🚀 go-pugleaf

>The interesting part of the whole thing was that the translation was all
>done at the TTY device driver level, rather than within the editor itself.

No, I doubt it was *all* done at the TTY driver level - at least I hope
it wasn't.  If nothing else, the dictionary management doesn't belong in
the kernel (which, unfortunately, is where UNIX tty drivers tend to be). 
They may have stuck some of the user-interface part there as well, which
I also doubt is necessary; all you really need in the kernel is a hook
to let a "user-interface daemon" take temporary control of the terminal. 

Of course, in a lot of cases you can do it in the terminal (e.g., a PC
used as a terminal, or a "terminal" such as "shelltool" or "xterm"), and
have it send Kanji over the wire.

Doing it in some centralized place is nice, but that doesn't necessarily
mean doing it in the kernel.