Japanese language support on the Amiga

[Spyros]

The Amiga can support Japanese for display, input and OS localization.
The following video contains 5 example free-program combinations on various AmigaOS versions.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Predseda]

Sure it can!

[djukon]

This is amazing. A few weeks ago I started looking for an overview or demonstration of how Japanese worked on the Amiga. I found a few lists of packages needed, but not something like this video. It couldn't have come at a better time. Thanks for sharing, Spyros.

[malko]

&

[AmigaHope]

I used daigokai but I got crashes from time to time. =(

[Spyros]

@AmigaHope
I do remember something like that, but never had problems with system crashes. It was more like getting garbled text sometimes, which I would fix by simply restarting Daigokai.
It's very stable on my system.

[abbub]

Out of curiosity, how 'big' was the Amiga in Japan, back in the day? I'm assuming 'not very'?

[Toncon]

at first, AMIGA had been introduced in many of home computer magazine around 1985.
few had understood it's nature and importance though.

so that most of japanese computer user or gamer had never known what's Amiga like between late 80's to early 90's.
which was the thing only people who often are considered as "rare type" (like me) had cared about.

so, practically AMIGA became renown only after Video Toaster AND Lightwave had shown the power.
in that regard, it was same treat as in US.
it was not acknowledged as a computer anymore but pro-use assets for broad casting.

Daigokai was first attempt of proper implementation of japanese FEP system and actually, made by one of such TV-production company for their own.

they created cult tv-show for kids "Ugo Ugo Ruga" which is full of 2D/3D animation in real time operation with the power of Amiga.
and even wrote several books to introduce the world of AMIGA. (from games, megademos to floppy drive music, and of course, VT related articles)

that was the AMIGA's finest time in japan.
[ Show youtube player ]

[saimon69]

More japanese style than this is hard ^______^

[Warty]

Originally Posted by Toncon

Daigokai was first attempt of proper implementation of japanese FEP system

Depending on your definition of "proper implementation", I think the ANS (Amiga Nihon-go System) was actually available first. I bought mine in Roppongi, but I think maybe if you bought your Amiga in Japan, the importer (MIQ?) supplied it automatically.

Now... ANS was a mess. ugly, crash, finicky, bad FEP, low compatibility, etc. (Not all ANS's fault: it's basically VERY HARD to add double-byte compatibility, and with an FEP no less, to a system that was not designed for that in any way shape or form.

I never used DaiGoKai, but might try that when I have a chance.

[idrougge]

I used the small "Japanese" (http://aminet.net/package/text/misc/Japanese) patch for basic display, and JKFF when I needed input. The latter was the most primitive IME I've used.

[AmigaHope]

I think the Amiga could've done pretty well in Japan if it had had Japanese support baked into it from the start. Unfortunately it was born in that time period where Japanese support existed as weird kana-based ASCII-replacements on 8-bit micros rather than as a comprehensive multi-character-set system with complex input methods. Commodore didn't have an existing roadmap for this or the team in place to invent something like that.

They just couldn't compete against homegrown Japanese-oriented systems -- neither could anyone else, which is why MSX became the standard for home computers (in a completely incompatible form to foreign MSX systems) and why PC-88/PC-98 became the standard for business use.

Western standards didn't start to make inroads until DOS/V in 1990, unless you count the very niche Mac community struggling with KanjiTalk. As crappy as KanjiTalk was, the Amiga didn't even have anything that high quality.

[Warty]

That's a pretty great summary in 3 paras, @AmigaHope.

Commodore people didn't get it, and Apple didn't really get it either. PC-88/98 style fonts were 'ugly' to me, but they were actually a lot more readable than the Mac Japanese fonts, and the FEPs available were a LOT better (can't remember the name of the one that was 3rd party but super popular).

[Spyros]

Does anyone have ADFs of ANS? It was two disks if I'm not mistaken.

[Misclegend]

I hate japanese characters, I don't want to see the Amiga software or games contaminated with japanese garbage

[Ian]

We also do not want this forum contaminated with your racist garbage.

I am surprised you aren't already banned as that is what was previously agreed between the moderators, but that mistake has now been rectified.

[Warty]

Originally Posted by Spyros

Does anyone have ADFs of ANS? It was two disks if I'm not mistaken.

I can't find my copy, or the manual that came with it, which I am a little sad about. Who knows if any copies of that even exist anywhere.

I did a quick web search, but didn't find anyone even mentioning having a copy.

Some references though:
https://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/OTH_1986Q1.html
http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/japan.txt
http://himitsugusa.on.coocan.jp/Lists3.html
http://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/amig...igaFAQ_59.html
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/amiga/f...d-viewers.html
http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/japan.inf
http://members.quicknet.nl/rhm.herol...a/amigafaq.htm