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Archive-name: auto/soc.culture.china/ChiRK-1-2-a-terminal-Chinese-GB-Big5-reader-available-now


ChiRK 1.2 now is available for anonymous FTP at "crl.nmsu.edu"
(/incoming or /pub/chinese) and and hopefully will be at "ahkcus.org"
( /src/unix) soon. 

This posting contains three parts: a breif INTRODUCTION, CHANGES from 
version 1.1, and TRICKS for reading HZ/zW encoded e-mails and USENET
( like alt.chinese.text) articles.

********************************************************************************
INTRODUCTION

		ChiRK 1.2 --- A Terminal Chinese Viewer
		---------------------------------------

     ChiRK stands for "CHInese Reader on teKtronics compatible graphics 
terminals".  It's a UNIX based program for displaying GouBiao (GB) or BIG5 
encoded Chinese Characters in both 8bit (raw) and  7bit (HZ or zW encoding) 
format on terminals capable of emulating Tektronics 401x graphics.  Those are 
the most common types of graphics terminals around.

     ChiRK 1.2 has been tested and works without any ( yet) problem on following
terminals: Tektronics 4010/4014; GraphOn 225, 230, 140; DEC VT240, VT330/340; 
XTerm; Tektool on SunView; EM4105 on IBM-PC; VersaTerm-Pro on Macintosh,  etc. 
And it should work on any other type of Tek compatible terminal with few, 
if any, lines of the codes changed.

     ChiRK 1.2 now works with USENET Read-News( rn) and UNIX Mail without the
effort of saving the messages containning HZ/zW encoded Chinese texts.

     When reading GuoBiao encoded Chinese characters, you have the option of
choosing a vector font (cclib.v), which works faster, or one bitmap font 
(cclib.16), which may look nicer on some of the terminals; or one traditional
(FanTi) font (cclibf.16). Only a bitmap font (chinese.16) is available for
displaying BIG5 encoded characters.  The default screen will display 40 
Chinese characters, or 80 ASCII characters per line, and 18 lines each screen. 

     ChiRK (c) 1.0, 1.1, 1.2  copyrighted by Bo Yang.

 ---- Installation -----
 -----------------------

     ChiRK 1.x was developed on IBM RS6000 and tested on DECstation, Silicon
Graphics IRIS, and SUN Worstations. It should be portable to other platforms as
well.

     If this package occupies too much space on your machine, delete the font 
files you don't need. A minimum working configuration( cclib.16 only) for GB
encoded text would only use about 300K of your hard disk.

     Before compiling you might want edit the lib path and other options( use
Big5 encoding as default, switch HZ/zW encoding on/off as compiling default) in 
Makefile. Usually you should just type 'make' and get the binary file straight.

     
 ---- Usage ----
 ---------------

    ChiRK takes one command line argument, the filename. Otherwise it assumes
the standard input:

	% chirk -bw cmd9202b.gb 	, or
	% cat poem.big5 | chirk -5

    available options are:

    -5:   Big5 encoding.  Set this flag if you are reading Big5 encoded text,
	  but have chosen GB encoding as default at compiling time. 
    -g:   GouBiao encoding. The other way around.
    -h:   Toggle HZ encoding on/off from the compiling-time default.
    -z:   Toggle zW encoding on/off from the compiling-time default.
    -n :  No autowrap. auto-wrap is set with the default, this flag put it off.
	  warning: some of the GB files ( like HuaXiaWenZhai) contains lines so
	  long that you only see the first line of each paragraph.
    -b :  bitmap font. ChiRK works slower with bitmap fonts.
    -t :  use traditional(FanTi) font with GB/HZ/zW encoding.
    -k :  Use with real Tektronics 4010/4014 terminals. a 1-2 seconds of pause
	  is given after erasing the screen.
    -w :  wide font. With default settings, the original 16*16 bitmap font was
	  squeezed to 12*16 to fit 40 characters per line. Use this flag to get
	  original font displayed, but with only 30 characters per line.
    -H :  high font. On some low resolution( 240 lines vertically) terminals
          like DEC VT240, you might want a longer( higher) font to see the 
          text clearly. This will reduce the default 18 lines per screen to
          12 lines p.s.
    -d :  Double line. On high resolution( up to 782 lines vertically)terminals
	  like original Tektronics 401x or xterm, this makes all the horizontal
	  scan lines be used so that the characters look solid. Useful only
	  with bitmap font and is automatically set when working on xterm.
    -f :  Filter mode. This skips the interactive keyboard page control.


********************************************************************************
CHANGES

-----------------------  ChiRK 1.2 ( July 31, 1992) ------------------------

 Changes from ChiRK 1.1:

	* Now support zW and HZ encoding, two popular 7bit encoding themes for
	  Chinese text.
	* Added "t" switch and traditional Chinese font support with 
	  GB encoding.
	* A new simplified bitmap font which looks nicer and may be a little
	  bit faster.
	* Leave the graphics screen un-cleared when exiting the program.
	* The genuine Tek4010/4014 switch added by Jim.Rees@umich.edu.
	* More tolerent to GB/Big5 coding fault.

 Bug fixes of ChiRK 1.1:

	* Change the static memory allocation for the input and font files to 
	  dynamic allocation. Done by Jim.Rees@umich.edu (chirk.c)
	* psignal() call removed since it won't compile on some machines. 
	  ( chirk.c )
	* aixterm term dropped as it shouldn't have been there at the first 
	  place. ( chirk.c )
	* other minor fixes.
 

                                                    ---- July 31, 1992 ----
********************************************************************************
TRICKS

      -- How to use ChiRK with USENET Read-News without saving every article --

1. get ChiRK 1.2 or higher compiled and include the binary in your path.
2. run 'rn' on a terminal capable of running ChiRK.
3. when an article contains HZ/zW text is displayed, type:
               s | chirk 
   to view it.  
4. type 'q' in ChiRK to return to rn running in TEXT mode.

Good luck.

______________________________________________________________________________

      -- How to use ChiRK with UNIX Mail without saving every message --

1. get ChiRK 1.2 or higher compiled and include the binary in your path.
2. edit your .mailrc, add:
       set EDITOR=chirk
3. run 'mail' on a terminal capable of running ChiRK.
4. use 'e' command to read HZ encoded mail.
5. type 'q' in ChiRK to return to mail running in TEXT mode.

Good luck again.

*******************************************************************************

                                                                   ~{Qn  2*~}
Y A N G ,   B O                        < e r i c @ c o e u s . u c s d . e d u >