grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu (Robert Graham) (05/09/89)
I think that NeXT is a prime example why we have such a large trade imbalance. As far as I can tell, they are not concentrating on the foriegn market at all, which is a big mistake. Universities in Europe are funded primarily by the government (no tuition), and have (in comparison to american universitie) gobs of liquid cash. The school I went to (University of Stuttgart), had Sun 3 workstations on most CS professors desks, and a Cray 2 squirrelled away somewhere on campus (there is an old rivalry between Baden-Wuertemburg [of which Stuttgart is the capital] and Bavaria, like who developed German beer, who invented pretzels, etc. The University Stuttgart just has to have a bigger computer than the University od Munich). Students can't earn less than about $7 per hour (there are lots of jobs at that wage), while my american university's CS department can't afford $4.00/hour for its student workers. It seems that foreign acadamia would be a much fertile market than domestic acadamia. Do umlauts, accents, tildes, etc. work on 0.9? (yes, I know, the disk is in the mail) I like Webster, but I already know english. I do, however use other dictionaries quite extensively (German and French in particularly) and I have flipped enough pages to want them online. Is NeXT (or a third party) going to have anything like that available soon at a reasonable price? How about foriegn language fonts? (i.e. Japanese hirigana, katakana, and kanji; Russian) Maybe we have a $150 trade deficit because countries like Japan and Germany (which now have stronger economies than us) think first "can we sell it in america?" and the US thinks first "can we sell it in america?" :) Rob. grahamr@ccmail.ucs.orst.edu grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu
duggie@Jessica.stanford.edu (Doug Felt) (05/09/89)
In addition, NeXT has not attempted to tackle the significant problems of handling languages like Chinese (very large number of ideographs), Japanese (mixed writing wsystems), Hebrew (right to left text), or Arabic languages (variable letter forms). Apple has incorporated basic routines for handing different "scripts" into its toolbox, and is slowly making progress towards a truly multilingual computer (new versions of TextEdit will handle multiple scripts within the same body of text). In particular, Apple has system software that allows ordinary macs to use any of the above mentioned languages (although some word-processing software written without using the recent toolbox routines is not completely compatible). I was disappointed that NeXT did not share the same goals. While the problems of providing large character sets in postscript are not trivial, and perhaps postscript fonts for some of these languages still do not exist, I think an early effort to support multibyte character sets would have been worthwhile. Just as working in grayscale eases the transition to color, working with multibyte fonts would ease the transition to multilingual user interfaces. As it is it looks to be a long time coming. Doug Felt
izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (05/09/89)
In article <10459@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu (Robert Graham) writes: >I think that NeXT is a prime example why we have such a large trade >imbalance. As far as I can tell, they are not concentrating on the >foriegn market at all, which is a big mistake. Universities in Aw, give them a break. I am sure they will sell their machines overseas when the time comes. Contrary to your suggestion, I consider NeXT to be a prime example of what Americans should be proud of. >How about foriegn language fonts? (i.e. >Japanese hirigana, katakana, and kanji; Russian) I am hoping that I can just buy nice Kanji fonts for DPS from Adobe, and just load-and-go. I know Apple sells a version of their LaserWriter NTX with built-in Kanji fonts in Japan. If DPS supports Kanji, then it shouldn't take any changes to whatever NeXT does on top of DPS. Perhaps, Glenn can comment on this? >Rob. >grahamr@ccmail.ucs.orst.edu >grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu
jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (05/09/89)
In article <10459@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu (Robert Graham) writes: >I think that NeXT is a prime example why we have such a large trade >imbalance. As far as I can tell, they are not concentrating on the >foriegn market at all, which is a big mistake. Universities in I just got a letter saying that they are trying to get an export license to Finland and that they would reconsider my Reg. Dev. Prog. application again when they get it. I guess they are having problems with COCOM. I think it is safe to say that the NeXT cube is high technology. _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._ | Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet I Want Ne | | Helsinki University of Technology Computing Centre My Own XT | ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
phil@mit-amt (Phil Sohn) (05/09/89)
Let's all remember that it was years before Apple introduced anything having to do with foriegn markets, and most of the foriegn system software (KanjiTalk, at least) is not even running under 6.0 yet! NeXT has not even started shipping released units yet. Lets give them a little time and see what they turn up.
jgreely@previous.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) (05/09/89)
In article <10459@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu (Robert Graham) writes: >I think that NeXT is a prime example why we have such a large trade >imbalance. As far as I can tell, they are not concentrating on the >foriegn market at all, which is a big mistake. 1) The NeXT machine is not out yet. 2) NeXT is a very young company. Attempting to aggressively market world-wide immediately sounds like financial suicide. 3) Take a good look at the cube. Check the power supply. It's designed to be dropped in just about anywhere in the world. NeXT may not be ready to market abroad now, but they haven't ignored the future. > The >school I went to (University of Stuttgart), had Sun 3 workstations >on most CS professors desks, and a Cray 2 squirrelled away somewhere >on campus Wow. Sounds just like Ohio State. You've done a pretty good job of describing our environment, and we most emphatically do *not* have "gobs of liquid cash" (and the Cray's not ours, but it's scheduled to become a Y-MP soon). > Students can't earn >less than about $7 per hour (there are lots of jobs at that wage), Well, you *were* describing us. [stuff about foreign language support] I have as yet seen nothing on foreign language dictionaries or word processing, but that means nothing. I suggest contacting a sales type and getting the latest third-party information (mine's already several months out of date). "Who's it *this* time?" "Concert promoters who have gone broke organizing charity benefit concerts. We call it Aid Aid." -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)
sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) (05/10/89)
From article <10459@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>, by grahamr@prism.cs.orst.edu (Robert Graham): From the Nov. 1988 issue of Byte magazine: The nonswitching power supply can handle voltages ranging anywhere from 90 volts to 260 V, and frequencies from 50 Hz to 60 Hz. This means that you can plug in the hardware almost anywhere in the world without without having to set switches. > Maybe we have a $150 trade deficit because countries like Japan and > Germany (which now have stronger economies than us) think first "can we > sell it in america?" and the US thinks first "can we sell it > in america?" :) America is the largest purchaser of computers inthe world. It is also the biggest exporter. You yourself point out that a European university had a Sun for every professor and a Cray II. It is too my understanding that the Japanese are largely computer illiterate. Students use abacuses more than they use computers. Furthermore, I simply don't see any Japanese or German computers where I work. Do you know anyone who has purchased a Sony workstation? Sean Brunnock
izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (05/10/89)
In article <13209@swan.ulowell.edu> sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) writes: > It is too my understanding that the Japanese are largely computer >illiterate. Students use abacuses more than they use computers. Geez, what's the basis of this? Japan is the only country where NON-IBM PC compatible MS-DOS machines can be found all over the place. This indicates that, at least, there is a healthy market large enough to sustain the non-US standard architecture. How could that happen in a largely computer illiterate place? Abacuses are still popular probably sort-of as a "mental excercise", as are calligraphy, piano, and violin lessens. You should probably visit Akihabara district in Tokyo, where all kinds of electronic parts/appliances, computers, other stuff are sold with good price and wide selection. You might check out how diverse the age groups are of the people checking out the wares. You can find kids in elementary school to 60-ish old men buying LSI's. >Furthermore, I simply don't see any Japanese or German computers where >I work. Do you know anyone who has purchased a Sony workstation? > Sean Brunnock Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu
greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid) (05/13/89)
In article <24176@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) writes: > >I am hoping that I can just buy nice Kanji fonts for DPS from >Adobe, and just load-and-go. I know Apple sells a version >of their LaserWriter NTX with built-in Kanji fonts in Japan. >If DPS supports Kanji, then it shouldn't take any changes to >whatever NeXT does on top of DPS. Perhaps, Glenn can comment on this? Unfortunately, that won't be the case. The composite font extensions to the language have not yet made it into the Display PostScript product. Also, we do not sell Kanji fonts directly at this time. Our OEM customers currently build the fonts into their printer products. Composite font technology will be built into Display PostScript, it just isn't done yet. I don't know if/when we will ever sell the fonts themselves direct. That's another issue. If we did (and when DPS has the composite font code), you should be able to load-and-go. "Glenn"
Sheldon.Greaves@f444.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sheldon Greaves) (06/22/89)
Your point on the apparent lack of mulit-lingual capability on the NeXT machine is excellent and well taken. I might add that in add- ition to the problems created in the international marketplace, there is the same kind of frustration that I felt when the Mac came out. At the time, sales people were saying that the ability to use multi- ple fonts would make this a good machine for people dealing in foreign languages. I often work in as many as a half a dozen (human) languages, such as hebrew, greek, ugaritic, and so forth, but I have yet to see any evidence that this so-called "Academic Workstation" will do anything except for academics in the Computer Science, Business, or Engineering departments. I would love to know if there is any intention to introduce not only foreign character sets, but right-to- left or up-to-down capability, etc. as well. Thanks for an insightful comment. --Sheldon Greaves -- ------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNet: 1:161/445 UUCP: sun!apple!bmug!<User.Name> INTERNET: bmug!<User.Name>@apple.COM or <User.Name>@bmug.fidonet.org USNAIL: BMUG, 1442A Walnut St. #62, Berkeley, CA 94709-1496 ------------------------------------------------------------- BMUG Newsletter articles due June 15! Authors get free membership. Send articles to: pub@bmug.fidonet.org
izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (06/24/89)
In article <254.24A2330E@bmug.FIDONET.ORG> Sheldon.Greaves@f444.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sheldon Greaves) writes: >...... I would love to know if there is any >intention to introduce not only foreign character sets, but right-to- >left or up-to-down capability, etc. as well. Some PostScript printers sold in Japan have Kanji/Kana character sets in addition to regular fonts found in the US models. On these printers, texts can be printed left-to-right, or up-to-down directions very easily. I have read in an article about Japanese PostScript printers that it is also easy to do right-to-left text printing. For printers, and Display PostScript to do this, "composite font extensions" to PostScript must be present in the PS or DPS interpreter. Although the current NeXT DPS doesn't have that extension, I am sure it will soon, considering the recent announcement of Canon buying into NeXT for rights to sell the cubes in Asia(?). Given this, I think NeXT is by far the easiest machine for making it do true foreign languages, and in nice outline-fonts, because the support of foreign character set and printing directions will be taken care of by the underlying Display PostScript. I can't wait to see this happen :-). Then, the cube will be the only computer I need, and I can throw away my NEC PC9801. Izumi Ohzawa. izumi@violet.berkeley.edu
duggie@Jessica.stanford.edu (Doug Felt) (06/27/89)
>Given this, I think NeXT is by far the easiest machine for making >it do true foreign languages, and in nice outline-fonts, because >the support of foreign character set and printing directions will >be taken care of by the underlying Display PostScript. I can't >wait to see this happen :-). Then, the cube will be the only >computer I need, and I can throw away my NEC PC9801. > >Izumi Ohzawa. >izumi@violet.berkeley.edu Well, Display Postscript may help, but you need support in the AppKit as well. The routines need to support multi-byte character codes, multiple writing systems, selection of text containing text runs that read in both directions, etc. Programs with macro languages should have some language-independent parsing facility and avoid dependence on the underlying byte-level representation of the language... Apple has tried to address these needs with their Script Manager, and is building support for it into their TextEdit routines and other places in their system software. I can use Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic, Korean, and other languages on my Macintosh, with no special hardware, *right now* and the only problem is lack of third-party software that uses the Script Manager. As far as I can tell NeXT has nothing remotely near the Script Manager, nor have they evinced much interest in foreign-language computing. For at least the next few years, the Macintosh will be a better choice for people interested in using 'exotic' languages like those above. Doug Felt Courseware Authoring Tools Project Stanford University duggie@jessica.stanford.edu
rrr@cup.portal.com (Roger Rock Rosner) (06/28/89)
Some NeXT employees mentioned to me that NeXT is creating an Application Kit subclass of Text specifically for dealing with non-english languages. Canon is supposed to use this to make the Japanese version. Since the Japanese version is supposed to be out next year, I imagine they'll have to finish the international Text class pretty soon. Roger Rosner Lighthouse Design