Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!rutgers!cbmvax!vu-vlsi!swatsun!garth
From: garth@cs.swarthmore.edu (Garth Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Chinese word processing
Summary: FeiMa does exist for Mac, but it's crap.
Keywords: Chinese word processing FeiMa script manager
Message-ID: <2374@byzantium.cs.swarthmore.edu>
Date: 29 Jan 89 21:40:38 GMT
References: <8901271611.AA06203@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <11998@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Reply-To: garth@cs.swarthmore.edu (Garth Snyder)
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac
Organization: SUN Lab, Swarthmore College, PA
Lines: 37

[ 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.

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Garth Snyder            UUCP: {bpa,liberty}!swatsun!garth
Swarthmore College     CSNET: garth@cs.swarthmore.edu
Swarthmore, PA 19081    ALSO: garth@boulder.colorado.edu
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