How to Use Japanese on the Internet with a PC: From Login to WWW Hideki Hirayama A Graduate Student in The American University HH1858a@american.edu hideki@netcom.com sgw01623@niftyserve.or.jp Date: 4/22 1995 Alpha Table of Contents: 0. Purpose of This Document 1. General Background; Why is it difficult to use Japanese on the Internet? (1) Why is it difficult? (2) Information Source about this problem 2. Requirements (1) Operating Systems (2) Hardware Requirements (3) Account Servers 3. Software for the PC (1) Terminal Programs (2) Converting / Decoding Programs (3) Wapuro (Japanese Word-processors) 4. Japanese E-mail on the Internet (1) Text-based E-mail Facilities (2) Non-UNIX Commercial Networks (3) TCP/IP Client Mailers (4) Gopher Mail / How to get information via E-mail 5. Japanese TCP/IP Clients and Proxy (1) Telnet (2) Mailer (3) News Reader (4) WWW Browser (5) DeleGate 6. Japanese Information Sources (1) FTP/ Gopher / WWW (2) Japanese BBSes outside Japan (3) How to sign up for Niftyserve Appendix A. Shop List B. Mr. Haitani"s Report C. Active fj.* Newsgroups and Gopher Mail Bookmarks D. Public DeleGate Points E. Japanese BBS outside Japan F. FTP, Gopher and WWW Sites: Sources for Related Information G. Niftyserve Access Points 0. The Purpose of This Document This document describes how to use Japanese in the PC (IBM-AT compatible computer) environment. I will discuss "a little bit of everything," from logging onto the Internet via commercial or academic networks to using Japanese on WWW browsers. Since there are, no doubt, other methods not mentioned in this document, I welcome any comments or suggestions. Most of the files mentioned in this document are saved at the following FTP site: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hi/hideki/ Therefore, you do not have to FTP many sites to get information and programs. Moreover, you can read and download up-to-date information and programs from my WWW home pages at http://psk.anderson.american.edu/hideki/hideki.htm http://isms.com/personal/hirayama/home-e.html ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hi/hideki/hideki.html Because I want to make this document accessible via e-mail and Usenet news groups, I have stored some of the appendixes at these sites instead of attaching them to this document. DISCLAIMER There is no warranty or certification of the contents of this document nor files in the FTP site. The author is not responsible for any damage caused by this document and files. It is not the intention of the author to endorse any of the service providers mentioned in this document. As long as you mention the name and title of the author, you can copy, transfer or upload this document to any site. All the trade marks mentioned in this document are registered by their owners. 1. General Background; Why is it difficult to use Japanese on the Internet? (1) Why is it difficult? I have been trying to use Japanese since September, 1993. After all, it took me more than a year to send my first Japanese e-letter from the US. Let me discuss why solving this problem took so much time. First of all, the Internet makes it difficult for people to use Japanese because it was not designed to send Japanese characters, which have to be expressed in two-byte code systems and contains some special codes. However, formal protocol of the Internet, which was set by RFC (Request For Comments), is a seven-bit data transfer protocol and it does not allow these special codes to be transferred. This means that a popular Japanese character code system, like that of Windows-J, is incompatible and will be "MOJIBAKE" (random transformation of characters) when transmitted through the Internet. Therefore, the answer is quite simple. Generally speaking, as long as you use JIS code, or iso-2022-jp, you can transfer Japanese text and if you have eight bit access to your Internet account and have some software to decode JIS code you can read such text. Technically, there are tons of things to be covered to send/ receive Japanese. However, as a user, all you have to know is 'using JIS for transfer' only. (2) Information Source of this Problem/ Recommended Reading Mr. Ken Lunde describes these problems quite neatly in _Understanding Japanese Information Processing_ (UJIP; ISBN 1-56592-043-0). You can "get" (download) the main contents of this book by FTPing to ftp://amber.ora.com /pub/examples/nutshell/ujip/doc/japan.inf or by going to http://jasper.ora.com/lunde/ Though this book may seem difficult for newcomers, I assure you that they will find it to be of great value. This book contains almost everything one ought to know about using Japanese on the Internet. However, due to the rapid development of the Internet, some parts of the book are now out of date, and it also fails to discuss several new functions of the Internet, like WWW. One of the major sources of "Using Japanese on the Internet" in English is apparently USENET. There are some Japan- / Japanese-related news groups, such as alt.japanese.text, soc.culture.japan and sci.lang.japan. alt.japanese.text focuses on the technical aspect of Japanese information processing, whereas the latter two groups focus on the language, history and culture of Japan. One more thing I would like readers to know before reading the rest of this document is that there is still no "out of the box" solution to this problem. Some companies, like Netscape, have been trying to provide Japanese versions of their product (Netscape 1.1b3). However, there will be as many solutions as the number of those who try to solve this problem, based on their objectives and environments. Therefore, I recommend that you acquire some basic knowledge of the Internet by reading guide books like _The Internet for Dummies_ and _The Internet Starter Kit_ or attending an Internet orientation class before you try any off-the-cuff sending of Japanese e-mail, which likely will appear to your recipient as "MOJIBAKE," or scrambled ASCII. In addition, although I did my best to avoid technical terms, your having some basic knowledge about the use of Japanese on the Internet will help you understand this document better. 2. Requirements Generally speaking, to read/write Japanese on the Internet, you need three elements: a. A Japanese Environment on Your Computer -Japanese Operating Systems, such as DOS/V + Japanese Windows or English Windows + Win/V or Japanese Word-processor that can work on English Environment. (alternatives are discussed later) -386 PC with 4 MB RAM/ 80 MB Hard Disk (486 CPU/ 8 MB RAM / 120 MB HD are recommended) -Modem (14.4K or above is recommended) b. Network Account -Internet account (UNIX Shell account or TCP/IP connection account is recommended) c. PC Software -Terminal software which can handle not only S-JIS but also New JIS & EUC. -OR Coding/decoding software + Japanese Wordprocessor In this section I will discuss the basic environment, including operating systems and hardware, and a network account . Other elements will be discussed in the following sections. (1) Operating Systems There are several kinds of Japanese Operating Systems: DOS/V, Japanese Windows, Win/V, UNIX, Twinbridge, and Japanese OS/2. i. DOS/V + Windows-J DOS/V is a Japanese version of DOS from both Microsoft and IBM which can handle Japanese by switching between a Japanese mode and an English mode. Windows-J means Japanese Windows (NIHONGO Windows), which runs under DOS/V. The "official" and the most popular environment on the PC is DOS/V + Windows-J. Most of the PC applications in Japanese are developed under DOS/V or Windows-J, and the software vendors do not certify their products to run in an alternative environment. Therefore, I can say that, if you want stability, this is the most reliable environment in which to run Japanese software. However, since one of my policies in using Japanese on the Internet is to save as much money as possible and since the following seem to be the easiest and cheapest means of creating a Japanese environment, I will discuss alternative systems. ii. Win/V Win/V is a good operating system if you need to use both English and Japanese applications often. Win/V is software that allows one to switch between two Windows environments: English and Japanese. Instead of switching from/to a Japanese mode in DOS (an operation that takes three to five minutes), you can quickly change environments within Windows (from the Windows control panel), saving time and avoiding the complications that may arise from having two DOS's. Unlike DOS/V and Windows-J, which require more than 30 floppy disks, Win/V is installed from just one floppy disk. Applications seem to run faster under DOS, Windows 3.1, and Win/V than under DOS/V + Windows-J. However, since the Win/V software itself does not include a front end processor, like Katana or MS-IME (an application that allows one to use even a non-Japanese keyboard and type romaji [Japanese syllables using the Latin alphabet], which the FEP then turns into kana and/or kanji) (KANA-KANJI HENKAN) or to use other Japanese versions of small Windows accessories, like Write and Notepad, I recommend that you buy a Japanese Windows kit, like the one distributed by Kureo Technology, Ltd., in Canada, which includes not only Win/V but also a FEP and two FontWave (True Type-like) fonts. It is important to note, however, that since the DOS-Windows-Win/V environment is not certified by Microsoft, IBM, or Japanese software companies, you might find it difficult to obtain technical support for commercial Japanese applications running under Win/V. One of the convenient way to get support on Win/V is to access #5 Discussion group of Vender A Forum on Niftyserve (go SWINVA mes 5 ). There are thousands of posting about Win/V and you can find suitable one which resembles to your case. iii. UNIX and Linux It is generally believed that UNIX is a widely-used operating system for commercial Japanese applications. The truth is, however, that such use is limited for the most part to the academic community and that it is, moreover, fraught with tedious complexities that non-technical people (like me) would prefer not to have to bother with. Because there are several versions of UNIX, you have to "make" or compile a program source by yourself, a procedure which I found to be excruciatingly complex. On the other hand, it is said that some software like MULE or kterm can handle Japanese perfectly on UNIX. Furthermore, it is well known that the WWW page of ntt.or.jp includes a favorable reference with regard to Japanese UNIX WWW browsers. Linux is a popular clone of the UNIX system designed for the PC. You can use Japanese on it by installing the JE Distribution package. Unlike the work station version of UNIX, you can obtain a copy of Linux on a CD-ROM for only $20 to $30 or so at a local computer store. One of the great advantage to use Linux is all the programs on these distributions are already compiled and you do not have to 'make' them by yourself. If you are interested in knowing more about it, you can "FTP" Linux related documents from several FTP sites: http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/linux.html ftp://ftp.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp/Linux If you can read Japanese, I recommend Mr. Yasu Hiro Yamazaki"s detailed guide to Linux, which you can find at ftp://ftp.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp/Linux/JF/other-formats/jmemo.html As for the JE Distribution Package, you can find it at the following sites: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/je ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/je ftp://ftp.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp/Linux/JE In addition, you can find an English JE installation guide at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/JE-HOWTO It is also possible to get more information about JE by sending mail to In Japanese: je@Roy.dsl.tutics.tut.ac.jp In English: jewel@colias.tutics.tut.ac.jp iv. Twinbridge Using information obtained from several reports by experts on the Internet, let me now turn to a discussion of Twinbridge. Twinbridge is a program which "aims to use Japanese on U.S. applications on U.S. Windows." In other words, you can install it on English Windows. Several people have told me that they have run Japanese applications successfully under Twinbridge. However, some older versions of Twinbridge could handle only EUC (Enhanced UNIX Code) characters, and it was quite involved to get them to run on the Internet. Therefore, you should be careful about the version you get. The demo version of Twinbridge, which works perfectly by the way, is available at ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/tw/twinbrg/japanese/demo/twnbdemo.zip as well as in The Japan Forum library on CompuServe. Since some people have had problems unzipping the main file, it is important to read the "readme" text file carefully first. If you wish to know more about Twinbridge, you can get in touch with a representative at twinbrg@netcom.com Tel. 818-293-1661 Fax. 818-293-1665 Like Win/V, Twinbridge is still not an official environment, so you may find it difficult to get technical support. In any case, I have received some quite positive reports about its software compatibility. v. OS/2 (Japanese version) Recently, IBM officially announced the Japanese version of OS/2 v. 3.0 Warp. It not only supports TCP/IP connection as a standard but also comes with a "Bonus Pack" that includes Japanese TCP/IP client programs from a mailer to a web browser. Currently, this is the only existing official and, at the same time, complete "out-of-box" solution to using Japanese on the Internet in a PC environment. It comes with news readers and WWW browser which can read Japanese. Quite unfortunately, the mailer in the Bonus Pack is not Japanized yet. Japanized mailer will be announced soon.One of my friends told me about the new package of Warp, and it sounds like a good deal. In May, 1995, IBM will issue a "Full Pack" version, which may well be one of the finest operating systems for users who need to read/write Japanese on the Internet. The pack includes not only OS/2 but also PC-DOS, DOS/V, Windows-J, and a complete Japanese IAK. I am currently using a combination of the U.S. OS/2 Warp "full pack" and Win/V. It is a very powerful yet easy operating environment. The Warp-J "full pack" will make it even easier and more powerful. People who use JWP can continue to use it under Windows-E environment. Those who need a Japanese word processor can start with the "Bonus Pack". If someone were to ask me to recommend a Japanese IAK and/or Japanese operating environment, I would instantly urge them to wait and get Warp-J full pack. vi. Places at Which to Buy the Operating Systems Listed Above In Appendix A of this FAQ, I have listed the names and addresses of several U.S. computer stores that carry DOS/V and Windows-J. Please inform me of any errata. Currently, Windows-J lists for $195 and DOS/V for $230. Win/V by itself lists for $150; the Japanese Windows Kit (Win/V plus a FEP and FontWave Fonts) lists for $250. However, street prices may be lower. I have heard that Win/V alone is available for as low as $70. (2) Hardware Requirements Since DOS/V + Windows-J system require more than 40 MB on your hard disk, you should have at least a 120-MB hard disk. A 386 CPU with a large enough cache is the minimum requirement for Japanese. Lots of RAM is strongly recommended because displaying Japanese fonts requires a great deal of memory, and the Windows-J program manager has to "swap" several applications at a time. As far as a modem is concerned, the faster, the better, with a minimum bps of 14,400 for work on the Internet. (3) An Internet Account You have to be careful about selecting your Internet account. Whether you are looking for a UNIX shell account or a TCP/IP account, it should be able to transfer data using a clean eight-bit transfer protocol. (I have never seen TCP/IP connection without this setup.) The first test is the modem setup. The data length of modem setup should be eight bit, indicated as "8-N-1," at least. You can test if it is clean eight bit or not by uploading a Japanese JIS (not a S-JIS) file and then downloading it again as a text file. If you feel both of the tests are too complicated and too technical, you can just ask a representative or system administrator about the system setup. In addition, you should be careful about the code system of your account. You should avoid getting an account that uses the EBCDIC code system internally. Generally speaking, it is difficult, not to say impossible, to use Japanese on non-shell commercial network providers, like CompuServe, GEnie, Delphi, Prodigy, and AOL, although some of them can handle Japanese e-mail. (I will discuss this method later under "4. Japanese E-mail on the Internet.") One more thing of which you should be careful is the news server protocol that your Internet service provider uses. If your provider offers Japanese newsgroups like fj.* and tnn.*, it must use the "INN" protocol for its news server, for only the INN protocol will be able to handle your Japanese post without problems. See below for a more detailed discussion of news server protocol. Japanese news groups are quite informative about not only technical problems but also general information about Japan and Japan-related topics. 3. Software on PC Though I discussed about alternative operating systems, I am going to discuss programs on Windows-J simply because it is the official platform and most of the programs I mention here can run on other platforms except OS/2 Warp and Linux. There is little information about compatibility of OS/2 currently, thought it is 'supposed' to be compatible with various Windows software. Software selection totally depends on your objective and environment and its setup can vary from system to system. There might be some who just want to read and write Japanese E-mail and non-shell commercial networks such as GEnie that can carry New-JIS code is enough for them (I will discuss how to use Japanese E-mail later, using whole section.). While, there is another groups of people who are eager to read Japanese news groups and need full-fledged TCP/IP connection and software setup. Since there i s no 'out-of-box' solution, I hope you can choose by yourself to satisfy your need and find out the way of set programs up. One benefit to use Internet is that you can get virtually any program through it. The file acquiring protocol is called File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and there is a program and server of this. Without FTP-ing, you have to purchase commercial software. If not, I strongly recommend you to join some commercial network which gave you UNIX shell account. There are some lists which contains all the commercial network providers on Internet and it is relatively easy for you to find one. The best way might be the 'Internet Guru' near you. One thing you should try before just downloading Japanese programs is to change fonts of English programs by either changing option setup or re-writing *.ini files. When you run some program on Windows-J and the program is designed to handle clean eight bit transfer, it might be able to display Japanese S-JIS coded text. Some utilities like Font Patch'n and Emigrant that help English programs to display Japanese. I do welcome any report of your experiments. (1) Terminal Software on PC The simplest one in this category is named "Terminal" bundled with Japanese Windows and it is enough to sign up and operate minimum Japanese functions. However, it does not cover JIS and EUC code characters. Because most of Japanese Internet sites use JIS code, not Shift-JIS, you need to have terminal soft which can handle JIS code. I once used Wterm which is a DOS/V base terminal soft and it can handle S-JIS, New-JIS and EUC. Currently, I am using Emterm, the Japanese terminal software running on Japanese Windows and/or Win/V. It seems to be more sophisticated than DOS/V terminal software. Both of them are stored on 'Hideki' ftp site. According to UJIP, there are several terminal programs which meet our requirements, like KCOM2 by Kureo Technology (tel. 604-433-7715) that runs under English Windows and DOS and handles JIS and S-JIS. However, it is relatively expensive. The KCOM2 V. 3.0 costs $350. One of the advantages for KCOM2 is that it can handle CIS-JIS code which is a transferable code system on CompuServe mail. However, since it is a little different from normal JIS code, your receiver has to have KCOM2 or special decoder which can be found in Japan Forum on CompuServe. (2)Some converting/coding software There are some 'must-have' type small software to decode files on Internet. Here is the list of software and FTP site, Name: Wincode.zip Function: This program can convert any binary file into ASCII text file or files. Since UNIX programs uses the same logic to decode files, named 'base-64', you can upload JIS or S-JIS files by this coding. For your information, the undecode command on UNIX is "uudecode filename." Site: ftp://ftp.cc.utexas.edu/microlib/win/util/wincode.zip ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/pc/win3/util/wincode.zip Name: winzip50b.exe Function: A popular archiver for Windows. This soft can "compress" and "decompress" *.zip and *.lzh files. Since many of the files decompressed in FTP sites, it is convenient to have one. Site: ftp://aloha.com/pub/windows/winsock/ winzip50b.exe Name: jconv.exe Function: JIS, S-JIS, EUC (unicode) conversion program. Ken Lunde, the legendary author of UJIP, wrote this program. Site: ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/examples/nutshell/ujip/dos or Ken Lunde's home page at http://jasper.ora.com/lunde/ Name: mpack15d.zip Function: MIME header mail decode/encode program. Using Base-64 which is similar decoding method to uuencode, this program generates transferable file to carry binary, including S-JIS file. (3) Wapuro (Japanese Word-processor) I believe Wapuro is a 'bare necessity' for those who want to use Japanese. There are many variation of Wapuro from simple Windows-J accessories including write.exe which is my favorite to MS-Word and Ichitaro for Windows. Also, Japanese version of OS/2 Warp comes with Japanese word processor. Again, it depends on your objective, environment and your budget (some of Wapuro is quite expensive.) which one you take. Name: JWP Function: Full functional Windows Wapuro, shareware. This runs on English Windows. Site: ftp://uesama.tjp.washington.edu/pub/Japanese/IBM/JWP/ Name: KanjiWORD 2.0/3.0 Function Full functional Windows Wapuro, a commercial product. This runs on English Windows. Access: Pacific Software Tel. 1-800-232-3989 Fax. 206-562-0811 Name: KCOM2 Function KCOM2 consists of Japanese word processor and terminal software. Actually, KanjiWORD is a licensed part of KCOM2. Its original was KCOM2. Access: Kureo Technology Tel. 604-433-7715 4. Japanese E-mail I found that there are many people who simply want to read and write Japanese E-mail on Internet. Also, if you have Windows-J system and fancy TCP/IP connection, it is relatively easier to get information and shareware programs to make it work. On the other hand, if you have only English Windows and have only