Typing in Japanese

Just some info: A US keyboard has 101 keys and a JPN keyboard as 106. Not much difference...

well the main reason i want one is for quicker usage of the language when typing, of course i'm probably just going to give it to it's own pc, and hopefully obtain a japanese xp os, or whatever.
but as of now i have to do too much fiddling with ime to get it to just do quick input. and if i select japanese keyboard option it doens't convert my us keyboard it just looks to see if i have a japanese one installed, so that can be a bother. doubt any of this made much sense.

I too wanted a Japanese keyboard for my studies. After looking around, I bought one with a windows button on e-bay for about $8. I liked it so much, that I bought another one, without the windows button, for 99 cents (there are a lot of them for that price). Although it's true that you can use a US Keyboard (even for direct input), I prefer the Japanese Keyboards separate buttons to switch modes. I never needed a large space bar anyway. I tend to switch between English and Japanese a lot, and before I got the Japanese keyboard, it was a real pain. I hated having to press two keys down at the same time after every other word. With the US Keyboard and IME, I even (somehow) managed to get stuck in Japanese mode when using ms word, and while typing e-mails, and I had to close it out and reopen it to correct it, but that has never happened after installing a physical Japanese keyboard. I know everyonefs preferences will be different, so the best thing is probably to try it with a US keyboard first, then if youfre still interested in trying a Japanese keyboard, especially since they are currently quite inexpensive on ebay, you can get one and compare them yourself. Good luck.

would you mind posting the model of the one you like so much? so i do not accidentally buy a clunker.

The $8 Japanese keyboard is a ps2 Qtronix -- Scorpius 98A. It has 112 Keys (because it includes the extra windows keys), and is super lightweight. A big plus for me, is that the keys make very little noise, so I donft disturb people when typing late at night. Itfs a very cheap keyboard, and the quality isnft the greatest, but I havenft had any problems so I am happy with it. If you are picky about quality and have the money, it is probably better to look elsewhere. I checked e-bay and this item is not currently listed.

The 99 cent keyboard is an SGI ps2 KBB-JP Japanese keyboard, with 106 keys (no windows keys). The quality is a lot higher, and there are still a lot of them being sold on e-bay. This keyboard is only slightly louder than the Scorpius 98A, but the keys (on the SGI) have a better feel to them.

Neither keyboard came with drivers. But the standard Windows Japanese Keyboard drivers work. One of the Qtronix sites (which can be found via google) has older (Windows 98) drivers for Scorpius 98A. Windows did not auto-detect them as Japanese keyboards (although it did auto detect the windows keys), but they were both easy to install.

iam using a japanese key board from toyosys.
it is pretty good, but alas windows still has trouble. basically if you want to us it to its fullest you need the japanese version of windows. :-\.
btw toyosys is cool, it didn't take long to get my keyboard plus they even followed my odd shipping instructions. i'd recommend that a lot more than ebay.

http://www2.gol.com/users/pbw/jkeybXP.htm
http://www.stuartwoodward.com/tech/archives/000268.html
those two items should help some.
before that windows did not recognize my ro key and some others, now it just does the bare minimum unfortunatley though it still must toggle hiragana and katakana through the language bar. but i'll look into it more and junk.

btw after doing what they said to get the keyboard to function properly using the natural input mode with the ime system owns. it even uses some of the other buttons on the 112 keyboard like how to change between hiragana and katakana and things like kanji listings.

along with buying mice (ELECOM make the coolest and most comfortable mice anywhere), folders, laptop locks(!!),..

..just got a Japanese keyboard few weeks ago holiday in Japan; i'm pretty sure all the keyboards i saw had windows key~
anyway, it is a PS/2 one,.. now i realise my laptop doesn't even had PS/2 connection^^*

i've been looking at this one:
http://www2.elecom.co.jp/peripheral/full-keyboard/index.asp
on amazon.jp:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008O9A7/qid%3D1098234152/250-9690130-0998616

Does anyone know whether amazon.jp would ship keyboards to England, UK (as i know they do DVDs), since ELECOM products are not available over here>-<~!!


anyway, potentially the best input system i've used is handwriting recognition system. I've been trying to get it to work on my laptop for sometime now, but it seems to be part of Office. Nowhere can i find support on the Windows site.

A few weeks back in Japan i tried this out on the PC at the place i was staying, i'm just saying it should be the most efficientl and natural way to input text; just combine that with a tablet (WACOM one), and it really couldn't get any better~!!

btw: there is an handwriting input button thing on the language bar,.. but somehow mine doesn't activate anything as the engine isn't installed (by default), so this is what i'm trying to figure right now~

thnx~




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i'm looking for some japanese-supported fonts, but i'm not getting anything when i search for them on google :bleh: can anyone help me?

ChibiBoi wrote:i'm looking for some japanese-supported fonts, but i'm not getting anything when i search for them on google :bleh: can anyone help me?

I don't get it. :crazy:
Are you asking how to enable your comp to type in Japanese?

ahochaude wrote:I don't get it. :crazy:
Are you asking how to enable your comp to type in Japanese?

Maybe he's trying to get Japanese fonts so he can view Japanese text...

bmwracer wrote:Maybe he's trying to get Japanese fonts so he can view Japanese text...

Is that the 'right click' and go to 'encoding'?

ahochaude wrote:Is that the 'right click' and go to 'encoding'?

I think so.

no, i'm talking about fonts that let you type in japanese. like this one font called mikachan

Is this what you are looking for? :headscratch:

yeah, fonts like that. fonts that support japanese. but i already have that font, so i used it as an example.

Okay. Try browsing through this page. There are lots of links and some may be dead, but you never know. IIRC many of the Japanese fonts are licensed and you need to purchase them. That link above supposedly has free fonts, but you have to dig. Good luck!

dont you get them on your winXP cd? cuz i can type and view mine just installing that w/o dling any fonts :headscratch:

The font with XP is MS Mincho. I suspect ChibiBoi wants to use other Japanese typefaces. I could be wrong, though... :sweat:

I am totally lost. :beaten: