is probably better at this point. It helps learning the characters more quickly.

http://www.aczone.com/itrans/