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From: tsang@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Donald Tsang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Virden and Chinese Text
Message-ID: <21805@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 16-Nov-87 11:14:24 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21805
Posted: Mon Nov 16 11:14:24 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Nov-87 03:51:35 EST
References: <8711160051.aa14790@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: tsang@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Donald Tsang)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 29

In article <8711160051.aa14790@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA> SERETNY@HARTFORD.BITNET writes:
>
>                  As for the best way to do Chinese text, forget Big Blue, and
>even your faithful Apple ][+; to really do things correctly, you'll need a
>Macintosh (at least a Plus).  It has a powerful Script Manager (built-on) which
>will allow you to do almost any alphabet known to man (a version of Kanji
>already exists).
>                        Robert M. Seretny
>                   (SERETNY@HARTFORD.bitnet)

No no no!!!!!  Chinese is NOT A LANGUAGE BUILT ON ALPHABETS!!!!!!
(Calm down, Donald.  You're shouting...)

Oh, yeah.  Umm... Chinese, as many should know, is a "pictographic"
language, which uses standard and not-so-standard "roots" and extensions
and other things to "build" words.  From looking at a word, one would
have no idea how to pronounce it... and vice versa.

The programs I have heard of (for the Xerox, IBM, and even Mac) let you
enter the words phoenetically, and it searches through a "dictionary" to
find the proper "brush stroke" sequence.  With over 2000 words in common
usage, building an alphabet (one 50 x 50 pixel "letter" per word, 2000
words... 2500 x 2000 = 5 megabits, or over half a megabyte) would be
ridiculous.  Therefore, I am looking for a similar program on the Apple
// series.  My rationale:  the GS should be able to handle anything the
old Mac series could.

    Donald Tsang
    tsang@cory.Berkeley.EDU   or   [...]!ucbvax!cory!tsang