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Show If if s all Greek to you, chips can break the language barrier jjOThe yylSusiness Computer V. by Franklynn Peterson and Judy K-Turkel Dear Frank and Judi, Mostly we type in English, but at "least "once a week our impdrt-export impdrt-export firm has to type paragraphs or even whole pages in Hebrew, Greek or Arabic. I ll bet nobody has written a good word processing program . that'll do all that. Fleet-fingered in Philadelphia. Dear Fleet, You lose the bet if you' be got an IBM or "compatible" computer. Two better-than-average word processing pro-cessing programs can do strange characters. The first, Proofwriter International, Internation-al, does exactly what you're looking for. Alone, the program types Greek letters like those used in scientific formulas. If you also buy a chip that goes inside your computer, you can switch with a single keystroke from English to Hebrew or other Semitic letters. The chip, available from Proofwriter's maker, comes with instructions for easy installation. For modern Greek and for Russian letters, order a separate computer chip. Or you can get the same results by buying The Benchmark, whose integrated package includes a good word processing program (with a dreadfully sketchy manual) and a graphics program that has a "font generator." Using this device for a client, it took our staff about 10 hours to construct a Hebrew alphabet for use by Benchmark's word processing component. Once you've done one alphabet, the next language should take you half the time. (Proofwriter: Image Processing Systems, P.O. Box 5016, Madison, guidance to keep you out of trouble: "Legal Care for Your Software" by "Daniel Remer ($19.95) and "How to Copyright Software" by M.J. Salone ($21.95). Both are from Nolo Press, 950 Parker St., Berkeley Calif. 94710. If you do not plan to sell the software, get the best legal advice you can afford. You can talk first to your corporate lawyer, but we've found that only specialists truly understand this complicated field. Copyright is just one problem you need to address. Product liability can be a bigger problem. What happens if some company loses a million bucks worth of business because your . program bombs? The big program peddlers limit their liability with" carefully written licenses and gob-bledygook gob-bledygook warranties. We're not in favor of them in fact, we're campaigning to strengthen strength-en the laws but since you asked our advice. . . The authors will answer questions and send a checklist of available back issues. Send a stamped, self-addressed self-addressed envelope. Comparative details on computer price and performance are found in a new 4,000-word special report, "Your Personal Computer Buying Guide." For your copy, send $3 for Report FP02, in care of the Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT 84060. You can read back issues of these columns on NewsNet's on-line- data base: for details, 1-800-345-1301. (C) 1985 PK Associates, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc. Wise. 53705; 608-233-5033. Benchmark: Bench-mark: Metasoft, 6509 w. Frye Rd., Chandler, Ariz. 85224; 1-800-621-1908.) Dear Frank and Judi, Help! I love my letters to look beautiful, and they used to. But look at what started happening last week. Spacing between some words is big and roomy, between others so tight you can hardly tell where one word stops and another begins. Our office uses the old WordStar, an IBM PC with Great Lakes add-on hard disk drive, and a Diablo 620 letter quality printer. We'd call a repair person, but don't know what needs fixing, computer, printer or program. Spaced-out in San Fernando. Dear Spaced-out, This kind of headache, irregular spacing of words and letters, usually comes from one of three culprits. Most often it's improper installation of the program. But unless you reinstalled your program last week, so we can rule that out because you say your system was working fine up until then. Second biggest culprit is printer wear and tear. Make this printer run its self-test program. (Look in the manual if you've never done this before. ) If the space program doesn't show up, look elsewhere. Third cause, and a rare one, can be a malfuncation in the hard disk or its electronic support systems. To check whether these are at fault, run the same program, configured exactly the same way, from the floppy disk drive. If your printer prints fine with the floppy, the problem's with the hard disk. One way to avoid this problem-trying problem-trying to decide which supplier to call in is to buy all your equipment and programs and accessories from one supplier at the same time. That way, you don't have to worry about what's going wrong with which purchase, especially if the supplier has signed our Computer Buyer's Model Contract. For a copy, send $2 and the words CBMC to the address below. Dear Frank and Judi, Our company intends to generate software internally. How can we legally copyright it? Chairman of the Board in Lebanon, Ind. Dear Chair, We can't legally give legal advice and we'll wind up in Lebanon jail. But here's some practical advice. Unless you plan to sell the software, you rarely need to hire a specialist in copyright law. The following good books by lawyers should give enough |