| N.B. This page was written by Alan Barbour and was originally stored on his website at http://userzweb.lightspeed.net/~abarbour/os2cjk.htm. However, it has disappeared from that location. As I think the contents of the page are worth preserving (I contributed parts myself anyway), I have uploaded the last copy I could find to my own site -- until such a time as I discover Alan has uploaded a newer version elsewhere. I have corrected a couple of typos, but as almost all of the links seem to be out of date now it's probably not worth doing any more. I have however updated all the links to point to historical locations via the WayBack machine (archive.org). Ben Jones |
I have sought for some time to implement Japanese under English-language OS/2 Warp 3.0, for use in word processing, web browsing and e-mail. I have finally succeeded fairly well. This page is offered as guidance for others who may wish to do the same or similar things. It details bugs, solutions, workarounds and resources I have used, many of which will work for Windows 3.x as well. Improvements offered by others will be recognized and incorporated into this page as they become available. Jump to index. For those who just want a simple (albeit slowish) way to view Japanese web pages (with ANY operating system), check out Shodouka.
PAGE UPDATE HISTORY:
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
As of now, I can send and receive Japanese e-mail, do word processing and printing either with a dedicated, free-standing word processor or with a standard Windows word processor (Describe), and run Netscape for OS/2 and a Windows 3.x browser (I have settled on Opera 3.0) simultaneously on my OS/2 desktop if I so desire. This means I can also write Japanese web pages. The only significant problem is that I have to minimize downloading of graphics in the Windows browser (this may be cured by a video driver update). These same solutions should work for Chinese and Korean as well as Japanese. This is more cumbersome than running Japanese OS/2, but my Japanese skills are inadequate for J-OS/2 (which would use up a lot of hard drive space anyway), and the computer skills of the people in our household who are fluent in Japanese are also not up to installing J-OS/2. I suspect that some of the little bugs I have encountered would not be noticed by people running conventional Microsoft Windows (let's see them run OS/2 programs simultaneously!), or with Win-OS/2 installed on drive C.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
Kanji Word 3.0 from Pacific Software Publishing installed and runs under Win-OS/2 with only one minor glitch. During installation it insisted on finding my autoexec.bat file on the C drive in order to ask me if I wanted to install OLE support (which I chose not to do). The solution was to copy autoexec.bat from my OS/2 partition to the C drive, install Kanji Word, and then delete C:\autoexec.bat. Kanji Word has a good manual (in both English and Japanese) and a good input method [FEP, IME].It is not integrated with a web browser or E-mail program, but can open and save to various formats (KW3, Old-JIS, New-JIS, Shift-JIS, CIS-JIS, EUC and NEC-Kanji text). KanjiWord prints a bit slowly because it does so in graphics mode with a standard Windows printer driver. Startup is faster if it is run in a separate Windows session on the OS/2 desktop rather than a full-screen Windows session, but there are printer driver conflicts (one can't print in KanjiWord and then print in OS/2 without closing KanjiWord), so it is probably just as well to use a full-screen Windows session. Although a little clunky compared to an OS/2 program, it is easy to use and quite satisfactory for standard word processing. Probably the biggest limitation is KanjiWord's lack of support for column formatting. If using the same type size in a document one can use tabs to create columns. To print in columns with different sizes of type on the same line, compose and save columns separately; make one pass through printer for each column. For fine adjustment of vertical spacing, adjust point sizes of blank lines.
Saving KanjiWord files in graphics format, one can adjust them with a graphics program such as PMView if so desired and then place them into English documents such as Describe word processor files or this page, e.g.:
To use KanjiWord for reading E-mail, save the text of the E-mail with the extension *.njs, then open with KanjiWord. To send E-mail, compose the letter in KanjiWord, save the file in New-JIS (*.njs) format, then paste it into the body of the E-mail message. One can also save in Shift-JIS format (file extension *.txt) and attach that version of the letter to the message; that may be particularly helpful to people using recent versions of Windows.
Kanji Kit 97 from Pacific Software Publishing seems to be the same as Dragon Writer and Union Way Asian Suite 97 (see Double Byte Conversion Utilities).
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
The solution to my TCP/IP stack and dialer problem came from Lamar Stone and is summarized here. For full info please see the original.
