ID Number: Q67196
2.00 2.03 2.10 3.00
MS-DOS
ISVONLY | 2.x MSJ V3-2 Mar 88
Summary:
Windows is available in a number of localized versions to provide a
standard set of services to application developers. One of these
versions is specifically designed for the Japanese market and supports
the Kanji and Katakana character sets. This article details some of
the steps involved to develop software for use in the Japanese-
language market.
More information:
The ASCII character set consists of 256 codes to represent symbols
used in language. Each symbol is represented by one byte of
information and many symbols are required to represent a word, a unit
of information. Because the Kanji representation of Japanese employs
one symbol to represent each word in the language, there are many more
than 256 symbols required for communication.
Computer hardware and software manufactures have developed an extended
version of the ASCII code that allows for the representation of far-
eastern languages, such as Japanese. Computers have been developed
that process and display information using these character sets.
To develop software for the Japanese market it is necessary to use
appropriate hardware. Sanyo, Panasonic and Fujitsu are large
manufactures of machines for the Japanese market and each has offices
in the United States. One major computing standard in Japan is called
the "AX" and is roughly parallel to the IBM-PC standard of the US.
It is also necessary to acquire Japanese versions of MS-DOS and
Windows. These products are available from the hardware manufacturer.
Microsoft sells all of its Kanji system products through hardware
manufacturers (OEMs) and does not sell them directly to end-users.
Kanji Windows includes localized versions of the Windows tools, like
Write and Notepad. These may be used for creating a resource file that
contains the strings, menus, and other resources required for a Kanji
application.
There are programming considerations involved when creating software
for the Japanese market. The major change is to deal with both one-
byte and two-byte characters. Windows provides string manipulation
functions to determine if a character is alphabetic, numeric or
neither and, if alphabetic, if the character is upper or lower case.
Functions are also available to correctly move forward and backward
through strings that may contain both one-byte and two-byte
characters. These functions are listed in the "Windows Software
Development Kit Reference, volume 1," in section 3.7 on pages 3-8
and 3-9.
Additional information on creating software for the Japanese software
market is available in the article titled "Bringing Windows to the
Expanding Japanese Market," from the March 1988 issue of the
"Microsoft Systems Journal" (Vol. 3, No. 2).