Subject: Short evaluation of TurboWriter for Mac

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1991 14:05:00 +0200

For you who use word processors on the Mac with the Chinese OS's.
Here is a short evaluation of TurboWriter 1.5 for the Mac for use on the
Taiwan operative system (encoded in BIG5).  (There is also a version for
the Beijing system, but not a version that will work with both).

Company : TransPac Software, 4340 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 203, San Jose,
Ca 95129.
Phone (408)984-8475, Fax (408) 984-6303

Price:  $395.  If you have the OS you might get a cheaper price.  They do
not accept credit cards.

Copy protection: None (In Hong Kong it is sold with a "dongle").

The package comes on 10 double sided 800kb disks. 6 disks fonts, Installer,
Utilities, TurboWriter and  Chinese Talk.  Included is also a Chinese
Manual and a shorter version in English.

The Installer script is rather awkward written and you do not have the
option to customize the installation, accept Apple Share.  However, it will
create a new folder, called ChineseTalk-T, rather than installing on an
existing system.  The system it installs is Taiwan 6.06.  The installing
use all 10 disks.  It would have been better if one installation installed
the system and one the fonts.  There is no need to install the TurboWriter.
The fonts are encoded in BIG5 are Medium Kai, Medium Hei and Ming Light.
They are in 48 points.  Kai and Ming are in three parts and take up each
more than 1.5MB.  Hei is smaller (in two parts) and might not contain all
the characters in the BIG5 set. There is also a Taibei 12 and 48 point font
in the set. Installed the package takes about 6.5MB.

To run TurboWriter it is recommended to have 512kb, but it runs faster and
smoother on more application heap.
Apart from the normal function expected in a w-p TurboWriter supports
vertical writing (from right to left) in two different formats.  It also
support columns.  As a nice feature it also have the option to
transliterate the characters besides or over the characters.  In the Taiwan
version the automatic transliteration is in Bopomofo, which manually can be
changed to whatever transliteration you prefer, and in the Beijing version
it is pinyin.
There is no extra input method, but the system naturally support your
favorite input like Ed Lai's Cihui.
TurboWriter can import and export textfiles only (ASCII).  If you are owner
of the Chinese PageMaker, there is also a filter that makes it possible to
import formatted TurboWriter documents into that program.    TurboWriter is
script sensitive, but there is no way to over rule this, which is really
bad.
The menus can be in English or Chinese, set in preferences, which are
placed in the Apple menu(sic).
TurboWriter does not handle footnotes.
TurboWriter has footer and header, divided horizontally in three parts,
left, middle and right, where you may paste whatever you want, or use some
default options, but you can not write directly in the header and footer.
TurboWriter handles Chinese punctuation correctly in word wrapping.

Overall TurboWriter is a nice w-p even though rather unsophisticated.  I
see it greatest use together with Chinese PageMaker if you are doing a
Chinese magazine or newspaper.  As an academic tool it has little or no
use.  For that purpose, in my view, Nisus is the only w-p to handle real
complicated word processing in Chinese.
Lund, Sweden, June 26th, 1991

Dr. Peter Bryder
Lund University
Department of History of Religions
Allhelgona Kyrkogata 8
S-223 62  Lund
Sweden
Fax:+4646104426
e-mail:[email-masked]