If a Win 3.1 browser installed under Win-OS/2 doesn't see an existing connection made with your IBM dialer (mine didn't) check the following things:
Note from Father Winston F Jensen:
But also note: you need to copy a file called "resolv" (it's in the \mptn\etc directory as I recall (do a search and find it) then copy that file [resolv] to the \tcpip\dos\etc directory and also I think to the \tcpip\etc directory this needs to be done along with having the stuff listed in the autoexec.bat and be sure that you do not have any references to c:\windows in your autoexec.bat file. An excellent place to look about winos2 is at 'Judy's Warped World' site which has a special section on winos2 in general and worth the look.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
Installing Japanese System Fonts:
This depends on your operating system. For users of Win 3.x and WinOS/2 this is just another way of saying "install a double-byte conversion utility." For information on this and other operating systems, try here. Also see Paul Findon's "Viewin' & Brewin' the Japanese Web."
June 13th, 1998:
KanjiKit97 from Pacific Software Publishing installs and runs perfectly under Win-OS/2; it is basically the same as DragonWriter or UnionWay Asian Suite 97, but seems to be a better implementation. I recommend it if you have not invested in one of the other packages.
I answered a circular from Web Force and ordered their Dragon Writer 4.0. Installing and running it under Win-OS/2 initially worked but then something went wrong and couldn't be fixed. Still, it looked promising. The program offered limited translation capability and the ability to use Japanese, Chinese, and Korean in Windows applications. It included a romaji input method, but the manual didn't tell how to use it and it was not intuitive. Despite repeated and detailed requests Web Force didn't provide the necessary information (i.e., what keys to press to produce the desired Japanese phonetic characters.) They DID provide a copy of version 5.0 with supplementary "Katana" input method, but if anything the manual was even poorer. The new manual hardly mentions Win 3.1 (only Win 95) and still doesn't tell how to use the input method. Nevertheless, I could figure out how to install the program and the Katana input method (with help from the version 4.0 manual and a little guessing). It actually installed very nicely under Win-OS/2 despite the lack of reference to Windows 3.1 in the manual.
Starting Dragon Writer, I discovered that it was actually UnionWay's Asian Suite 97. It works almost perfectly under Win-OS/2. I have only encountered two glitches:
The first glitch is that when first started in a new Win-OS/2 session, the double-byte manager and applications such as Write and Describe for Win 3.1 produce an error message, giving the choice of [cancel] or [ignore]; one MUST select [ignore]. The same applies the first time the applications are closed. Subsequent openings and closings of the applications within the same Win-OS/2 session do not give the error message. THIS JUST IN 6/13/98: PSP's KanjiKit97 does not exhibit this bug!
In one session, when I used Write to compose e-mail with the double byte manager running and struck the return key it returned, but also produced a line of dashes. This didn't happen if I changed to English input (Ctrl + Space) before hitting the return key. The glitch disappeared and has not recurred.
The UnionWay FAQ Sheet is helpful, and updates are available at their site also. The Kanji Word manual had a good explanation of how to use the Katana input method, and although the UnionWay implementation is slightly different it is easy to figure out. The user's manual that can be downloaded from UnionWay (it takes time to convert it to Describe format, but it can be done) also seems to lack the sort of helpful conversion table furnished in the Kanji Word manual. A quick search of the Internet did not produce anything helpful. A shortened version is here. [Was link to file "KATANA.HTM", now lost.]
We found that using a Windows word processor with Japanese enabled by DragonWriter was cumbersome compared to Kanji Word, but Dragon Writer will do the job for composing E-mail.
For viewing web pages, use the left button on the UnionWay/Dragon Writer tool bar to set EUC encoding (JIS is automatically recognized). For E-mail set to S-JIS (JIS is automatically recognized). The default font is a bitmap font, which is fast; use the browser or editor menu bar to select a true-type font for a clearer display.
For searching web space in Japanese, start the double-byte manager, start the browser, go to the search engine, set the encoding (far left button on UnionWay toolbar) as appropriate, set the input method (next-to-left button on UnionWay toolbar) to "Eng" and toggle between the input bar and the regular toolbar with the [ctrl]+[spacebar] key combination.
WARPMATE (also known as RichWin for OS/2), from Stone Rich Sight, the publishers of RichWin, works like UnionWay does under Windows, to enable Chinese, Japanese, & Korean in OS/2 applications. (Thanks to Ben Jones for the tip!) Evidently it works with Warp through base level 4.0 (no fixpacks), but has been withdrawn from the market. There may be some betas and demos floating around out there, but it is no longer commercially available. Alestron Inc. is Stone Rich Sights's U.S. agent. Their E-mail is here. Information in Chinese is here.
Many thanks to Nobu Taike for telling me about JList! JList is a freeware text viewer that converts all sorts of formats (Old-JIS, New-JIS, NEC-JIS, Shift-JIS and EUC) to Japanese text (evidently without mojibake). As I understand at this time, it is actually a UNIX program that can be run under OS/2 with the EMX runtime package. JList does not provide print capability (other than through the screen print key). Save a file (web page, e-mail, etc.) to the desktop (in ASCII format), then drag and drop onto the JList object and it is displayed with the proper kana/kanji. The installation also creates a "Kanji File" object in the templates folder, the purpose of which I am not sure I completely understand, but I can save an e-mail message to a "kanji file" template, then when I click on it JList starts and converts the file. It also allows one to specify a particular type of encoding (e.g., EUC).
To install JList, download jlist01.zip and emxrt.zip from Hobbes (or elsewhere). In an OS/2 command line window unzip emxrt.zip with the following syntax: unzip emxrt.zip -d x:\ where "x" is the drive where you want the EMX directory. Edit config.sys by adding x:\emx\dll to LIBPATH and x:\emx\bin to PATH. Unzip jlist01.zip in the directory of your choice (I made a JLIST directory), add that directory to the HELP and PATH lines of your config.sys file, and run INSTALL.CMD. The readme file says a "Kanji File" file type association is added to JList by INSTALL.CMD but that didn't happen, so I did it manually from the settings notebook.
Jlist comes with the JWP 16X16 font. The 16X16 and 24X24 fonts are available from the ftp server at Monash University and its mirrors as jwp13fnt.zip, and the 48X48 font as jwp13f48.zip. Download and unzip in a temporary file, then move the 24X24 and 48X48 fonts to the Jlist directory. Open their settings notebooks and change their associated file types from plain text to Kanji font. (You can ignore the Windows instructions in the readme file associated with the 48X48 font.)
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
For those of you who would like to use a Java applet rather than a conventional browser to cruise Japanese web space, look up NihongoSurfer.
The latest versions of Netscape for OS/2 say they provide DBCS support, but only if you are running a DBCS-enabled version of OS/2, not the standard English version; thus the need to use Windows 3.x browsers running under Win-OS/2. (It seems this isn't true; see NS/2 Unicode support info from Isaac at the end of this section.)
I was informed that it is necessary to use a Japanese-capable browser, such as Netscape Communicator (will this work under OS/2 4.0?) or Internet Explorer 3.0. I didn't have good luck communicating with Netscape or downloading Navigator and installing it under Win-OS/2, so I tried IE. Downloading and installing from the Internet worked OK, but didn't give me e-mail. I received a copy of version 3.0 on CD from my internet service provider for "free" and it installed flawlessly under Win-OS/2, updating the previous copy, recognizing that I had a dialer installed and presenting me with the option of a custom installation using my existing dialer/TCPIP stack (the option I used) and installing Microsoft's e-mail program.
The only significant bug was that when I try to use IE to do a little web surfing it crashed sooner or later (instantly if I called up the Microsoft home page), telling me that "IEXPLORE caused an illegal instruction in module FMACX.DRV at 0002:70C4" (in the previous version of IE) or that there was a GPF at the same location (version 3.04). The driver in question seems to be related to my ATI Winturbo video card. The same problem occurs with other Win 3.x browsers I have tried; the solution might be to update my video driver, but since it works perfectly for Netscape-OS/2 I don't want to take any chances. Another possible cause of the problem is that Windows programs expect to find things on Drive C that I don't have there. In short, although I have this problem, others may not.
I have hit on two solutions. The first is to turn off the browser graphics (which speeds it up). Once out on the web, if I find a site where I want to see the graphics I can turn on the graphics and refresh; so far I have gotten away with that every time, but am not betting on it. I can also run Netscape Navigator for OS/2 and Opera or IE for Win 3.1 (in a Win-OS/2 window session) on the same screen, seeing the graphics with Netscape and the properly presented Japanese with the other browser (if I have the UnionWay double byte manager running).
OPERA BROWSER 3.1 is now available and seems to be a superior product. It is fast, quick to download, and doesn't take up much hard drive space. With graphics turned off the appearance of the pages as well as the performance is better than IE. CHECK THIS OUT! (They are OS/2 friendly; look for the OS/2 version, being written now!)
NETSCAPE UNICODE SUPPORT. [Many thanks to Isaac for this section.]