English E-mail facility, you rarely get information about how to use Japanese on Internet, like I was about a year ago. Therefore, I am going to emphasize this topic and use this whole section to discuss about this function. On the top of all, recently Mr. Aoki told me there is a list named 'Dr. Bob's' and you can get virtually any information, believe this or not from Archei search to Gopher and WWW, through E-mail. E-mail can be the most efficient method to communicate and get information. (1) Text Base E-mail Facility As I spent a year just to send my first Japanese E-mail, it is difficult to transfer Japanese over text base E-mail facilities such as traditional universities' E-mail services. Those systems are not design to 'understand' Japanese and they even reject Japanese or take it as a control code since Japanese code includes escape sequence. However, you still can send it as binary file. It may takes several steps to do so. It might be burden some. Still, it is worth trying if you do not have any other method to do so. As long as I know, there are two coding systems to send binary over Internet; uuencode/uudecode and Multiple Internal Mail Extension (MIME). Uuencode/uudecode is a method widely used in UNIX systems. Using this method, you can convert a binary files into normal ASCII file. You can see the sample of this method on 'binary' news groups where you can get pictures, sound and movies. The typical decoder on Windows is Winced. On the other hand, MIME is a relatively new standard to send multimedia and multilingual files over Internet set by International Standardization Organization (ISO). You might have received a mail which contains; MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-2022-jp X-Mailer: Eudora-J(1.3.8.5-J13) The first line show the mail used MIME encode method version 1.0. The second line shows that this mail contains iso-2022-jp character set which is a new JIS code. The third line is an optional 'X-' line of MIME header and tells us that the send used Eudora-J. The point is that all the mail by MIME header can go through all the Internet mail servers, which mean it is transferable if your mailer 'understand' Japanese. (In most of he text base mailers, however, do not.) I just going to use binary part of MIME in this section. Unfortunately there are not too many mailers which can read and write MIME header mail. However, Mpack can not only create MIME header mail but also decode it. One thing you should know before developing this discussion is that since the coding method is rather special, your receiver needs special program like Winced, Pack or Pine UNIX mailer program to _read_ it. You should not send MIME header mail before you make sure if you receiver has some method to read it. Otherwise he or she will be just confused or, in the worst case, get angry and stop return your mail. Therefore, through either FTP or physical mail, it is better for you to send some method to dec ode it to him. So much for background. The actual steps of sending mail over text base mail facility is shown below. i. Write Japanese mail on your Wapuro and save is as S-JIS file. (If your receiver prefers any other method you can convert it by Jconve.) ii. convert the file by Winced or Pack into transferable file. iii. Upload it to your account using PC-Server transfer protocol such as X-modem, Z-modem or Kermit. Notice that the file is already converted you can transfer it as text file. iv. Login to your mail account and start to send E-mail to include the file you uploaded. There is always a method to import ASCII file to your mail. v. Finally, you can send it. If you feel uncomfortable with any of these steps, I advise you to talk to your system administrator and show this description. (2) non-UNIX Commercial Networks You might be surprised by the fact that you can send japanese by some non-Shell commercial networks such as CompuServe, AOL and GEnie. Mr. Haitani describes this interesting method in his guide (see Appendix B). He shows how to recover escape sequence los t in transfer. Surprisingly, according to Mr. Haitani, you can send JIS coded Japanese Email through American Online and GEnie. Even S-J IS coded text can be sent by some condition. You can get in touch with GEnie at 1-800-638-9636 or LIVEWIRE@GENIE.GEIS.COM. On the other hand, as I discussed before, you need KCOM2 or conversion program which can handle CIS-JIS code to transfer Japanese mail over CompuServe. (3) TCP/IP It is most sophisticated to send and receive Japanese E-mail by TCP/IP mail client. Most of the mailers will convert your S-JIS normal text into JIS or in other words iso-2202-jp code to send over Internet and they also automatically convert them into S- JIS. I will discuss these mailer in the next section. (3) Gopher Mail / How to get information through E-mail Though TCP/IP is a sophisticated technology to open direct access to Internet, E-mail still has great potential to get information. Recently, Mr. Aoki introduced me an interesting guide titled 'Dr. Bob's Accessing The Internet by E-mail.' This guide sh ow various technic to use FTP, Gopher and WWW only by E-mail and since any Japanese file on Internet can be obtained as a binary file, you can apply Dr. Bob's method to Japanese information. You can get this guide by sending E-mail to; listserve@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu with blank subject and write 'GET INTERNET BY-EMAIL NETTRAIN F=MAIL' as a body. I will discuss about GopherMail technic here to get fj.* newsgroup, just to show an example of E-mail's potential. i. Reading fj.*s Gopher Mail is 'a gopher client that uses electrical mail to interact with the user' (by Mr. Fred Bremmer, the author of this smart program). There are several Gopher Mail servers around the world. According to the guide, there are; gophermail@calvin.edu (USA) gopher@earn.net (France) gopher@dsv.su.se (Sweden) gomail@ncc.go.jp (Japan) If you need a help for the operation of GopherMail, you can send blank E-mail to any of them with 'Subject: help.' I recommend you to get one since it describes the functions of GopherMail neatly. When you send a blank E-mail (this time even without 'Subject: help'), you will get the menu of the server. Basically, all you have to do is to put 'X' mark and return the menu file to Gopher Mail server and it will return further menus or document you want. The very basic format of Gopher mail request is like below; Name=fj.windows.x Type=1 Port=70 Path=exec:-h fj.windows.x:/bin/gonntp Host=gopher.cs.reitaku-u.ac.jp The first line, 'Name' is used for a header of return mail and second line shows what type the target file is. As for this example, 'Type=1' show that the target file, indicated by the rest of the contents, is text file. 'Type=9' means it is a binary file e and GopherMail will send it as a uuencoded file. Therefore, instead of just put 'X' in front of the menu items in returned menu files, you can directly command GopherMail sever to retrieve your target file, if you know the exact location of the file you want. You can request the many of Nips gopher site (gopher.nips.ac.jp:8021/) or Reitaku University gopher site (gopher.cs.reitaku-u.ac.jp), since both of them have S-JIS coded news groups available for public. Why do you need S-JIS news site? Because you do not need to have another converter to read JIS or EUC code texts. One more thing I have to tell you about reading fj.* news is that there is a mail service where you can get daily base delivery of fj.* news over E-mail. In order to request the delivery. You can send a mail either in Japanese or English to; news@nips.ac.jp Before sending a mail to request, please be sure that you have a mailer or instrument to read Japanese E-mail and enough capacity to receive them, because all of them are written in Japanese and you might get hundreds of news mails a day after application. Also, there are quite many 'dead' news groups in fj.*. Mr. Koyama kindly prepared an active fj list (Appendix C). Other alternative is to use FTP site which contain fj.* news at; ftp://kuso.shef.ac.uk/pub/News/fj/ ii. Writing fj.*s The next thing you want to do on Internet after getting Japanese USENET news over E-mail is to post Japanese article onto them, right? This is relatively easier than reading. When you decide to make a post of your own, mail your Japanese text in JIS code to: <>@news.demon.co.uk You should fill <> by the news group name you want to make a post , such as, fj.net.infosystem.www. 5. TCP/IP Clients Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection is a great invention. It is the basic connection with Internet Protocol (IP) Address and it hooks you on the world of Internet directly. In addition, by its nature, all the TCP/IP connection can transfer Japanese properly... with some exceptions because it basically uses clean eight bit transfer. There are always server and client in TCP/IP connections. The server has some information, from E-mail as a file to sound and graphic files, to send on demands by client programs. They can talk each other by TCP/IP protocol. Most of servers are located o n your provider side. Of- course you can hook to other servers located in Japan if you know the address and have rights to access. You have to have client programs on your PC to access to these servers because each function, such as FTP or E-mail, require e special procedure to access servers. Conversation between programs consists Internet! What a sci-fi world we are living! Using SLIP or PPP connection over dial up, we can touch and feel this art of technology. If you want to know more about TCP/IP, pl ease any of the Internet guide books available to you. They _must_ contain the explanation of what TCP/IP is. In 1994, may Japanese TCP/IP client programs, which works on your PC side, were created. Some are converted form English to Japanese and I will discuss some of them here. Almost all of them are compatible with Winsock, especially with Trumpet Winsock. Mr. Shirahashi prepared an excellent FAQ of Japanese TCP/IP clients and WWW browsers. My description below owe so much to his FAQ. You can get them at; TCP/IP FAQ: ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/PC/network/doc/pc-tcpip-faq-j.jis or .sjis WWW FAQ: ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/PC/network/doc/www-clients-for-windows.jis or .sjis As I discuss later, Netscape 1.1 beta 3 is now available and it can handle Japanese. Also, it contains almost all function of TCP/IP, including WWW browser, news reader and Email, and they are all Japanized. This is an 'all inone' package. (1) Telnet I recommend the combination of Emterm and COMt for Japanese telnet software, since there is no good Japanese telnet client shareware. COMt is a telnet redirector, which turn unused com port into a virtual telnet connection port. You can think of this as an emulator of modem and we can use any terminal soft, such as Emterm, as telnet client by COMt. You can get it at; ftp://ftp.std.com/cutomers/software/rfdmail/comt.zip ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/PC/network/winsock/apps/comt.zip (2)Mail There are various Japanese mail clients. It is lot easier to read and write Japanese mails on Windows-J or Win/V, not on UNIX text editors. You can input Japanese much smoother with Windows GUI. Name: Winbiff Function: The mailer soft which can handle S-JIS, JIS and EUC codes. Also, it can handle MIME and sends binary files, including New-JIS text. Site: ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/PC/network/winsock /apps/Winbiff/wbiff106.lzh Name: AL-Mail Function: It can handle various Japanese code systems and MIME headers. It has off-line reader function by /off option. Site: ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/PC/network/winsock /apps/ALMail/alm094.lzh Many of the readers might has begun to use 'TIA' on UNIX shell to emulate SLIP connection, already. (This is too famous to mention, but just for your information you can get in at marketplace.com by WWW.) However` AL-Mail does not run with TIA. You can a dd -n option to TIA to fix this situation (i.e. 