Subject: Re: How could I read Chinese on Taiwanese BIG5 gopher servers on Mac ?

From: Pinghua Young <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 23:16:02 -0800

>Could anyone please tell me how to read Chinese on Taiwanese BIG5 gopher
>servers on Mac ? At moment,I have Chinese language kit and simplifed
>Chinese system installed on my Mac.I guess that I need eight-bit-clean
>gopher client software. but I don't know the name and where could I get it?

Simplified Chinese uses GB codes and doesn't understand Big5, so
you'll also need to install Traditional Chinese from CLK on your Mac.
Then get TurboGopher from Minnesota: boombox.micro.umn.edu.
You'll then be able to view Big5 Chinese once you have set the
proper font etc in the Preference setting.

BTW, a lot of Mac Chinese experts live in [email-masked].

---

From: John Delacour <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 05:54:44 +0000

Yucong Phease writes:
>servers on Mac ?

Yucong,

The following ftp and/or gopher sites ("mirrors" of sumex-aim.stanford.edu
/info-mac) carry all the Mac software that is available on the net and you
will find all you need there.

For gopher I recommend TurboGopher 1.08b3 which has a filter that allows
the receiving of 8-bit stuff.

If you want to read news off-line and have a dialup SLIP or PPP connexion
to your server there is a combination of 3 freeware/shareware programmes;
MacSlurp, ToadNews and either rnMac or TheNews.  I have written a short
manual simplifying the rather complicated set-up of these programmes and
this is available from ftp.demon.co.uk /pub/mac/off_line news as MAC&OLN.

Both rnMac and TheNews have a filter option to allow the reading of 8-bit
news articles and rnMac allows the display and input of Chinese or any font
on your system, though direct input is clumsy because the programme is not
worldscript aware -- so if you wanted to post an article you would write it
in another programme and paste it into rnMac.

I am at present revising my manual and will be including a descrption of
rnMac in the new version and probably some mention of the use of these
programmes for Chinese.

Since you have the simplified system you will not be able to read Big5
stuff directly, since you do not have the fonts.  You therefore need a
"viewer" to allow you to display the traditional text.  From ifcss.org (ftp
or gopher) I suggest you download MacHanzi and MacViewHZ.  I think these
are in a directory called /conversion or something.  From apple.com (ftp)
you can get SubTitle in the directory /pub/lai.  The programmes come with
system-independent fonts that allow the display of Chinese GB or Big5 and
will convert from the 7-bit HZ code etc.  These programmes allow the
reading of Chinese text under both the English and the Chinese operating
systems.

Let me know if you have any problems.

                John
___________________________________

Info-Mac Archive Mirror Sites
-----------------------------
archie.au                139.130.4.6      micros/mac/info-mac            1/1
ALL                                       ftp gopher
AARNet, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

imftp.mgt.ncu.edu.tw     140.115.83.90    /pub/mac/info-mac              6/7
ALL                                       ftp
National Central University, ChungLi, Taiwan

ftp.edu.tw               140.111.1.10     Macintosh/info-mac             1/1
ALL                                       ftp fsp afs
National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

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