If you want to just view Japanese on web pages, you can do it on Netscape/2, if you install the Unicode fonts support. You must get the Java1.1.4 update. When you install, unless you want Java 114 (and my gosh, it's at least twice as fast as Java1.02), just select to install the Unicode font & support. It will install the Unicode font (Times Roman MT30) and an updated TRUETYPE.DLL file and a couple of others.
After, in Netscape/2, under Options->General Preferences->Fonts tell it to use Times Roman MT30 for Japanese encoding. When you hit a Japanese web page, you'll have to manually tell Netscape to switch to Japanese encoding under Options->Document Encoding. (This is basically the same for all version of Netscape). Tips:
- If you are just viewing Japanese, the above procedure is fine, I've personally tried this on plain Warp 4 plus various Fixpack from 0 to 5.
- If you are viewing Chinese as well, you MUST apply Fixpack 5, because there is something wrong with the Chinese decoding otherwise. I have tested this extensively.
- Java 1.1.4 is 29MB. If you just want the Unicode bit, the font itself is 12MB or so and you can manually apply the update files (there are only 2-3). Have someone e-mail it to you and save some download time.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
I set the clipboard to "public" so I could cut and paste between Windows and OS/2 programs.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
As set up, I have several options for receiving and sending E-mail in Japanese.
To receive, I check my mail as I usually do with my regular OS/2 E-mail program (PMMail), detect a message that presents as gibberish, and copy it to the clipboard or save it to a file. The easiest way is to save it to the desktop, then drag to and drop on JList, which displays any encoding format but doesn't print (other than with the "print screen" key). If I save the message (or text attachment) with the appropriate extension (most likely *.ojs [Old-JIS encoding] or *.njs [New-JIS encoding] for message text or *.txt [Shift-JIS encoding] for attachments) I can open and read the file with KanjiWord, but I have to start a separate Windows session to do so. Alternatively I can open a Win-OS/2 session, start the double-byte manager, and view the file or clipboard contents with Describe or Write. There may be more problems with "mojibake" (see below) with this method.
Another VERY easy way to quickly read a message is to install DragText, shareware available from BMT Micro. Then open a message received in (e.g.) PMMail and drag the system menu button (at the upper left corner of the window) to the JList icon; no saving to file involved! (If you don't register the product you will have to highlight the text, save it to desktop, then drag and drop onto the DragText icon.) [Thanks again to Nobu Taike for this suggestion!]
To send, I can open KanjiWord, type a message, save it with the appropriate extension (most likely *.ojs or *.njs for message text or *.txt for an attachment), close KanjiWord, open PMMail, insert or attach the file, and send in the normal way. When typing, keep the lines short (20 Japanese characters or less) and put a hard return at the end of each line. This should prevent word wrap in the middle of a character, with resultant production of "mojibake".
An alternative way of sending is to open a Win-OS/2 session and start the double-byte manager. Then I can open the browser's mail program, type in the Japanese message (DBCS manager set to S-JIS), and send it on its way (with address information typed in single-byte English). I can also compose the message in Write or Describe for Windows, save it to a file or copy it to the clipboard, and either send it as an attachment or paste it into the text of a letter composed in PMMail.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
If Japanese text lines are too long, they may wrap improperly (in the middle of a two-byte character) and produce gibberish ("mojibake") on the wrapped part of the line. If this problem occurs when reading a file, one way to solve it is to go to the last properly displayed character, back up one character, insert a return and save the text as an ASCII file. Pull the file up in your word processor or text editor, e.g. Write (no DBCS manager running). The ASCII characters starting and ending each properly displayed line will be evident; put a set of end-of-line characters at the place you inserted the return, then put a set of start-new-line characters at the beginning of the next line. Start the DBCS manager and the text should display properly. To prevent the problem when sending e-mail keep the lines short (20 Japanese characters or less) and put a hard return at the end of each line. Mojibake do not seem to be a problem when viewing files with JList, little or no problem with KanjiWord, a slight problem when viewing web pages, and a significant problem in E-mail.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
Many thanks to Paul Findon and his Inside a Japanese Web Page, which I have excerpted here. Better to go see the original! Even more information on Japanese web pages and enabling browsers at Paul Findon's "Viewin' & Brewin' the Japanese Web."
Japanese web pages are written pretty much like English web pages, with the exception of a metainformation line in the heading that tells the browser what kind of encoding to use, i.e.
