Subject: Chinese WP - Taipei exhibition

From: Chris Delucia <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 18:53:35 CST

I went to a computer & software exhibition in Taipei this weekend
and saw some Chinese wordprocessing software I was rather impressed

        I saw a couple of Pen-based input systems. ETEN makes one, but
I saw a more impressive one (prob. @ $300 US) that worked in both DOS
and Windows. Once I got a feel for the pen, it recognized all of my
characters correctly (of course, I write like a 3rd grader), though it
took one or two seconds for each. Although one can not match the speed
of keyboard input (assuming one is skilled at the latter), it would
be less of an impediment to creative/thoughtful writing in Chinese.
The pen-input system is called the "PostMouse," it plugs in to the serial
port, and the company is A-Way Technology Co. Ltd, located in Taipei
on Hoping E. Rd. Sec.1, #10-1, 8th Fl.  Tel. is 886-2-368-6640,
FAX 886-2-362-0375, Modem 886-2-363-3666.

        As for the "intelligent" Pinyin based input systems for DOS &
Windows, Hanin (Han4 Yin1) is supposed to be very good (they also have
a MAC version), and Zhen4Han4 (who make a Chinese system very similar
to that of ETEN) has "Guo2 Yin1"  (DOS version @ $200 NT, Windows @ $500)
which they claim is more "intelligent" than Hanin. It was supposed to
recognize characters in context of the sentence. I haven't tried either,
so I really can't offer a judgment.
                                Univ. of Washington
                                via Taiwan U., Taipei
                                [email-masked]
                                        (til 8/29)