Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!wugate!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!attctc!pollux!ti-csl!tifsil!john
From: john@tifsil.UUCP (John Maline)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: What is AX computer ?
Message-ID: <615@tifsil.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 89 23:12:11 GMT
References: <340002@hpsgpa.HP.COM>
Organization: TI Process Automation Center, Dallas Texas
Lines: 29

in article <340002@hpsgpa.HP.COM>, lky@hpsgpa.HP.COM (Lim Kim Yeow) says:
> Has anyone heard of AX computer ?
> 
> I have recently read from the MAY 16,1989 issue of "PC Magazine" about
> the AX computer , which seems to become a new computer standard  in Japan...

AX is an industry standard for IBM AT compatible computers with Japanese
language support.  I was in Japan about 1 year ago and saw one from Sanyo
(although there are supposed to be similar computers from other vendors).

The computer I saw had two modes: standard AT and Japanese language.  In
standard mode, all appeared to be identical to an IBM AT.  In Japanese
language mode, the standard DOS commands printed prompts... in the normal
mix of kanji/hiragana (normal in Japan, that is).

Another feature of Japanese mode was a system for entering text in phonetic
Japanese ("romanji") and converting it to hiragana or kanji using a special
key on the keyboard.  All handled by DOS/BIOS and nearly invisible to the
application (a canned application, not written for the AX's, took Kanji as
input with only minor problems).  Neat.

None of this is official TI info.  Just my recollections from a trip to
Japan.  It was also a while ago, so this may not be 100% accurate.

-- 
John Maline                    UUCP:    ut-sally!im4u!ti-csl!tifsil!john 
Texas Instruments                          sun!texsun!ti-csl!tifsil!john
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