3.312 Chinese on Macs; IT (62)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Tue, 1 Aug 89 20:18:04 EDT


Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 312. Tuesday, 1 Aug 1989.


(1) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 04:48:39 EDT (19 lines)
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: Chinese WP on Mac

(2) Date: Tue, 01 Aug 89 14:26:02 BST (23 lines)
From: Donald Spaeth (0532) 33 3573 <ECL6DAS@CMS1.UCS.LEEDS.AC.UK>
Subject: IT

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 89 04:48:39 EDT
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: Chinese WP on Mac

Mishu-Write is a desk accessory which will allow you to enter Chinese, then
paste it into, say, MacWrite. Simple but perhaps crude.

Fei-Ma is a full fledged word processor with a variety of input methods. The
number of characters is probably too limited for professional use; I don't
know if it is for this reason or others that our Chinese faculty have not
taken to it.

What they do use is the Chinese version of the Mac operating system. This
gives you a "Chinese" Mac - the finder's menus etc. will be in Chinese. When
you type, you get a special input window, a string of homonyms appears above
the pinyin input, and you can click on one to select it. The "enter" key
transfers a string of hanzi into your document. Unfortunately, lots of
programs do not work properly; MacWrite does, Word and Pagemaker do not.
There are alternative input methods I believe.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 89 14:26:02 BST
From: Donald Spaeth (0532) 33 3573 <ECL6DAS@CMS1.UCS.LEEDS.AC.UK>
Subject: IT

A suitably unhelpful subject! I occasionally wonder if HUMANIST
items don't reach me, as I never saw the query asking what IT means.
Sorry to be so jargonistic. This leaves me wondering, however,
whether IT is a bit of U.K. jargon. Perhaps North American
commentators could say.

IT stands for Information Technology, which is the current buzz term
for computing. Strictly speaking it probably includes other
office technologies, such as communications networks, FAX, et sim.
The 30,000 IT-professionals of which I spoke are the computer
programmers, system analysts, applications experts, trainors and
the like needed to support the spread of computing in the world of
business and government. The most visible need in the U.K. is
for computer professionals to service the now computerised
London stock exchange, but this only touches the surface.
(The process of computerisation in the stock exchange is known as Big
Bang.)
Cheers,
Donald Spaeth