'tia -n'). (3)News Reader There are a few Japanese news readers, like WinVN. If you want to read fj.* newsgroups, your news server has to have them. It is better to consult with your network provider to see if it carry fj.* or not. There is a problem in posting a Japanese article if your news server is 'NNTP 1.1.15t' which uses Cnews protocol. With 'NNTPD' with INN system, you can just connect these news readers and post Japanese. (I got this information form Mr. Ishido, who is an author of WinVN Japanese version.) For TIA users, you need 'nntpd' program to read newsgroup by a TCP/IP client. See the home page of marketplace.com. Name: WinVN for Windows-J Function: The Japanese version of the famous WinVN. Site: ftp://utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/PC/network/winsock /apps/WinVN/wv0926j.lzh This news reader has problem with TIA, too. You should get tia 1.03 beta and nntpd to solve the problem, using '-nntpd:119' option. (4) WWW Browser Recently, NetScape announced its NetScape Navigator 1.1 beta versions and it can handle Japanese code systems just by changing its font at [option]-[preference]-[fonts and colors]. Also, from beta 2, it can handle Japanese News Groups and Japanese SMTP mail, which means you can read Japanese News and write Japanese mail on NetScape Navigator. You can get it at; ftp://ftp.netscape.com/netscape1.1/ If you still want to use previous version of NetScape, you can use Mpatch'n (mpatch.exe) to display Japanese on it. If you are using NetScape whose version is from 0.94 to 1.0N, you need ibar.exe to avoid 'hooking' problems. There is a Japanese version of Mosaic, too. If you are interested in Infomosaic, which is a WWW browser from FUJITSU, try the WWW page below; http://www.g-search.or.jp It will cost you 5,000 yen and you can download it from this site, though you should apply for G-SEARCH's membership over FAX first. This program will work on Win/V without FUJITSU's warranty and with Win32s. (5) DeleGate There is a proxy server program which can convert among JIS, S-JIS and EUC. You can connect this server and you can read Japanese WWW pages, using only one Japanese code system, such as S-JIS. At the same time, there are WWW servers that handle code conversion for you. For example, you can 'proxy' by typing, http://www.tohoku.ac.jp:8081/=@=:www.ntt.jp/ The "http://www.tohoku.ac.jp:8081/" portion is the proxy server (this one happens to handle EUC/JIS -> Shift-JIS conversion), the "=@=:" indicates the real site to access, and "www.ntt.jp" is the real site. Therefore, with 8 bit connection to Japanese server site, you can read WWW just by changing browser's font into S-JIS. Recently, Ms. Aida and Mr. Brent Jones setup publica DelaGate sites in the United States at; needmore.cs.utexas.edu port:10080 I found more providers connect to these DeleGate sites by clean eight bit than those to Japanese sites. 6. Japanese Information Sources (1) Mailing Lists The file named 'int-jpn.txt' (Mariko and Yuko's list) saved on the 'hideki' site will give you more detailed description of these groups and mailing lists. Some mailing lists, such as NIHONGO groups, carry excellent information about this problem. Personally, there are two mailing lists I like. Both of them are quite informative and carry interesting discussions. NHONGO: Listserv@mitvma.mit.edu Japan Business and Economics: LISTSERV@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU You can subscribe them by sending E-mail to their listserve. Write 'SUB <>.' <> can be 'Nihongo' for mitvma.mit.edu and 'Japan' for PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU. (2) FTP/ Gopher / WWW On Appendix E, I put several interesting sites as URL format. There are so many sites which contains valuable information about Japan and Japanese. Especially, these URLs shown below have hundreds of links to other sites in English. NTT: http://www.ntt.jp/ Stanford X Guide: http://fuji.stanford.edu/Guide/japan_information_guide.html Culture Wave: http://sashimi.wwa.com:80/culturewave/ Japan Windows: http://jw.nttam.com/HOME/index.shtml Regarding using Japanese on Internet, there are several sites of SENJIN (those who have endeavored and contributed to solve problems for us.). Ken Lunde: http://jasper.ora.com/lunde/ U. of Washington: http://www.uwtc.washington.edu/Computing/Japanese /JapaneseResources.html Prof. Momoi: http://condor.stcloud.msus.edu:20020/tojpn.html If you want to get Japanese news, you can try; Shima Medis Net: http://www.eccosys.com:8080/SMN/JPN/ Nips Gopher Site: gopher://news.nips.ac.jp:8021/ For searching WWW pages, YaHoo seite can be helpfull for you. Yahoo http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo Please see the appendix to get more information about Internet FTP, Gopher and WWW sites. (3) Japanese BBS outside Japan Other than the Internet, Japanese BBSes (Bulletin Board System) contains incredible amount of Japan related information. Most of them are operated by volunteers and free to access. Since you do not need a special account nor some TCP/IP programs which is difficult to setup, they can be great information source of using Japanese on Internet. See Appendix F for detail. (4) How to Sign-up for Niftyserve Other source of Japanese information is apparently Japanese networks like Niftyserve. There are several networks, including ASCII-Net, PC-VAN etc. Among them, I