Subject: Re: SERVICE ANNOUNCE from Taiwan - tw.* newsgroups redistribution

From: "Ross Paterson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1992 18:36:51 BST

> I am curious.  What language do they use in the tw.* newsgroup.
> I suspect it's English.

It is.

If you have Internet access, you can get your newsreader to talk to their
news server (debbie.cc.nctu.edu.tw).  The manual for your newsreader
should explain how.

> What is the status with Japanese email system, the closest one to
> Chinese?  As I know there are many Kanji usenet groups.  The articles
> are coded into ASCII.

Since JIS codes Kanji as pairs of ASCII characters, it's just a matter
of escape sequences, rather than setting the eighth bit.  You just
have to make sure all the software on the path to you leaves the escape
characters alone.  The same would work for GB; BIG-5 would be a little
more complicated.
--
Ross Paterson <[email-masked]>
Department of Computing, Imperial College, London SW7

---

From: D-P Deng <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1992 16:19:35 -0500

>>>>> In article <[email-masked]>
>>>>> "Yuan" == Yuan Jiang <[email-masked]> writes:
...
  Yuan> What is the status with Japanese email system, the closest one to
  Yuan> Chinese?  As I know there are many Kanji usenet groups.  The articles
  Yuan> are coded into ASCII.  You read them with some special software
  Yuan> (a special version of RN?).

  Yuan> Has any one given a thought on how to develop Chinese email system?

I use emacs to read mail and news. I used to combine a Chinese viewing
program to a key. So when I had messages coded in Chinese (mostly in GB), I
simply pressed that key command, the messages were piped into the viewing
program and displayed. I think the viewing program used was xhzview, since I
don't have easy access to X-terminals I've stopped reading Chinese messages
in this way.

dp

---

From: [email-masked] (Huang Chih-Hsien (TWNR Mediator))
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 92 19:16:14 WST

> You read them with some special software
> (a special version of RN?).

First, we read news via "rn", and then found "nn" will be a better one.
After weeks, someone got "nnotes" which is more friendly than "nn".
But we were not satisfied, now we use "tin", Feb. 1992 version.

> Has any one given a thought on how to develop Chinese email system?

I don't think developing a Chinese email system will be a difficult
thing, but it is not the main point.  The more important thing is
to unify the Chinese code.  Big-5 is the most popular one, but it 
is not suitable for the 7-bit world-wide e-mail system under STMP
protocol.  

Years ago, some organizations did try very hard to do such a thing, but
all failed.  I think, the main reason is that world-wide computer 
network is not popular in Taiwan.  To most people, they do not have
the chances to having access, so why should they change?  They still
prefer Big-5.  And another big reason is that ETen do not support 
this policy.  You know, ETen has a 90% of totally Chinese systems 
users, according to a survey.  In the other words, we can say 90%
users will not support this policy.

Now, it seems the only way is to make a law and force a change.  Well,
to a democratic country, I think it is the worst method, but if needed,
I will support, since it is very important thing to the future, but 
most people do not know.

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