john@spot.twinsun.com (John Min) (06/02/90)
I am looking for a wordprocessor for the IBM PC family that will accept both English and Japanese languages. Price isn't really a problem but ease of use is. Any leads will be greatly appreciated. John john@spot.twinsun.com min@castor.usc.edu
john@spot.twinsun.com (John Min) (06/07/90)
The enclosed are the two of the replies I received so far.
I hope you'll find them useful.
As far as I can tell, there are only two available software.
One is EW+ (which retails for $800+) and MOKE.
john
1. EW+ (message from edwards@macc.wisc.edu, author of MOKE)
Article 771 of sci.lang.japan:
Path:
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From: hartmut%JANE.RUC.DK@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ("Hartmut Haberland,03.1.5")
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
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Date: 8 Oct 89 08:25:00 GMT
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A while ago, there was a discussion on NIHONGO on Japanese word
procesing software for DOS machines. Although the discussion has
petered out, the people interested in it might still be around,
so perhaps you want to hera what I have to tell:
1. I ordered the demo version of EW+ from ITL, 280 Park Ave. 4th
floor, New York, NY 10017 ('phone: (212) 557-0177, FAX: (212) 557-
0179). The demo version costs $20. I ordered the double
density (48 TPI), 5"1/4 diskette version, since my XT-compatible
can't take high density (96 TPI) diskettes. This costs $10 extra,
which turned out to be un unnecessary expense. The diskettes are
not copy protected and I could have copied my diskettes locally
from an AT to an XT drive. Rather I got into problems since the
48 TPI diskettes were obviously written on an, which gave the
usual 98% readability on an XT. But I managed to install EW+,
although it took me a bit longer (for re-trying several times to
read particularly one diskette). They also charged me $15 for
courier mail, which only is fair, but it might have been cheaper
if I had ordered the `standard' 96 TPI diskette(s?). Still, you
get very good value for your $45 (especially if you order from
Europe and the dollar is down on the day you pay your order).
2. I an running the demo on a Commodore XT-compatible (PC-20-III)
with 640 K RAM and an 8088 processor. (So this IS possible!)
Performance is not bad at all (at 10MHz clock frequency). The
other data: 32 MB file card, DOS 3.3 (less won't do), Hercules
Plus Graphics card, EIZO 14" screen white/black, HP Laser Jet II
with 4MB RAM.
3. Initially there was a printer problem on the HP Laser Jet:
every page started with some alphanumeric characters, usually 0F.
I told ITL about it and they sent a VERY kind letter telling me
that I should add a line
mode lpt1:,,p
to the EWDEMO.BAT file. (If you can't see why this is, don't
bother - I can tell you that it works.)
4. The limitations of the demo version are few, certainly fewer
than ITL could allow themselves to put in if they just want to
make sure that EW+ works on your configuration before you order.
(I won't say more here - ITL might change their policies.) You
get only kanji up to JIS level 1, but EW+ certainly knows all the
kanji I know. Some non-Japanese characters cannot be printed in
full size (rather than half-size, which is much more natural for
running English text anyway). Some characters only come out
`garbled' (like single quotes, exclamation marks - but parenthe-
ses are OK). And some kanji are affected. The only `serious' one
I ran into (that's of course a random sample) is HOKU/kita,
whereas the kanji for unagi definitely can be done without and I
didn't even know that there was a kanji for sushi until I saw it
on the screen - but, alas, the printer won't print it. All this
only affects printing and not the screen image.
5. The demo version comes with two brief manuals in English and
Japanese. Both are OK to get you going, but it took me some time
to figure out some of the less obvious features, like the use of
the F1 through F10 keys. Note that Ctrl-Space is a `toggle' for
romaji <-> kana/kanji-henkaku mode.
6. Evaluation. The program is good and I wish I had the $800 to
buy it. Kana<->Kanji conversion is fast and, as far as I can see,
intelligent. The performance on the HP Laser Jet is adequate, but
not brilliant: EW+ just emulates a 24-pin matrix printer on the
laser which is adequate, but (as I said) it could be much better.
This applies to the kana/kanji side, but even more to the romaji.
Serious limitations come only on the romaji-side. If you want to
use EW+ for writing letters in European languages with some kanji
or kana put in between (which is basically what would want it
for), you'll be annoyed by the following:
1. The program `letter-wraps' instead of doing `word-wrapping'.
So you can't use justified right margins and have to use <CR> at
the end of each line.
2. You have to stick to English or supply your diacritics your-
self. I admit that it still looks better with printed kanji and a
few German Umlaut dots put in manually than the other way round,
but it is a limitation. (ITL informes me that it would be
technically impossible to put anything above the standard ASCII
characters into the character set, but I doubt this since they
have so many other characters available, even including Cyrillic
(capital) letters, although these are entered by menu.)
Of course, I am not a heavy duty user and there might be
limitations I am not aware of. But what I have seen is pretty
impressive.
