xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/29/90)
manes@vger.nsu.edu writes: > xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >> karl@cbmvax.commodore.com (Karl Herrman - CATS) writes: >>> boily@phy.ulaval.ca (Edouard Boily) writes: >> [Description of AV_Text Purpose deleted] >> Is there someone at Commodore particularly in charge of making this kind >> of decisions to antagonize the user base? > IMSATT Corp. does AmigaVision programming for Commodore. I assume that > they have been tagged with this responsibility, however that might not > be the case. >> Last I heard, there are some 3000 different human languages. Don't you >> think you might be limiting your market just the teensiest bit by making >> distribution to these other language groups wait until you folks get >> around to finding someone who knows each language to do the translation >> for you? > I suspect of those 3000 languages only the languages that Commodore > has a market in would be supported. I believe that would limited to > around 10-15 languages (if that). French, German (HochDeutsch und PlattDeutsch), Danish, Swedish, Norse, Gaelic, Scottish, Welsh, Walloon, Finnish, Icelandic, Spanish, Dutch, Afrikaaner, Dravidian, Chinese (High and Low), Japanese (Three forms), Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, Korean, Philipean, Tagalog, Russian, Polish, Slovak, ... and that's just the ones I know of the native languages of those writing _me_ about the Amiga. >> As opposed, say, to putting the file out in well documented, easy to >> modify form, and letting the vast knowledge of the user base be brought to >> bear to get the port done in 1/10 the time and cost to Commodore, thereby >> boosting your sales and hastening the return on your software development >> investment. > Kent, I am surprised at you! No you're not, Mark, we've been friends a _long_ time. ;-) > Software generally comes from the manufacturer complete! Are you > suggesting that Commodore go ahead and ship the English version of > Amigavision to Germany, and the German users can translate it? Since English is the universal language of software development (as it is of aircraft and ship operation), releasing the package in English worldwide, and letting local developers have the information to write value added modules to cope with the local non-English facile population is an obvious approach to faster return on investment. I know from my experience with the Harvard Graphics development team that vendor produced "international" versions lag the English version by months to years, and by then your competition has incorporated your best inovations in their software and is competing with you head to head in your second markets. > I personally think that Commodore is starting to participate in the > world marketplace a bit better by providing support for the foreign > languages. Sure, and that wasn't my objection; considering the sales pattern for the Amiga, Commodore would be committing suicide to release _only_ English versions. I object to the _encryption_, deliberately obfuscating the process needed to port the package to a second language. How long is the Tagalog market expected to limit the machine to English speakers only? A damned long time if they have to wait until Commodore gets around to supporting such a small market. The immense success of open architecture as opposed to closed architecture hardware should have made its point by now: third party add-ons help sell your product, they don't compete with you directly. This applies just as well to software. A good part of the success of Lotus 123 can be laid to the follow on market products that improved its utility. >Support takes time. :-) Differentiate support from development. Note that allowing for third party modules doesn't at all prevent Commodore from releasing their own (much superior ;-) international port later, perhaps optionally as an upgrade to the English language versions at reasonable cost, just as they have incorporated the good ideas from ARP, FastFonts, pipes, and other public domain and commercial releases into their operating system upgrades, by adoption or purchase or license. >> Some of the thinking that comes out of CBM just staggers an intellect >> used to common sense. Note that this opinion has been my constant one for the last four years; the best machine, and the worst business practices holding it down. I've not made any secret of my opinions here over the years, and they are widely shared, from the evidence of other postings. > Kent, take a few minutes, get some rest, the newsgroup thingie is > catching up with you! > :-) Not really, the voting patterns with the speed of Internet make all the vote taker's effort exist in the first 48 hours; the next 19 days see a dribble of votes. I'm already within 35 votes or so of the total number received for the comp.sys.amiga.games vote, and I don't really expect more than another 150 or so votes, so my work is mostly over, especially since my awk scripts pretty much have already written the final report for me, except for 30 minutes or so of editing. The rest of the effort is countering Peter da Silva's effort to sabotage the whole vote, in his inimitable fashion, and lots of boring checks for one or two more votes in the mailbox. Pieces of cake, both. I'm far meaner than he is, and I have years of practice entertaining myself watching hull paint fade. The really good news is that I've only had about half a dozen vote ACKs fail to get through, almost all due to mail address parsing problems at pucc.princeton.edu, and most for votes from Ireland. >Your friend, I remember. Really I do. Sorry I don't write oftener; I've been moodier than usual recently. Too much isolation. > -mark= /// It's Amiga /// for me: why Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less? -- Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.
xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nigel Tzeng) (11/29/90)
In article <1990Nov29.011411.479@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes... ^manes@vger.nsu.edu writes: ^> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: ^>> karl@cbmvax.commodore.com (Karl Herrman - CATS) writes: ^>>> boily@phy.ulaval.ca (Edouard Boily) writes: ^ ^>> [Description of AV_Text Purpose deleted] ^ [stuff deleted to save bandwidth] ^ ^>> Last I heard, there are some 3000 different human languages. Don't you ^>> think you might be limiting your market just the teensiest bit by making ^>> distribution to these other language groups wait until you folks get ^>> around to finding someone who knows each language to do the translation ^>> for you? ^ ^> I suspect of those 3000 languages only the languages that Commodore ^> has a market in would be supported. I believe that would limited to ^> around 10-15 languages (if that). ^ ^French, German (HochDeutsch und PlattDeutsch), Danish, Swedish, Norse, ^Gaelic, Scottish, Welsh, Walloon, Finnish, Icelandic, Spanish, Dutch, ^Afrikaaner, Dravidian, Chinese (High and Low), Japanese (Three forms), ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Eh? High and low forms? What quaint locale did you glean this tidbit from? As far as the eastern symbolic languages go you can pretty much give up on the idea of a simple UI port from any Eurpoean language. You might scrape by using the various pronunciation translation systems (like PinYin for Chinese) but this requires the user to know the alphabet. Odds are anyone capable of reading pinyin is also capable of reading at least rudimentary English. Nice of you to think of the oddball user though ;-). This does bring up just how do people manage to make a computer system that will work with eastern languages? I've seen Chinese word processors on the PC but these all require quite a bit of learning curve to figure out correct keystrokes to form words. While there are "primitives" in the written language (like certain common radicals) some of the key combos are non-intuitive. Then again I'm not a native writer so it might have just been me. I've also seen shows where you see some Japanese programmer happily typing Japanese on some terminal (and presumably programming or something). ^Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, Korean, Philipean, Tagalog, Russian, Polish, ^Slovak, ... and that's just the ones I know of the native languages of ^those writing _me_ about the Amiga. Wow, I'm impressed Kent. Didn't know you knew so many languages! ;-) I'm kinda guessing the wrote you in English. ;-) ^ ^>> As opposed, say, to putting the file out in well documented, easy to ^>> modify form, and letting the vast knowledge of the user base be brought to ^>> bear to get the port done in 1/10 the time and cost to Commodore, thereby ^>> boosting your sales and hastening the return on your software development ^>> investment. ^ ^> Kent, I am surprised at you! ^ ^No you're not, Mark, we've been friends a _long_ time. ;-) ^ [stuff deleted to save bandwidth] ^ ^I object to the _encryption_, deliberately obfuscating the process ^needed to port the package to a second language. How long is the ^Tagalog market expected to limit the machine to English speakers only? ^A damned long time if they have to wait until Commodore gets around to ^supporting such a small market. Don't disagree with you overly much there. BTW: What does Tagalog look like? There is a further question though. Just how is a Tagalog native supposed to read the documentation on how to use the Amiga without knowing English? CLI would be right out and intuition a bit iffy. It may be user friendly to us (who have used computers for some significant portion of our lives) but it is hard for a non-computer type to just sit down and use...no matter what Apple would like us to believe ;-). ^ ^The immense success of open architecture as opposed to closed architecture ^hardware should have made its point by now: third party add-ons help sell ^your product, they don't compete with you directly. This applies just as ^well to software. A good part of the success of Lotus 123 can be laid to ^the follow on market products that improved its utility. There is a slight difference in hacked software than in copied hardware. It is one of those levels of degree things. Yes, it should be open enough for third party people to write new gizmos for it (like device drivers/controllers, and so on). But not so open as to allow hacking at the internals. Kinda like computer security...you want enough security not to get burned and not so much no one can get any work done. In this case it really wouldn't look good if someone hacked in obnoxious messages in the displays. People may assume that Commodore was responsible. [rest deleted] ^ ^Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for See Ya and Have fun with the Voting. Looks like you "are". ;-) NT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // | Nigel Tzeng - STX Inc - NASA/GSFC COBE Project \X/ | xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov | Amiga | Standard Disclaimer Applies: The opinions expressed are my own.
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (11/30/90)
In article <1990Nov29.011411.479@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: > >>Support takes time. :-) > >Differentiate support from development. But it's a fact that not every country has its own development. So it indeed remains to the support department to bother with things like nationalization of such software. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk