Making Your Mac Bilingual

By Martin Smith

If your Mac is still monolingual, teaching it a second languge isn't hard. Martin Smith enplains how to add a Japanese system to your eHisting English system, and now to get them to coexist peacefully.

It would be restating the obvious to say that the computer industry in Japan is now submerged by a wave of transformation. The consumer in Japan has never had it quite so good for personal computer pricing, range, and options. American PC manufacturers ha ve dived headlong into their assault of the Japanese market, and the domestic makers are scrambling to toss out their proprietary products and embrace US software and hardware standards.

The flagship of the US computer fleet is Apple Computer. After stumbling about in the dark initially Apple recentIv has been building an impressive market share and currently holds second place behind local NEC, with a respectable 13.6% Embraced by Japan ese consumers for its quality, design excellence, usability, powerful DTP applications, and indisputable cuteness (don't laugh--this is a real consideration for many Japanese consumers), the Macintosh has established a substantial presence. Rundle with th at KanjiTalk 7 (a complete operating system virtually identical with its US counterpart save that it allows the entry of the special double-byte character codes necessary for Japanese kanji characters), a wide range of native software titles, and an alrea dy loyal consumer base, and you have a product that finds favor among a wide range of users.

The bilingual Mac

Apple commands a large and faithful following among the foreign community in Japan, and many of these users have made their desktops and portables bilingual in order to handle their diverse language needs. Put simply, "bilingual" means having both English and Japanese systems residing together on the Mac, and swapping between the two by means of a switching utility. This enables users to work with Japanese applications and kanji files by booting in the Japanese System, and English programs by rebooting in the English System. For me, though, the whole idea of having two resident operating systems brings to mind images of Middle Eastern conflicts, divorce court, and South African elections. The setup is an uneasy coexistence.

Users who do not require the full capabilities of KaniiTalk (and the headaches that come from making it share the computer with an English system) or who lack the disk space for an extra system have another choice. A Japanese Language Kit--a system softw are extension that rides piggyback on top of System 7.1--has been tailor-made to fit the needs of such users.

Regardless of the course, supporting both Japanese and English requires a unique solution that has inherent problems. This month we will start with the basic steps for taking your stand-alone Mac from being monolingual to bilingual. Next month, we'll cov er the process of hooking the Mac into a bilingual Novell network.

How to make your Mac bilingual

The Japanese Macintosh system software requires no special hardware: just 4MB or more of RAM (I recommend at least 5MB) and a hard disk drive (HDD) with sufficient workspace for your applications. Be generous with hard disk capacity; anything less than 12 0MB will too soon be full.

The nihongo (Japanese language) system software closely resembles its English-language cousin, with a few exceptions. There are changes in the text resources, and special features have been added to handle the Japanese dates, sorting system, and so on. W hen you compare the sizes, though, you'll find that the Japanese system is considerably chubbier; after all, it carries the responsibility of dealing with over 6,800 characters in four different character sets. An init called KanjiTalk administers this la rge set, taking keystrokes and converting them into Japanese text. Included are a variety of input modules, dictionaries, and font files.

As mentioned, one approach to building a bilingual Mac is to add the Japanese system to your hard disk, where it coexists alongside your English system. You can switch between the two by means of a utility called a "System Switcher" (supplied by Canon Sa les Inc.; copies can be downloaded from NiftyServe). This gives the benefits of having two fully autonomous systems. One thing to remember, though, if you have different systems installed on your hard disk drive: Apple does not recommend this solution. Do n't even think of trying to call customer support for help if you have trouble.

An alternative is to install the Japanese Language Kit. This is a system software extension that supports Japanese-language input on a non-Japanese operating system (OS). It is added directly to your existing English-language OS and takes about 20MB of h ard disk space. The catch is that you cannot be using a pre7.1 system. To install the Japanese Language Kit, System 7.1 is required, the reason being that System 7.1 utilizes "WorldScript" and is the first system to do so.

Using an external HDD

Adding the complete Japanese OS to a Mac with an existing English System is relatively easy, as long as you plan ahead. First, you should always back up your hard disk. For Mac users who have an external drive, the backup process is easier. Having an exte rnal HDD also makes installing a foreign system a lot easier. What you have to ensure is that you don't overwrite your present OS with the Japanese one. The two must be separate.

One way to proceed is to mount an external HDD and install the Japanese System there, then drag the Japanese System Folder from the external drive to the internal one, adding in a copy of System Switcher. (Don't forget to include the System Enabler in th e System Folder if your particular Mac model requires it.) Clicking on the System Switcher will give a list of available volumes on the right, while on the left is a menu of available System folders to choose from within whatever volume is selected.

In most cases, when switching from one system to another, the switcher will default to the inactive one. Click on "Switch" and again on "Restart" and the Mac will warm boot and load the selected system. Your Mac is now bilingual.

On swapping back to English, you will notice that files and folders previously labeled with kanii characters under the Japanese OS now appear with labels written in gibberish. This is because the kalqji fonts use different character mapping of the upper- ASCII table than the English fonts. An appropriate step might be to rename the Japanese folders in English. Leaving them as it is could invite an innocent user to trash them, thinking them to be a corrupted folder. In the Japanese environment, the charact ers of the labels thus changed will be displayed as romanji (alphabetic text).

Using an internal HDD

For Mac users who do not have the convenience of an external hard disk drive, the installation procedure is a good deal trickier. As with the external HDD method, before starting you should first perform a full backup (or, failing that, at least a backup of important files).

The next step is to copy System Switcher to your Mac. Then, boot from the mini-system on the Disk Tools diskette that came with your English system. Next, locate the system folder on the internal drive and drag it into the trash-but DO NOT empty the tras h. Shut down the computer, and restart it with the KanjiTalk install diskette. From there, proceed with the installation as you normally would. When instructed to, restart again and this time boot from the English Disk Tools diskette. Then, open the inter nal HDD again and take the English System folder from the trash.

Don't panic if you don't find the folder there. If that happens, open the HDD icon and look for a Trash folder. Inside you will discover your English folder. Return it to its rightful place. You might want to rename the folder "English System" or somethi ng similar just for the sake of aesthetics.

Now perform another restart, this time using the System Switcher to ensure that you will start up in English. The final step is to verify that the new Japanese System folder has the necessary System Enabler for your particular Macintosh.

If you have successfully made it this far via either method, you can begin to breathe easier. The best advice from this point would be to segregate your files and folders to avoid confusion. How you do this is up to you. I do, however, recommend doing a full backup of your system folders.

Printing Japanese

Printing Japanese from a bilingual Mac is a subject that requires some attention. Those who have done bilingual printing with PCs will appreciate the complexities involved. Foreign imported QuickDraw printers can be made to print Japanese, so long as they have sufficient internal RAM and you are using Truetype fonts. The Japanese Language Kit actually does come with two Truetype fonts, and so memory is the main concern. Apple has given conflicting recommendations on memory, but 2MB seems to be the minimum . Typical QuickDraw printers include the US versions of the Style\Xiriter, Personal LaserWriter, and Image7i~iriter families.

For Japanese PostScript, Apple's old workhorse, the LaserWrlter II NTXJ, has been a good choice for many bilingual users in Japan. Apple now recommends the LaserVVriter Select 610, which is the Japanese version of the LaserWriter Select 360 in the US, ex cept it comes standard with a lot more RAM (12MB) and has Japanese fonts. The 610 printer works at 600 dpi, and apart from the font HDD it has a LocalTalk interface. Note that you cannot print Japanese PostScript on an English PostScript printer.

If you are using a domestic (Japanese) printer, the driver software that was supplied with the printer by the manufacturer will display normally under KaniiTalk or the Japanese Language Kit. But in the English environment it will come up displaying garba ge characters. Since for most users this is not a acceptable option, you can try to find and install under the English System-Chooser folder the driver that normally comes with the English-language version of the same printer. For example, if you buy a La serWriter Select 610, you could install the driver for the US version of the same printer, which is the LaserWriter 360. This driver will work fine with one limitation: the 610 doesn't have a B4 paper tray, so don't expect to be able to use this function with the 360 driver. This is a non-approved solution, so don't expect Apple to give you support if you run into problems. (If you have problems, contact the Computing Japan Mac Help Desk, and we'll run a followup article for those who need further help-Ed .)

Where to turn for help

Attempting to cover all the issues pertaining to bilingual Macintoshes is more suited to a book than a magazine article. Unfortunately, so far no one has authored a reference in English that addresses even a fraction of the issues. And calling a vendor He lp Desk in Japan to obtain technical advice is difficult--even if you are fluent in the language. English-language support for KanjiTalk 7 and the Japanese Language Kit is available in the US and Australia, but this is limited; and for foreigners in Japan , the phone expenses could become prohibitive. Although the support may not be there, you can nevertheless buy the Japanese Language Kit in Japan, too. In short, you'll have to figure things out for yourself or rely on others who have had similar experience. Foreign IT and LAN managers heavily rely on personal networking to stay afloat; it is wise to do so yourself. Joining an on-line service in Japan, s uch as TWICS, MACTokyo, or Nifty-Serve, is a good start. Once you find a good contact, stick with it.

In the final analysis, the experience you gain from trying to make your Mac bilingual can only benefit you. Dare to try.

TWICS
modem: 03-3351-8344

MACTokyo modem: 03-3708-7973

Nifty-Serve
Ph: 03-5471-5806