Path: titcca!ccut!sun-barr!shelby!csli!kawai
From: kawai@csli.Stanford.EDU (goh kawai - n6uok)
Newsgroups: fj.kanji
Subject: British Japanese-English word-processor - forwarded
Message-ID: < 12492@csli.Stanford.EDU> 
Date: 1 Mar 90 01:09:31 GMT
Sender: kawai@csli.Stanford.EDU (goh kawai - n6uok)
Reply-To: kawai@csli.stanford.edu (goh kawai - n6uok)
Distribution: fj
Organization: dept of linguistics, stanford university
Lines: 45

I just got the following article off a local UPI newsfeed.  
Sounds like a British company has come up with a Japanese-English 
word-processor.  

Apologies for the English - I'm at an ascii terminal.
>goh< 

(begin forwarded article)
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1990 FEB 24 (NB) -- Eclipse Computing has
unveiled its bilingual office system (EBOS), a computer-based
text processing system capable of entry and editing of files in
two languages simultaneously. The system prices in from UKP
40,000, dependent on configurations required.

Despite the relatively high cost of the system, Eclipse is
confident of a ready market, owing to its inclusion of Japanese
language and character set support alongside standard
English/American ASCII in the basic system.

According to Paul Waylett, group director of Eclipse, the system
is pitched at Japanese financial companies establishing
themselves in the West, requiring access to two languages, and
the ability to port data between both sets of files.

" We saw a need to develop a system which would solve the
management and linguistic problems faced by Japanese executives
based in European subsidiaries,"  he said.

Initially, EBOS is available in an Japanese/English version only,
although Eclipse is working on other European language versions
which will also support the Japanese Kanji character set.

EBOS consists of a network of PCs, with Systems Union's
Sunaccount general ledger accounting package acting as a core
financial database, and Japanese and English PC application
software -- including spreadsheets and word processing packages --
installed on a multiprogram concurrent basis.

In plain English, this means that a user on one workstation can
be editing a file in Kanji, while another user can also be
editing the same file in English. The end result is a file that
can be edited and displayed in either file format.

(Steve Gold/19900224/Press &  Public Contact: Martyn Crew, Systems
Union - Tel: 01-354-3131)