Hartmut Haberland
Internet: hartmut@jane.ruc.dk (or try tarzan@jane.ruc.dk)
Because It's There NET: ruchh@neuvm1
'phone: +45 46757711, ext. 2336
FAX: +45 46757401, marked `att. Hartmut Haberland'
You can take the train from Copenhagen Central station right to
Roskilde and bus #624 to Roskilde University, find house 03.1.5
and walk straight into my office. You're welcome!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PS Some people complain about discussion lists being `dead' or `not
very much alive'. Thank God! I once was on HUMANIST and got 87 letters
after the summer holiday, and three or four daily otherwise. I had to
sign off. My account was blown. I enjoy Nihongo, I'm learning a lot from
the language notes, and I learned about EW+ - what d'ya want more?
2. MOKE
The following is a message I received from <joe@comp.vuw.ac.nz>. I have
not personally tried MOKE but have ordered it. It seems something
worth looking into.
MOKE 1.1 (the PC Japanese Editor) Update
MOKE 1.1 was released April 18 and so far over 80 people have logged
in via anonymous ftp to retrieve MOKE and several people have requested
that I mail MOKE to them via smail. The requests I received so far went
out this morning (Saturday 28 April) and you should have them shortly.
Let me know if you do not get them by May 7th. Finally with a PC
program to write japanese maybe there will be a bigger movement in
sci.lang.japan to actually use japanese.
Everyone is strongly encourage to get on the MOKE mailing list. New
developments, bug reports, fixes will only be posted to the mailing
list. Please mail all comments, suggestions, problems, or whatever
to me (edwards@macc.wisc.edu). Things already in planing: mouse
interface for moke, multiple editing buffers, incorporating SKK3.45
dictionaries, using the kanji frequency counts with wnndict. I already
have an Outline for a Kanji Quiz program working. Stay tuned.
Since the release, jprint has been updated to work on Epson 9pin
compatible printers, and will now use jis24 (a 24x24 bitmap font).
The "-L" parameter gives surprisingly good output on a 24pin printer.
The new jprint is in jprint.zoo on 128.104.30.31.
Since the release, kanjips for the PC has had a bug fixed and it now
works properly (before it was dropping the first character of each
line). The file is now called kanjips.zoo. Kanjips prints japanese on
a postscript printer.
The following is the results of email questions/problems about
MOKE. Rename Appendix F to G and insert the following as Appendix F.
F. Trouble Shooting
F1. Problem: Can't save file within MOKE
Solution: edit config.sys and change "files" to "files=20" and reboot.
F2. Problem: Help files will not display MOKE
Possible Solution: Check config.sys for files=20 if not edit config.sys
and change "files" to "files=20" and reboot.
Possbile Solution: Check to see if help.hlp file exists if not reload
it
F3. Problem: MOKE displays on only about half of the screen.
Solution: Edit moke.rc and change "graphicstype" to EGA/VGA
F4. Problem: Can't see the ENTERLINE or the STATUSLINE
Solution: Edit moke.rc and change "graphicstype" to CGA
F5. Problem: MOKE loads a file but displays garbage on the screen.
Solution: Check moke.rc to see what kind of Japanese code type it
thinks it is loading. MOKE's default code type is EUC.
Use the jc program to convert it to desired code type.
To convert from JIS to EUC:
jc -e filename > filename.out
F6. Problem: Uploading or down loading a file causes the file to be
changed into junk.
Solution: If the file you are trying to transfer is EUC try changing
it to JIS. If it is JIS then try uudecoding the file
before transfering it.
F7. Problem: jprint doesn't print ascii in the correct places. Instead
it prints the ascii on top of the Japanese characters.
Solution: Get a new version of jprint. One dated on or after 25 April
will print on 9 pin printers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOKE 1.1 (Release Notes)
MOKE 1.1 is currently available for anonymous ftp at 128.104.30.31.
Do a mget of mk11*.zoo, jis24.zoo, jprint.zoo using the binary mode. If
you don't have zoo.exe it is also available there. Make a directory
called \kanji at the root level and copy everything to \kanji. Edit the
moke.rc in \kanji for your configuration (ie graphics card, which
dictionaries to use, etc)
MOKE is freely distributed. But like the authors of VOGLE, I will accept
any contributions and drink all the beer you send to me. I am also
willing to mail MOKE to you. Send $10 (Check or Money Order, overseas add
another $10 U.S.) to cover mailing and floppy costs (MOKE is less than
2Meg compressed). Please specify type of floppy: 5 1/4 (360k/1.2M) or
3 1/2 (720k).
MOKE 1.1 is a full screen editor capable of entering hiragana, katakana
and kanji. Other features include but are not limited to:
- lookup of kanji(s) the cursor points to (yomikata, english)
- lookup of kanji via english (Small kanji -> english dictionary suppli
ed)
- lookup of kanji compound given one of the kanji
- dictionary entry of english within the editor
- kanji searching within MOKE's file buffer
- primative help facility
- printing via jprint (outside of MOKE) (Epson compatible 24pin)
Known Bugs (features)
- if line is longer then screen then the part that won't fit on the
screen is invisible
- scrolling via the arrow keys can occasionally hang your PC (takes
a couple of pages).
- Wnndict kanji are not listed in most frequent order (to be fixed
in MOKE 1.2)
- tabs are not expanded within MOKE (it will expand tabs while loading
file)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Files
mk11exe.zoo - executable files (moke, revtab, ktok_ind, wnn_ind,
jprint) *.hlp files and readme.mk
mk11skk.zoo - the data files needed using only SKKJIS
mk11wnnd.zoo - the data files needed to use combined SKKJIS & WNN
(kana to kanji)
mk11wkok.zoo - the data files needed to use combined SKKJIS & WNN
(kanji to kana)
mk11doc.zoo - documentation file for moke (Text version and
a postscript version). There is JIS text in
this doc.
mk11k16.zoo - 16 x 16 kanji bitmap fonts.
mk11bgi.zoo - bgi drivers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From MOKE.DOC
1.0 Overview
MOKE is Japanese language editor for the PC with a command set
similar to the UNIX editor 'vi'. The name MOKE is partially derived
from JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs) and shows some lack of
creativity. However the only reward I may get in writing this editor
may be that it bares my first name. This User's Reference Guide was
entered using MOKE and MicroEmacs 3.10.
This program is the result of many long nights in front of my PC and
is based on several other programs (view, rtk, fk). This could not
really be a Japanese editor without the Simple Kana to Kanji conversion
program by Masahiko Sato (masahiko@sato.riec.tohoku.junet) and the
Wnn dictionaries.
MOKE allows input of english, hiragana, katakana, and most importantly
kanji. As far as I know there is "no good" way of entering kanji on
a computer. All methods require a number of key strokes first to enter
kana, then more strokes to select a kanji character. In that respect
this editor is no different. It should be noted that this is not a
word processor, but a text editor.
MOKE can also aid in the entry of Kanji. When writing japanese I frequently
must consult a dictionary (or my wife) to find out where the kanji stops
and the kana starts. Many times I know the onyomi of the kanji. If the
kanji is displayed in on the screen and the cursor is below it by using
the F7 key all the on/kun yomi's of the kanji will be displayed in the
ENTERLINE line. By using the ALT-m combination to mark a place and the
F7 key the japanese to english translation of the word (if found in the
dictionary) will be displayed as well as the yomikata of a kanji word.
It also has the ability to search for a word given one of the kanjis
in that word.
As the UNIX "vi" editor is a mode editor so is MOKE. Perhaps the major
reason for this is the need to enter Japanese kana and kanji. Though
it doesn't necessitate it. MOKE has two modes: CURSOR mode, and INSERT
mode. In CURSOR mode all movement in the file is done, as well as editing
of existing text. In INSERT mode all entering or inputing of new text is
done.
MOKE may be freely distributed. If you pass the program along, please
include all documentation, help files, dictionary files and executable
files. The only connection that this program has with the University of
Wisconsin is that I am a full time employee there.
Section 2.0 states the System Requirements and Section 3. details the
installation of MOKE. While the remainder of this document describes the
operation of the editor. If you have any questions, problems, bug reports,
or other please report them to me.
mark edwards [ $B%^!<%/!#%(%I%o%:(J ]
29 Sandy ct.
Madison, Wi. 53717 (USA)
Phone: (608) 262-7585
Email:
Internet: edwards@macc.wisc.edu
Bitnet: edwards@wiscmacc.bitnet
Note: MOKE and its utility programs have more than 5000 lines of code. The
code is still undergoing development. MOKE the editor was started
around the middle of January 1990. Being that this code is only
around 3 months old it is not surprising that MOKE still has some
bugs. Most of the bugs while being bothersome are harmless. Some
bugs, however, may lock up your PC causing loss of text. So please
insure that you have adequate backups and that you save the current
buffer every once and a while. (If you keep me informed of bugs
you find I'll keep everyone else informed, if not fix them as
soon as the bugs surface.)
2.0 System Requirements
- IBM PC (XT, AT, 386, PS/2, or clone)
- MSDOS 3.1 or higher
- 512k memory or more (MOKE uses 230k on startup)
- Graphics Adapter (Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA)
- Harddrive or one high density floppy disk drive
(depending on which Kana to Kanji dictionary used)
Note: Because MOKE uses bitmapped fonts the faster your PC the better
the response time will be.
Useable lines for Japanese
CGA - 7
HGC - 14
EGA - 20
VGA - 20
==============================================================================
john@burns.twinsun.com
min@castor.usc.edu <== "Once a Trojan, always a Trojan!"
==============================================================================