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GT!Blog
Personal blog · blog.gatunka.comhardwarehistory
GT!Blog is a personal blog at blog.gatunka.com about hardware and history. Since 2008, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 18 times, most often “Why Japan didn’t create the iPod”. The last post was in 2015, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Posts on Japanese writing and computing, such as 'Why Japan didn't create the iPod' (2008), on how the writing system shaped Japan's appliance-focused gadgets. Commenters cite them on Japanese input and display.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Why Japan didn’t create the iPod4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2008-05-05
- Why Japan Didn’t Create the iPod (2008)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-07-26
What Hacker News says?
It's been about 10 years, but I used the IME in Windows 2k quite extensively. http://blog.gatunka.com/img/Convert3.gif I recall this window strongly, with ~10 items in it being common. Playing with it now in OS X perhaps it's improved in recent years.
Comment linking /img/Convert3.gif
on “Japanese writing system basics”Submitted Why Japan Didn’t Create the iPod (2008) as a story · 142 points
HN discussionThis article suggests that the reason Japan fell behind in personal computing, and over-focused on appliance-oriented computing, is because of its writing system: https://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-t... They use the fax machine over there a lot more than we do because of this.
Comment linking /2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-the-ipod/
on “Japan pitches 'Society 5.0' to keep its edge in tech and science”Submitted Japanese Typewriters as a story · 124 points
HN discussionOne of the better discussions of this is probably in http://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-th... , which makes a much weaker claim about the 8-bit era of computing in particular, which I'd think is easier to discuss for a lot of reasons. One other point I'd make is that I think people may be accidentally overestimating the friendliness of English for printing, to some degree, because sometimes it…
Comment linking /2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-the-ipod/
on “Harir – Reducing Noise in Arabic Script”Submitted Why Japan didn’t create the iPod as a story · 112 points
HN discussionInteresting article. There's also one on how typing Japanese is done on modern computers: https://blog.gatunka.com/2009/09/12/using-a-japanese-ime/ It all sounds horribly complicated, although it may be one of those procedures that's easier to do than to describe. These kind of writing systems really don't seem suited to being input via a conventional keyboard, even with software assistance. I wonder if things will…
Comment linking /2009/09/12/using-a-japanese-ime/
on “Japanese Typewriters”Submitted Character Encodings For Modern Programmers as a story · 83 points
HN discussionI'm still a few years away from replacing this 2012 Air, but when I do it'll be to something with a retina screen because of cramped gross asian characters. http://i.imgur.com/1RgQSOc.png http://blog.gatunka.com/2009/11/03/japanese-computers-still-...
Comment linking /2009/11/03/japanese-computers-still-living-it-8-bit/comment-page-1/
on “Updated MacBook Pros”Submitted ISDN: The Untravelled Path of Mobile Computing (2015) as a story · 29 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of the article "Why Japan didn’t create the iPod", which adds lots of details to the same issue: http://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-th... Notably, the "appliance mindset" (people own many devices which are not interacting), average japanese people not owning a PC in 2001, the popularity of gaming consoles and mobile phones.
Comment linking /2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-the-ipod/
on “Japan's preference for hardware over software is fading”Submitted Why Japan didn’t create the iPod as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThis article about the topic is a classic (2008): https://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-t... Tl;dr: It's the writing system.
Comment linking /2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-the-ipod/
on “Japan’s love affair with the fax machine (2021)”Submitted ISDN Payphones: The Untravelled Path of Mobile Computing as a story · 8 points
HN discussionhttp://blog.gatunka.com/2009/11/03/japanese-computers-still-... This blog post explains perfectly why I am slowly falling in love with what Apple is doing for displays. I don't have anything to add separate to it, but thought it was relevant.
Comment linking /2009/11/03/japanese-computers-still-living-it-8-bit/
on “IPad 2 Likely to Have 2048x1536 Screen Resolution”Submitted The Trouble with Bools as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe main reason is the complexity of Japanese language, namely technical barriers that existed for text entry and displaying the characters on personnel computer in 80s-90s ( http://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-th... ) Thus there is a strong culture of complex specialized gadgets and a weak general-purpose personal computer culture.
Comment linking /2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-the-ipod/
on “Japan’s super-advanced mobile web: Too unique to serve as a global blueprint?”Submitted Why Japan didn’t create the iPod (2008) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
