From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Subject: INTERNATIONALIZATION: JAPAN, FAR EAST
Keywords: Han Kanji Katakana Hirugana ISO10646 Unicode Codepages
Organization: Weber State University  (Ogden, UT)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 18:50:28 GMT

I know a lot of the Japaneese 386BSD community can not email out of Japan,
so this is an open letter to them, and to Atsushi MURAI and other people
there who are active in this newsgroup.

What kind of internationalization would best enable you to use 386BSD?

	o	Kanji support?
	o	Kana (Katakan/Hirugana) support?

What is currently used on PCs (with their limited character sets) in Japan?

Assuming a full Kanji implementation, what type of keyboard encoding needs
to be done to comply with what Japaneese users are used to?

Are there Kana keyboards?

Is a Kana internationalization usable?  Desirable?

How frequently is Romanji used in place of Kana/Kanji in the business
community?  The computer community?

Is a Romanji internationalization usable?  Desirable?

Does the technical advantage of a Kana implementation (the fact that the
full character set may be downloaded to a VGA card, and 8 bit storage
of files) influence your decision one way or the other?

Are most Japaneese users using X to display full Kanji?  Are they mostly
using X or "text mode"?

Are there any PD Kanji X character sets?  Any in the 10x20 to 12x24 range?

Are there any PD Unicode X character sets?  Any in the 10x20 to 12x24 range?

Given that a Unicode X font in the 10x20 to 12x14 range is ROMable in
less than 1M, are there any X manufactures in Japan (or elsewhere) who have
provided one embedded in their terminals?

Are there Kanji or Kana fonts embedded in any X terminals?

------

Given that the HAN (Chineese) and Kanji glyph sets intersect widely, are
there any 386BSD users in China who want to comment?

Are there any 386BSD users in Korea who want to comment?  Obviously, given
the fact that Korean uses a 36 character alphabet, there is probably little
incentive for a non-ASCII implementation.  Do Korean keyboards support
their full character set?  Are they standardized for the scan codes they
produce?

------

This information will be used to propose (with the intention of implementing)
a uniform internationalization mechanism in 386BSD, with special attention
to character set attribution internal to the file system to reduce storage
requirements.

------

Individuals fluent in technical terms in all non-English languages will be
needed to provide target language translation for base internationalization
of standard informational and error messages for UNIX commands.  Since this
will pretty much be an ongoing work, email access and FTP access across
international boundries are a plus for volunteers.

------

This is an attempt to gather information prior to proposing an implementation;
responses will be accepted until 31 DEC 92.  Some time after that, a summary
report of responses will be posted.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@icarus.weber.edu
					terry_lambert@novell.com
---
Nihon de shigato o shitai to nozonde imasu.
Yumei na daigaisha no hitotsu no hagaruma ni maritai.  8-).
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
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