From: haa@cs.hut.fi (Hannu Aronsson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: Re: Mac system 7.1
Date: 5 Jan 1993 11:04:34 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
NNTP-Posting-Host: cardhu.cs.hut.fi
In-reply-to: eroche@RND.STERN.NYU.EDU's message of Tue, 5 Jan 1993 04:11:43 GMT


> From: eroche@RND.STERN.NYU.EDU (Ed Roche)
>
> [Using Mac System 7.1 and non-script-manager compatible word
>  processor (e.g. word) to write Japanese]

There are two issues here, I think:


1. How to get Japanese environment for System 7.1?

1.a. Buy KanjiTalk 7, which costs a lot (70,000 JPY), and is not
     available for sale outside of Japan, for some stupid reason.

1.b. Buy System 7.1 US/whatever, and KanjiTalk 7, and take the
     WorldScript stuff and Japanese stuff from KanjiTalk7 and put
     them into System 7.1. This way you get Finder menus etc... in
     English.

1.c. *If you're a developer*, you can use normal US/whatever System
     7.1, and add in the alpha/beta versions of WorldScript II and 
     Japanese resources from a suitable beta/developer CD-ROM. This
     is rumored to work reliably enough.

1.d. Don't use 7.1, but find Kanjitalk 6.0.[78], US/whatever System
     7.0.1, GomTalk, and combine these to make a Japanese System 7
     environment. This combination is cheap (free), and works very
     well. As of now, very few programs require WorldScript and/or 7.1
     anyway...

     The old kana-kanji conversion front end in Kanjitalk 6.x is poor,
     so in this case you may want to buy a better kana-kanji front
     end, such as VJE or EG bridge (prices around 15,000 JPY).

     GomTalk also allows you to use Truetype Kanji fonts, if you buy
     the Kanji TT Upgrade kit (about 20,000 yen), which has a few TT
     kanji fonts.

BTW, The kana-kanji front end in KanjiTalk 7.1 is very good, and
KanjiTalk 7 includes several Kanji Truetype fonts. Kanji Truetype
fonts look very, very nice, but they take 4..6 megabytes of disk each
(The KanjiTalk 7 install kit is 26 HD floppies!).

2. What programs can I use to write Japanese, then? In fact, this
   part is exactly ther same for KanjiTalk 6.0.x, 7, GomTalkized
   system, whatever:

2.a. Simple programs only using Apple's built-in Styled TextEdit
     feature, work well. This includes most databases etc, where
     you can choose the font per field or something.

     For a very simple Styled TextEdit-only editor, you can get Stylus
     from the usual mac archives. It has no great features, but it
     works correctly with Japanese/Arabic/anything.

2.b. In most word processors, you can insert Japanese, but the
     program will think the letters are about 1.5 times too wide,
     so it will wrap the line in the wrong place (sometimes in the
     middle of a character, producing garbage output), and any
     trailing text will appear in the "wrong" place.

     This will be usable, if you only need short, less than one-line
     pieces of Japanese, and you can put then at the end of the line.

     This is not a big problem in drawing programs, where you end up
     placing every object separately by hand anyway.

     Technically the thing the programs do wrong, is asking the
     system about character widths one *byte* at a time, not one
     *character* at a time. It just because they have not been
     written to support any "real" scripts.

2.c. Script-manager compatible software. This will work very well,
     but it is usually very expensive, and you will need a special
     version (e.g. International versions Nisus).

     Some programs are already script-manager compatible, e.g. 
     Hypercard works just great. Also, there are many
     shareware/freeware programs and editors from Japan, which also
     work very well.

2.d. Language-specific programs. For example, you can write Japanese
     very, very well with the EG* family of products, but they don't
     know how to do English/anything else so well.

     This may solve your problems for a Japanese-only document, but it
     will not allow multi-lingual stuff so well.


I still think that the Mac is probably the best reasonably priced and
commonly available platform for multi-lingual processing.  Even with
the several minor and more serious shortcomings, it works quite well
after you learn how to kludge things your way a little.

For further information, I suggest you read Ken Lunde's information
file, available from the belowmentioned location, among others.

Oh yes, Happy New Year, too!

yours//haa
--
Hannu Aronsson <haa@nic.funet.fi>   /pub/culture/japan archives at ftp.funet.fi
Hannu.Aronsson@cs.hut.fi            Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan