Subject: Eten 3.0 Pinyin Module

From: Avron Boretz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 May 1992 14:21:16 -0400

Eten 3.0 has a pinyin character entry module which "sits" on the phonetic
entry module (phonetic.tab).  This pinyin module (roman.box) is a text file
(can1kao3dang3an4). As configured, it does not distinguish characters by
tone, although the entries are ordered hierarchically by tone -- that is,
you enter a pinyin phoneme, without tone, and get a list of all the homonyms,
regardless of tone.  This is, of course, virtually useless for most people,
and the pinyin .box files available from AHKCUS.ORG are much more practical --
with the exception that they take up far too much RAM, a problem this module
avoids by loading into XMS memory.  If the Eten 3.0 pinyin (luoma) entry module
could be edited to be "tone-aware," we would have the best of all possible
worlds -- however, I have tried to edit it using arabic numerals on the
pinyin side, and special ascii tone characters on the bopomofo side, withoug
success: as soon as you type the number, it prints as-is to the cursor, i.e.,
it is not recognized as part of the pinyin unit.  So: does anyone know how
one might edit this file to work in the way I have suggested, or (even better!)
has anyone actually *done* this, and if so, would they be willing to put their
results in the public domain?  Thanks for responding...
Avron Boretz