Re: tlug: Recommend Japanese KB?? (was: Re: US student moving to Tokyo)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "jb" == Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com> writes:

    jb> On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Hernando TANAKA wrote:

    >> I can't just accept such a keyboard whose asterisk (*) is not
    >> on Shift-8. (I can't even remember where it was on a jp-kb)

    jb> That's actually one of the things I like about them.  The
    jb> asterisk key is shift : on a Japanese keyboard.

This is probably a plus if you haven't learned on a US keyboard.  For
me, Shift-8 = `*' is burned in from years of C/C++ programming,
though.  What other advantages are there to the J keyboard?

I live in Emacs, so mu-hen-kan = Ctrl-G, of course.  But even on
Windose, ESC works fine IIRC.  (NB, I'm a short-string henkan type; if 
ESC kills the whole henkan, which I think it does, that wouldn't
bother me but would bother JB, for one.)

Still, it's not the key layout that's the problem.  Touch typing as I
normally do I don't give a !@#$% (or a !"#$% ;-) what the key caps
are.  What I do get upset about is

1. the 1/4 length space bar.  Changing the keycode (easy in X) of the
   henkan, muhenkan, and kana toggle keys (a) is harder to do for the
   console, and (b) results in lots of unintended double spaces when I
   fall in the cracks (more or less a problem ;-)
2. the tendency of Japanese designers to make pretty patterns with
   keys, rather than make them constant size.  (Gateway does this
   right, although on the Solo the fact that the Fn, WinMenu, and Prnt 
   keys are located in the same prefecture as my fingers is annoying.)

BTW, I trashed that xmodmap a while ago, but for a while my xmodmap
(and fvwmrc) keyed the WinMenu key to a window manager command that
ran xbill.  So it's not useless after all.  :-)

-- 
University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences        Tel/fax: +1 (298) 53-5091
---------------------------------------------------------------
Next Meeting: 10 October, 12:30 Tokyo Station Yaesu central gate
Next Nomikai: 20 November, 19:30  Tengu TokyoEkiMae 03-3275-3691
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor: PHT, makers of TurboLinux http://www.pht.co.jp