🚀 go-pugleaf

PMC e-mail id: 1109

Here is a copy of e-mail I sent directly to Roy.
(I fixed some typos.)

It is rather long, but I hope this is a short introduction for many
people who are not familiar with Japanese market.
CAVEAT: I am not *THE* authority on Japanese PC market, but given the
fact that I have been working at the current company for 10 years
developing/selling PC software, I am *NOT* a complete novice either.

>Could you explain briefly how a japanese pc differs from a US pc....?
>i'd be interested in this...

Attached is an excerpt from a document I prepared a couple of years ago.
(Toshiba and other companies have different PCs, too. But I focus on
NEC PC here since it is the most popular PC in Japan.)
I added new comment with "****" that are relevant today.

>does MS Windows run on japanese pc's ? --- is it the same version of
>Windows that runs on DOS J/V ?

	Well, to start with NEC, Fujitsu, and Toshiba, etc. are
producing non-IBM compatible PCs.  So these Japanese PCs don't run DOS
J/V.

However, as far as I can tell MS-Windows does run on these Japanese
PC's. The underlying DOS are OEM version of MS-DOS and usually have
special IO.SYS and other additoins/modifications done by the hardware
vendors.

I don't know exactly how much code is shared between
the version of MS-Windows on these Japanese PC and the version for DOS J/V.
But, MS-Windows 3.0J or just announced 3.1J (note the suffix J for Japanese)
support the SAME API (Application Program Interface). Hence,
application written for the Windows API should run on both IBM-PC and
Japanese PCs. So as long as we are programming according to API,
things should be OK.

Currently, among the Japanese PC makers, only NEC has begun shipping
MS-Windows 3.1J for its own PC. IBM Japan will follow with its version
3.1J for IBM DOS J/V. Microsoft has already begun shipping MS-Windows
3.1J for DOS J/V machines including Compaq, DELL, etc.. (The
difference between Microsoft version and IBM version of MS-Windows
3.1J is that IBM version supports IBM drivers [for IBM
printers/acclerators and such] on top of what Microsoft version
supports.)  NEC version of MS-Win3.1J supports special outline
Japanese fonts that are compatible with built-in fonts of NEC's
high-end printers so that users who use these fonts in MS Win 3.1J
will enjoy fast printing with NEC printers.

Hope this helps.


ATTACHMENT:
-------------
.H 2 "Forget about IBM-PC in the Japanese market"

.pp
Mighty IBM, which dominates the personal computer market in the USA,
is NOT a powerful force in the Japanese computer market.
IBM-PC probably occupies less than 10 percent of 16 bit personal computers.
*** Since the introduction of DOS/V that supports Japanese
*** display/input on stock IBM-PC comatibles, I think the
*** share has gone up for compatible PC's somewhat. But not much.
***
Instead, NEC (Nippon Electric Company) dominates the personal computer
market with its PC9800 series personal computers.
It is estimated that PC9800 series computers occupies 60-70 percent of
16 bit personal computers in Japan.
**** (I would say it has come down to 50-55 % today. But still a big
****  number, isn't it?)
PC9800 uses Intel 8086 microprocessor chip and has better graphics
capabilities than IBM-PC or IBM-AT and popular graphics
adapters for IBM-PC.
MS-DOS runs on PC9800 series personal computers.
The important thing to remember is that PC9800 is NOT IBM-compatible.


.H 2 "- BEWARE THAT NEC-PC IS NOT IBM-PC COMPATIBLE"

.pp
NEC-PC and IBM-PC is very much different and I would say that people
from the North American market and elsewhere should throw away any
preconception about PC hardware and hardware when they think about the
Japanese market.

.pp
For people in North American computer industry, I have learned that I
can't stress this difference too much. PC in Japan doesn't mean "the
PC" in the North American market!

.pp
Because PC9800 is NOT IBM-compatible, many programs that utilizes special
feature of IBM-PC, such as BIOS of IBM ROM, do not run on the popular
NEC PC9800 series computer without modification.

.pp
Using hardware features specific to IBM cause problems.  (Don't assume
you can write to video RAM, for example. NEC-PC has graphics and
character RAM which are mapped to the same address space which can be
switched using a bank register. The video attributes are very much
different, too.)

.pp
Even simple DOS calls on PC can pose some unexpected problems.
PC-DOS
on IBM-PC has specially added functions (by IBM) even for INT 21
functions, and the generic MS-DOS available on NEC-PC may not handle
such added functions.
For example, key-scan code for any key on the keyboard is returned by
keyboard scan function of PC-DOS.
However, on NEC-PC, you can't sense
the special keys on the keyboard in this manner.
(You have to dig deeper into BIOS area...)

.pp
I can't go into the Japanese character handling in detail here.  But
the presense of special keys on the keyboard for Japanese character
handling, and the special video interface for Japanese character
display on NEC-PC are major things that your software have to handle
in the long run.

**** I would think that using MS-Windows API surely helps programmers
**** in making appliation portable between IBM-PC and NEC-PC.
**** However, somethings like the diffrence of default screen size (640
**** x 480 for IBM-PC, and 640 x 400 for older NEC models) certainly makes
**** it easy for careless programmers to write non-portable applicaition.

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    Chiaki Ishikawa                       Phone:+81-3-5702-0351
  Personal Media Corp.                      FAX:+81-3-5702-0359
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