| Today, internationalization and localization are hot topics among hightech
firms and researchers alike. This paper is specifically about issues relating
to either localized or internationalized software for use in the Japanese
market. Included is a brief description of the Japanese writing systems, the
current state of Japanese character sets, the details of major code space specifications,
encoding methods, some compatibility issues such as code conversion
tips, and information on sources of internationalized tools that perform
useful Japanese information processing tasks and other resources of interest.
Although Japanese as well as other Asian languages do require special
input techniques, keyboard arrays, and output techniques to handle its characters
such concepts as well character sets and encoding standards that are
specific to languages other than Japanese are not provided in this document
in the interest of time and brevity.
This paper was written to enhance my understanding of Japanese information
processing and in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree
in International studies while at attendance at Oregon State University, Corvallis,
Oregon, USA.
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