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type"CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=x-sjis"> for S-JIS (the encoding most often used in Japanese word processors and often in e-mail attachments),
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type"CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=x-euc-jp"> for EUC (Extended Unix Coding, used on UNIX computers, including many Internet servers),
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type"CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=iso-2022-jp"> for New-JIS (the encoding used for e-mail; not a particularly good choice for web pages).
In addition, failsafe characters are sometimes added to Japanese web pages immediately after the <head> tag; these are characters that occur in only one encoding system.
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
June 13th, 1998:
KanjiKit97 from Pacific Software Publishing installs and runs perfectly under Win-OS/2; it is basically the same as DragonWriter or UnionWay Asian Suite 97, but seems to be a better implementation. I recommend it if you have not purchased one of the other packages; it works very well with Opera--the only limitation I found was due to Windows 3.x's inability to multitask like OS/2 (What do you mean, I have to close the application?!)
Many Japanese search engines will accept English input, some translating it into Japanese and searching for the translated term. Alternatively one can type in the search term in Japanese with the double-byte manager running, or cut and paste it. Functions may or may not be obvious with graphics turned off. All the search engines given below work with my setup, some better than others:
Here are some lists of Japanese search engines:
Running a Win 3.1 browser such as Opera and the UnionWay double byte manager gives a fast bitmap display of Japanse text; if I want a scalable font I can get it, but it takes time for the screen to be rewritten.
The Japanese character conversion with Opera and Union Way DBM is not quite perfect, but is more than good enough (>95%?) that one can decide whether to go to more trouble to get a nearly perfect display. The glitches are like those in the early versions of Netscape. In order to clean up the display, save the file to disk, use a utility to strip the HTML codes from the file (not absolutely necessary, but it makes things much more readable), then view it in an editor or word processor with the DBM running. (Opening file in in KanjiWord should work too, but one might have to experiment with the file name extension--I have not yet tried this.) Not only does this remove almost all the character display errors, it gives a display in a scalable font. The very few errors remaining are due to splitting double-byte characters at the ends of lines and code page differences (like the copyright symbol), and presumably can be fixed in the same way as described above for E-mail or ignored.
Many thanks to R. Burton, Deepak Datta, Brian Coville, Sorin Srbu, Sandeleh Francis and Norm M. for pointing out that Netscape itself will strip HTML codes. Open the *.htm file with Netscape and save it with the *.txt extension.
Native OS/2 solutions include Don Hawkinson's PMStripper (shareware and my favorite; thanks to Vic Ridgley, Don Woodall, and Brian Coville), a Describe macro by Bob Chmela, HTML Wizard (available on Hobbes, thanks Judith Russell), HTML2TXT (freeware by Norbert Heller) and some future version of PMMail (thanks Jim Marshall and Evan Goldring). Editmaster thanks Ed Gould) will do the job, and for those who would like a Windows 3.1 solution there is HTMLCon by Mike Kelleher (freeware; thanks T.C. Edge). For a DOS application try HTMSTRIP.EXE by Bruce Guthrie/Wayne Software (freeware, PC Computing "Best" rating; thanks to Brian Coville).
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Win 3.1/J Under English OS/2 | Top
Kanji Word | TCP/IP Stack & Dialer | Double Byte Conversion Utilities | Browsers (Opera, IE & Netscape) | Clipboard Settings | E-Mail | Mojibake | Web Page & E-mail Encoding | Searching Japanese Web Space | Links | Top
These suggestions courtesy of Ben Jones.
I used to use Win3.1/J under Warp2-3/E by means of a VDM (dedicated DOS session: which I set up as DOS/V). There were a few drawbacks (e.g. the dedicated DOS session hogs the processor, so multitasking drops to almost zero) but it actually worked quite well for me for a long time (until I got Warp/J). You might like to give it a go sometime, just for fun if nothing else.
One other thing I discovered en route is that Win3.1/J actually runs fine from DOS/E (not DOS/V) ... you need to do a few tricks when you install it, but after that it's fine. In theory you could therefore use this to run Win3.1/J inside Warp/E. I can't honestly remember if I tried this or not ... as I haven't had the need for quite a time now ... but I could dig out some details if you wanted to experiment yourself. You would however need your own copy of Win3.1/J (ideally on diskette) ... I'm sure you can buy them for around $1 in Japan now!
E-mail: Alan Barbour
| For comments on this page as it is now, I'd suggest you actually contact me, Ben Jones (unless you can locate Alan somewhere!) ... Click here for my own OS/2 page (including Japanese links). |
