ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (01/28/89)
Does anyone know anything about word processing on the Mac? Has anyone used FeiMa and have any comments, good or bad? Any help will be much appreciated. Linda Iroff Humanities Computing Cornell University elfj@crnlvax5.bitnet elfj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Xiaoxia Ye) (01/29/89)
In article <8901271611.AA06203@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU writes: >Does anyone know anything about word processing on the Mac? Has anyone >used FeiMa and have any comments, good or bad? > >Any help will be much appreciated. > >Linda Iroff >Humanities Computing >Cornell University >elfj@crnlvax5.bitnet >elfj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu First of all, FeiMa is not for macintosh, it's for IBM. I only wish that they have a Mac version. It's a great program, the printout is superb on a regular Epson dot-matrix printer. It looks even better on a laster printer. Input of characters is painless. It guesses the WORD, not character that you input, and about 90% of the time, its guess is right. One caveat: if you use it to write ancient chinese (which very uses diffrent WORDING from modern chinese,the so called Bai2Hua4Wen2 (Plain-Talking-Lanuage)), its guesses are horrible. But for most of modern chinese writing, it's excellent. There are 2 chinese word precessors that I have seen people use at the Asian Studies Department here at Dartmouth. The first one is ChineseTalk (ZhongWen Talk). Actually, ChineseTalk is not an application, it's a system all by it self, in which you can switch between the Chinese and English writing mode. MacWrite is the only word processor that can properly run under this sysem. ChineseTalk has a BeiJing verion and TaiPei version, ( with simplified and unsimplified character sets, respectively) I forgot the company's address. If you need to know, I can ask the people in Humanities computing here. Another program is called MacChinese. I haven't seen it, but from what I have heard from a friend it is very UNMACISH, and very unwieldy to use, such as that you would have to remember the EXACT pinyin of each character plus you would have to know the exact order of a particular character in its dictionary character set. If you input the wrong order number, you get the wrong characer, you would have to try again and again, until you get it right. One advantage of MacChinese is that it has a POSTSCRIPT font. There is a DA called "Mishu" (meaning secretary in chinese"). It runs under the standard Mac Operating System, and works with programs like MacWrite, MacPaint, and even PageMaker! It's very nice, except that it's not as powerful as the other two Chinese word processors. Its dictionary is not large enough, and DON'T EVER TRY TO PRINT ON A LASER WRITER!!! It would take 50 minutes or so to create the bitmaps of all the 11 fonts that it use to construct the characters, and probably the printer is going to flush the job with some kind of "offending command" complaint. Mishu has a new version now. I haven't seen it, but I would expect it to be better. "VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO" -- ahh, who else do I speak for! __________________________________________________________________________ Xiaoxia Ye Internet/Bitnet xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu Dartmouth College /UUCP: Xiaoxia.Ye@dartmouth.edu
news@tank.uchicago.edu (NetNews) (01/29/89)
Reply-To: c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu (Walter C3arlip) Distribution: usa Organization: Dept. of Mathematics, Univ. of Chicago From: c3ar@daisy.uchicago.edu (Walter C3arlip) Path: daisy!c3ar In article <11998@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu writes: >In article <8901271611.AA06203@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> >ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU writes: >>Does anyone know anything about word processing on the Mac? Has anyone >>used FeiMa and have any comments, good or bad? >> >>Linda Iroff > >First of all, FeiMa is not for macintosh, it's for IBM. I only wish >that they have a Mac version. It's a great program, the printout is >superb on a regular Epson dot-matrix printer. It looks even better on >a laster printer. Input of characters is painless. It guesses the > >Xiaoxia Ye Internet/Bitnet xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu >Dartmouth College /UUCP: Xiaoxia.Ye@dartmouth.edu While I have not tried FeiMa, I did write to the authors for information about a year ago. I quote from their press release: Cambridge, MA September 30, 1987...Unisource Software Corp. announced today that a hard disk version of FeiMa, called FeiMa Hard Disk SE, is now available for the Macintosh SE and Macintosh Plus. FeiMa was the fist Chinese word processor on Apple's Macintosh Computer and the fist of its kind on any personal computer. . . . FeiMa supplies 2,450 of the most commonly used Chinese characters in a user's dictionary and allows 630 characters to be created. In addition, FeiMa Hard Disk SE comes with an alternate set of 3,080 characters and a utility which converts traditional Chinese characters into simplified characters and vice versa. . . . *FeiMa is also available on a Macintosh 512k. An external floppy drive is required. . . . To contact Unisource Software Corp. call at (617) 577-8383 or write Unisource Software Corp., 23 East Street, Cambridge, MA 02141 The standard disclaimers apply: I have no connection with Unisource Corp., and cannot personally attest to the accuracy of the press release or the quality of the product. The price listed in the press release was $585.00, which was more than I could afford (being a starving graduate student). --Walter _____________________________________________________________________________ Walter C3arlip c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu (the "3" is silent) c3ar%zaphod@UCHIMVS1.bitnet _____________________________________________________________________________
xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Xiaoxia Ye) (01/30/89)
In article <1645@tank.uchicago.edu> news@tank.uchicago.edu (NetNews) writes: ...... >While I have not tried FeiMa, I did write to the authors for >information about a year ago. I quote from their press >release: > . . . > FeiMa supplies 2,450 of the most commonly used > Chinese characters in a user's dictionary and allows 630 > characters to be created. In addition, FeiMa Hard Disk SE > comes with an alternate set of 3,080 characters and a > utility which converts traditional Chinese characters into > simplified characters and vice versa. > . . . > To contact Unisource Software Corp. call at (617) > 577-8383 or write Unisource Software Corp., 23 East Street, > Cambridge, MA 02141 > >_____________________________________________________________________________ >Walter C3arlip c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu >(the "3" is silent) c3ar%zaphod@UCHIMVS1.bitnet >_____________________________________________________________________________ Thank you for correcting me. I was wrong in saying that Feima does not exist for Mac. FeMai is a great product on least on IBM end. I would like to see how it is done on a Mac, (even better ?). However, from Unisource's formal press release, having a 2,450 + 630 chinese characters set is pathetic for a chinese word precessor. ChineseTalk integrated writing system has around 6,500 characters as its basic set and even that is not enough at times. I hope that Unisource does have an upgrate to the aforementioned product. If anyone has infomation on FeiMai for the mac, would you please e-mail it to me (or post it if you like)? I would really appreciated it. ________________________________________________________________________ Xiaoxia Ye INTERNET/BITNET/UUCP: xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu Dartmouth College For more info: finger xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu
garth@cs.swarthmore.edu (Garth Snyder) (01/30/89)
[ Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. ]
ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (Linda Iroff) writes:
Does anyone know anything about word processing on the Mac? Has
anyone used FeiMa and have any comments, good or bad? Any help will
be much appreciated.
xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Ye Xiaoxia) replies:
First of all, FeiMa is not for macintosh, it's for IBM. I only wish
that they have a Mac version.
There is indeed a Macintosh version of FeiMa. In fact, I think it was
originally written for the Mac. I've used it!
It's a great program, the printout is superb on a regular Epson
dot-matrix printer. It looks even better on a laster printer. Input
of characters is painless. It guesses the WORD, not character that
you input, and about 90% of the time, its guess is right.
The Mac version I used (in late 1987) was absolute garbage. It would
only print on an Imagewriter I, no laser printers allowed! This was
because it didn't seem to use the standard Mac toolbox for _anything_, it
just reimplemented it all. It did _not_ guess words - you'd type in the
pinyin and tone you wanted and then pick the right character out of a
display. I posted a complete flame against FeiMa here a long time ago,
but I can't seem to find a copy at the moment. A complete piece of
crap. I'd reccomend not buying this software unless you're sure it has
been upgraded to include the features Ye Xiaoxia describes for the PC
version.
--------------------
Garth Snyder UUCP: {bpa,liberty}!swatsun!garth
Swarthmore College CSNET: garth@cs.swarthmore.edu
Swarthmore, PA 19081 ALSO: garth@boulder.colorado.edu
--------------------lai@Apple.COM (Ed Lai) (01/31/89)
In article <11998@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu writes: >First of all, FeiMa is not for macintosh, it's for IBM. I only wish > A correction, I think you are talking about TianMa, not FeiMa. I have not seen FeiMa myself, so I cannot comment on it. Last year's BMUG newsletter has a review on both FeiMa and ChineseTalk, you can check on it. >There are 2 chinese word precessors that I have seen people use at the >Asian Studies Department here at Dartmouth. The first one is ChineseTalk >(ZhongWen Talk). Actually, ChineseTalk is not an application, it's a >system all by it self, in which you can switch between the Chinese and >English writing mode. MacWrite is the only word processor that can >properly run under this sysem. ChineseTalk has a BeiJing verion and > MacWrite run to a certain extent under ChineseTalk. However MacWrite was written before the script manager and it is not script manager compatiable, so there are glitches here and there. You can use it if you do not do very heavy duty Chinese word processing and do not want to pay for a new software package. There are a few script manager compatiable WP package out there although there are not easily available in the U.S. Again I cannot comment because I have not seen it. /* Disclaimer: All statments and opinions expressed are my own */ /* Edmund K. Lai */ /* Apple Computer, MS22-AF */ /* 20525 Mariani Ave, */ /* Cupertino, CA 95014 */ /* (408)974-6272 */
ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian) (01/31/89)
In article <12010@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu writes: >I hope that Unisource does have an upgrate to the aforementioned >product. If anyone has infomation on FeiMai for the mac, would you >please e-mail it to me (or post it if you like)? I would really >appreciated it. And to me too, please! Ben Lian ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Benjamin Y H Lian ACSnet: ben@tasis.utas.oz Dept. of EE & CS ARPA : ben%tasis.utas.oz.au@uunet.uu.net University of Tasmania BITnet: munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben@ GPO Box 252C uunet.uu.net (I think) Hobart, Tasmania 7001 UUCP : {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}! A U S T R A L I A munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben -----------------------------------------------------------------------
hgw@toyon.math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong) (02/01/89)
In article <11998@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xxiaoye@eleazar.dartmouth.edu writes: >In article <8901271611.AA06203@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU writes: >>Does anyone know anything about word processing on the Mac? Has anyone >>used FeiMa and have any comments, good or bad? >> >>Any help will be much appreciated. >> >>Linda Iroff >>Humanities Computing >>Cornell University >>elfj@crnlvax5.bitnet >>elfj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu > >First of all, FeiMa is not for macintosh, it's for IBM. I only wish On ther contrary, there is a version for the Macintosh. I got a demo of it a LONG time ago. It wasn't very impressive but then the program was at it's infancy. I havn't heard from them since. Maybe they have dropped program. There is another program called brushwriter. Distributed in San Francisco, CA. Sorry, that's all I know about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harold Wong (213) 825-9040 UCLA-Mathnet; 3915F MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555 ARPA: hgw@math.ucla.edu BITNET: hgw%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT
ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (02/18/89)
I want to thank everyone who provided infor on Chinese word processing, and summarize what I've found. FeiMa, from Wu Corporation in Avon CN, 203-677-1528, has both a Mac and a PC version. The Mac version has been categorized as expensive, slow, non-Macish, etc. Wu Corp does now have a "student" version for less $. ChineseTalk, Apple's interface system, is available commercially from Ecological Linguistics, Washington, DC, 202-546-5862, for $45. They also sell Kanji-Talk and other interface systems. Reports are that is works moderately well with MacWrite, but nothing else. Does anyone know if the new MacWrite II will support the Script Manager? Linda Iroff Humanities Computing Cornell University elfj@crnlvax5.bitnet elfj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
lai@Apple.COM (Ed Lai) (02/18/89)
In article <8902172004.AA07740@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU writes: >ChineseTalk, Apple's interface system, is available commercially from >Ecological Linguistics, Washington, DC, 202-546-5862, for $45. They also >sell Kanji-Talk and other interface systems. Reports are that is works >moderately well with MacWrite, but nothing else. If "nonthing else" means no other word processor, the statement is probably true (except for products that are not easily available in the U.S), but if nothing refer to any other application, then this is definitely not true, most non-word-processing application should work reasonably well under ChineseTalk, at least better than MacWrite would be. /* Disclaimer: All statments and opinions expressed are my own */ /* Edmund K. Lai */ /* Apple Computer, MS22-AF */ /* 20525 Mariani Ave, */ /* Cupertino, CA 95014 */ /* (408)974-6272 */
svc@well.UUCP (Software Ventures Corp.) (02/21/89)
In article <8902172004.AA07740@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU writes: > > [Comments about the Chinese Operating System] > > Does anyone know if the new MacWrite II will support the Script Manager? > Considering that it is built on the Quark XPress text processing stuff then not only will it NOT support the SM, but it will probably CRASH HORRIBLY if you try to use it. The programmers of XPress purposely put code into their text handling routines to die if the SM is used with it (this info comes from a VERY reliable source, so I take it as fact). Their reasoning is that the SM does NOT provide enough typographic control for thir usage (which is true sio if you want to do foreign language page layout you have to buy thier SPECIALIZED international versions. {Whoops sorry about the tirade against Quark, but the answer is NO!}