clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) (09/29/89)
Alright after my initial posting about Mac China I was practically deluged with requests for more info. My attempts at reaching my contact in Hong Kong have not been very fruitful and I have little time to exert more of an effort. For those who are still interested here's what I know: Mac China costs about HK$1000 = US$128 Using its own screen fonts it changes all text on the screen to Chinese characters. I am not sure whether these were simplified or traditional since I only had a passing glance at the screen. But the changes are everywhere: menu bar, window names, menu choices, file names etc. I believe you can also do word processing with the package as well. For more information contact: Kenny Wan of ACTRON Consultant co. 21-22 1/F Wonder Building 161-175 Fuk Wah St. Sham Shui Po, Kowloon Hong Kong Tel: (852)3-7256263 Fax: (852)3-725-0105 Kenny is quite used to handling orders from abroad. His English is pretty good but if you're calling and you can speak Cantonese I'd advise you to do so. My advice is to write/fax him for the specs of the package. Hopefully he will be able to get these to you pretty quickly. NB: Kenny's merchandise is a mix-up of legitimate/pirated software as some of you may have guessed by the address of his store. I have no idea whether he is selling a copy or the original of Mac China but I figure you should be warned that there is the possibility that he may only be selling the copy. Whether you choose to buy it or not is your responsibility. I'm only posting this info because there seemed to be so much interest. Chris Lye
lai@Apple.COM (Ed Lai) (09/29/89)
In article <10627@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: >Alright after my initial posting about Mac China I was practically >deluged with requests for more info. My attempts at reaching my contact >in Hong Kong have not been very fruitful and I have little time to exert >more of an effort. > >For those who are still interested here's what I know: >Mac China costs about HK$1000 = US$128 >Using its own screen fonts it changes all text on the screen to >Chinese characters. I am not sure whether these were simplified or >traditional since I only had a passing glance at the screen. But the >changes are everywhere: menu bar, window names, menu choices, file names >etc. > > If this Mac China is the same as the Mac Chinese operating system then it can be obtained from APDA for $35. >Chris Lye /* Disclaimer: All statments and opinions expressed are my own */ /* Edmund K. Lai */ /* Apple Computer, MS65-A */ /* 20525 Mariani Ave, */ /* Cupertino, CA 95014 */ /* (408)974-6272 */ zW@h9cOi
chou@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (Chih-Hsiang Chou) (10/03/89)
In article <10627@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) writes: > >For those who are still interested here's what I know: >Mac China costs about HK$1000 = US$128 >Using its own screen fonts it changes all text on the screen to >Chinese characters. I am not sure whether these were simplified or >traditional since I only had a passing glance at the screen. But the >changes are everywhere: menu bar, window names, menu choices, file names >etc. > >I believe you can also do word processing with the package as well. > >For more information contact: >Kenny Wan of ACTRON Consultant co. >21-22 1/F Wonder Building >161-175 Fuk Wah St. >Sham Shui Po, Kowloon Hong Kong >Tel: (852)3-7256263 >Fax: (852)3-725-0105 > Here is what I know about the MacChina from a friend of mine. MacChina is a Chinese system developed by the Great Eastern Software Co. located in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. It allows users of Mac Plus, SE, II or later to key in Chinese characters almost anywhere you can key in the English letter. So, for example. you can do Chinese word processing (with mixed fonts, point sizes, styles ... etc, as in English), paint/draw with Chinese text, use Chinese filename or even customize the menu, dialog, alert ... resources. Unlike the ChineseTalk, MacChina runs in normal MacOS. It doesn't even contain an INIT or cdev. You activate the MacChina just like you open an application. After that it remains on until you restart or shutdown. However, it's copy protected. You have to re-fresh the system after about 30 times of activation, though re-freshing is as easy as inserting the master diskette into the floppy disk drive. Great Eastern sells its Chinese system in two product lines. The first one, MacChina, is a single font (one of many Chinese fonts) Chinese system while the second one, MacChina II, allows you use Chinese fonts among 24 point FungSung, LiSu, ShingSu and KaiSu. Other than that both have the same functionality. The latest version of MacChina II I've seen is 3.1, created in August 1989. The retail price of MacChina and MacChina II are about NT$16800 ($670) and NT$37800 ($1500) respectively. Students can get a 40% off discount. MacChina requires system 4.2 or later, a hard disk and numeric keypad. As for the input method, it has a complete set of 5 Chinese character input methods, including TsangChi, Phonetic, Simple, PinYin and Phrase. Chinese characters can be entered either by keyboard or mouse. Each input method has a user configurable window showing the keyboard layout, key mapping, the current input sequence and the final matched characters. One nice feature of MacChina's input method is that for a matched character entered by method A you can show the same character's key sequence in method B without leaving method A. Character bitmaps can also be modified or created by the accompanied DA, MacChina Tool. For more information, contact P.O. Box 26-648 Great Eastern Software Co., Ltd. Taipei, Taiwan Republic of China Tel: 011-886-2-711-4375 or 011-886-2-711-4449 Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the above company except been very impressed by their product.