Subject: two Sun Observer articles on Japanese computing

From: Stephen G Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 16:04:34 -0400

The August 1991 issue of Sun Observer (a magazine for users of Sun
Microsystems workstations) had two articles that I'd like
to share.  Does anybody here on CCNET know anything about Sun
Microsystems or Unix System V Releae 4 Chinese environments?  What
about scalable outline fonts for Chinese?

UI DOCUMENT DEFINES JAPANESE ENVIRONMENT

TOKYO -- A draft document that specifies standards for the base
operating system, windows system and GUI for Japanese language support
of Open Look and the Unix System V Release 4 operating system has been
released by Unix International (UI).

The "Unix System V Common Japanese Language Environment" document
covers 3 sets of specifications, Level 1 which are mandatory for
product implementation, Level 2 which are desirable, and Level 3 which
are guidelines for ISVs and users.

...

[ The article doesn't give any details, such as whether the
specifications support Unicode, etc. ]

TYPE VENDOR, SUN TO ADAPT JAPANESE OUTLINE FONTS

TOKYO -- Morisawa & Co. Ltd, a type vendor in Osaka, Japan, in
conjunction with Sun Microsystems and Sun's Japanes subsidiary, nihon
Sun, will work to enable scalable japanese outline fonts to be bundled
on a Unix system.

Under the technology licensing agreement, Morisawa will use Sun's
TypeMaker software tools to produce versions of several Morisawa fonts
in the scalable outline F3 format.  Sun plans to include two of the
popular Morisawa japanese fonts in F3 format with all Sun
Sparcstations, Sparcservers and printing products sold in Japan,
according to Leiann Lee, a Sun representative.  In addition, Morisawa
will offer other Japanese fonts in F3 to software developers and end
users.

The huge Japanese character set -- nearly 7000 characters -- has made
development of fonts for computers expensive and time consuming,
resulting in limited selection for software developers as well as end
users.

...

Sun's F3 fonts are scalable, which means that a single outline can be
turned into a bitmap in any point size.  In addition, these fonts are
hinted so that their quality and appearance are maintained even at
smaller point sizes and low resolutions.