I've never seen a keyboard with katakana on it - it'd make the keys too cluttered. And that's an MSX keyboard, and a screwy video-edity one at that. Japanese PC keyboards these days have extra buttons for input modes and kanji and stuff, making the space bar tiny among other things.
Well theoretically it is emulating RISC indeed but it's completely obscured from the programmer. Moreover, as that Star Trek guy would say: "It's RISC... but not as we know it." I think it uses 41-bit instructions or something wicked.
Lol, why would you need katakana on a key with hiragana :smt042 Modern stuff uses romaji for IME of course.
What? Japanese keyboards use kana input, and they still do now. IME's for us western squares, and it's a pain in the ass! :angry
Why would someone use A I U E O input? That'd be slow as fuck. Also IME is extremely helpful for Kanji.
What do you mean? There's a key for each syllable on JIS keyboards like the one above, so you're typing less than half the keys you would be with romaji input. And then there's the screwy stuff, like how 「パーティ」 (paati/party) has to be typed "pa-texi", and how 「ン」(n) has to be typed "nn" when at the end of a word or "n'" when before a vowel with MS's IME. With kana input you can still get a selection of kanji if you have it on the right input setting (it's probably one of those screwy buttons). Of course, with the MSX you needed a whole cartridge for that stuff!
It's very hard to type that way, it'd be like typing on a A-B-C-D-E keyboard only worse, romaji for input is way common. I use it (not that I have a Japanese keyboard now) and everyone Japanese I know uses IME. I don't have problems with it. I know I'm a hell of a lot faster with it than kana keys.
Though if you used kana keys for as long you have with QWERTY keys, things would be different. I was using a Japanese Sony Vaio once (with a proper JIS keyboard ofcourse), and I don't think there was any way of doing Romaji input. The IME's still there for changing kanji or whatever, but you have to input in kana. I know the kana layout on keyboards may look inefficient being in order like that, but the only reason the QWERTY system was designed in this weird order was to minimise keys getting jammed on typewriters.
Much better... and faster. Analogue is a tedious job. Usually have to watch the show like 3-4 times. Now w/ digital solutions, you do it perfectly in 2.
