🚀 go-pugleaf

A response to the comments below.

1) For Windows 3.1J you do not need to ( eg there may be a case or two,
but you should not have to) link on the PC98xx series if your source is
from the PC.

2)As an additional FYI, NEC's *newest* PC98xx (i believe the model is
PC9824) has a floppy drive that reads IBM compatible disks.

3)The NT approach debate.  Well, sooner or later one has to break with
the past to take advantage of new innovations.  There will be other
routes, other than NT, if one insists on full backwards compatibility.
Most people are saying, not that it is unfortunate with NT's approach,
but "It is about time."

4) The level of binary compatibility will probably be comporable to
U.S. binary compatibility.  I would say find out if you have a problem
first, then complain.  I think the first emphasis is on #4, lets get
rid of some old baggage that has been carried around for 10 years.

Items 3 and 4 are my opinions and should not be construed as the
opinions of Microsoft.

Stan

----------
From:  <netmail!walter@turing.mathworks.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list  <insoft-l@cis.vutbr.cs>
Subject: Japanese PC's
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1993 3:07PM

>The biggest difference is the architecture of, e.g., the NEC PC98XX is
>similar to a US PC but, e.g., some interrupts differ, the memory map, ...
>do you get the "." (actually the graphic capabillities of the Japanese PC's
>where higher than the graphic used by US PCs (5-10 years ago)?

Our understanding/experience is that from the Windows 3.1J programmer's
point of
view, the NEC PC is binary but not link-compatible with a standard U.S. PC.
That is, binaries compiled on a U.S. PC must be linked on the NEC PC.

>Yes, there is Japanese (Korean /Chinese) Windows (at least 3.0, Japanese 3.1).

According to a press release that we received, Microsoft has shipped over
200,000 sets of the Japanese language product Windows 3.1J, which
represents 20%
of the Japanese subsidiary's first fiscal year target of 1 million sets.

Windows NT-J is also in the works and will ship 6 months after NT ships; its
native character set is Unicode.  NT-J uses a completely different approach to
internationalization than does 3.1J.  Although NT-J is much more technically
sophisticated than 3.1J in this area, the unfortunate consequence is that the
application developer is faced with two completely different API's.  The only
good news is that Microsoft claims that NT-J will run 3.1J binaries (since they
haven't been able to achieve complete binary compatibility of NT for 3.1
binaries, I'd consider this claim skeptically).