have an account on NIFTY-Serve, a counter part of CompuServe in Japan, and you can sign up through telnet. Under Niftyserve, there are several good forums regarding using Japanese on Internet. You can visit in order to get some information or questions to be answered; FCIS: The forum for international communication, including several connection to CompuServe form Japan. FUNIX: People talk about how to use UNIX. FINET: Forum to discuss Internet expertise. Niftyserve is an important information source for me. It provides me enormous information about Japan. It carries some different information form one publicly disclosed. You can receive a detailed technical advice about programs and some industry or political gossips as well. Also, I can download thousands of software and files... Currently (4/1 1995), more than one million people signed up for Niftyserve. (I really do not have any relations with Niftyserve, other than I have an account on it.) The first thing you have to do is to get clean eight bit connection on Japanese system through Internet to telnet to Niftyserve. You can use Japanese telnet program hooked on TCP/IP connection. The address of Niftyserve on Internet is 'r2.niftyserve.or.j p.' If you still prefer telephone access, you can access Nifty through CompuServe's access points. Therefore, the alternative of 'telnet' is to call CompuServe's access point and type 'NIFTY' (this should be all upper-case.). I listed some of the access point on Appendix G. However, this costs you 50 yen a minuet to connect Niftyserve, while telnet cost you only 10 yen a minute. Now, I login Niftyserve by 'telnet'-ing under UNIX Shell account, which saved me 40 yen/ minuet special connecting fee of Niftyserve. You can chose one of these two methods shown below. i. Dial up to CompuServe's access point nearest to your home with 8-N-1 setup. Type 'NIFTY' (Be careful, case sensible). or ii. Telnet "r2.niftyserve.or.jp" or call access point. When you get connected, key in as below, (Inside " is the message from the host) "connection ID:" SGN (should be strictly capital letters) "Serial number:" NIF00777 "Agreement number:" NIFTYSGN When you complete your sign up and received your password and ID, you can enter 'SVC' as your 'connection ID'. Interesting thing is that Niftyserve will sense what kind of character system you used to enter 'SVC'. Therefore, it is better to enter 'SVC' by JIS code, not S-JIS, because S-JIS might be transformed during transmissions to Japan. The alternative is to send a physical mail to Niftyserve. The address is below; Oomori Bell Poart A-kan 6-26-1 Minami-Ooi, Shinagawa-ward, Tokyo 140 Japan Tel. ++81-3-5471-5806 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you see, this is not enough suggestion, but I do want to write some guide to use Japanese on Internet. I really welcome your comments and suggestions. I believe there are hundreds of misspellings and grammatical errors.... I do not think that my solution is the best one. If you find much better way, please tell me! Anyway, talk to you soon! Even this document can not be made without cooperation and help from others. hiro@yokohama2.ixa.com (Hiro), day@yokohama2.ixa.com (Takashi ANJIKI), Maze@ix.netcom.com, Metroman@netocm.com, Mr. Nakazato at Georgetown University, jl6bvo@ibm.net, Mr. Kanji Haitani, Prof. Momoi, Mr. Riu, TaMonTen@accessnv.com, Mr. Yasu Hiro Yamazaki, mikanno@netcom.com, Mr. Gordon Ross, Ms. Aida, Mr. Ken Lunde with my sincere respect, Hiromi Hirayama, and special thanks to Mr. Koichi Aoki (woody@aloha.com), millions of 'Thank you, pal!' --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A. Shop List Apropos, Inc. Arlington, MA 617-648-2041 CCIC Barkeley,CA 510-843-5626 CLR LA,CA 800-569-2099 C&T Boston,MA 617-426-6074 EJ Billingual Torrance,CA 310-320-8139 KiComp Ware Appleton,WI 612-773-8621 Kureo Technology, Canada 604-433-7715 Language Eng. Belmonst,MA 617-489-4000 PRC Burlingame,CA 800-745-0911 PSP Mercer Island,CA 206-232-3989 PC Express Alhambra,CA 818-293-1661 QTC Berkeley,CA 510-848-8080 System Soft Vero Beach,FL 800-882-8856 K-Denshi San Francisco,CA 415-346-5946 Appendix B. Mr. Haitani's Report See the file named jemail.txt on Hideki's sites Appendix C. Active fj.* Newsgroups See the file named fj-act.txt on Hideki's sites. Appendix. D Public DeleGate Points delegate.ncc.go.jp port:10080/ (EUC/JIS -> SJIS proxy server) delegate.tokai-ic.or.jp port:10080/ (EUC/JIS -> SJIS proxy server) www.tohoku.ac.jp port:8081/ (EUC/JIS -> SJIS proxy server) www.osaka-u.ac.jp port:10080/ (EUC/JIS -> SJIS proxy server) www.osaka-u.ac.jp port:8080/ (SJIS/JIS -> EUC proxy server) bigblue.kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp port:10080/ (EUC/JIS -> SJIS proxy server) needmore.cs.utexas.edu port:10080 (Other COde -> S JIS proxy server) Appendix E. FTP, Gopher and WWW Sites to get related information See the file named www-res01.htm on Hideki's sites. Appendix F. Japanese BBS outside Japan There must be many people who do not know that Japanese BBSs exist outside Japan. However, they do! Currently, New England Nihongo BBS, Metropolis BBS, Tim BBS, NJ PCClub BBS, CompXpress BBS, Micky's BBS, and LOS/V BBS are connected each other and with DOS/Vancouver BBS in Canada, J-NET in UK and some BBSs in Japan thru 'echo' (a bucket relay of BBSs networks) and you can exchanges messages world-widely! Hope you enjoy accessing the BBS nearest to you! They are really informative and cozy places. BBS in the US ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: New England Nihongo BBS, Boston, MA Access Number: 508-371-2654 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: Nobutaka Kusakabe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: Metropolis BBS/Queens, NY Access Number: 718-263-2736 Open: 24hrs Baudrate: 14400 Kanji Code: SHFT-JIS SYSOP: Hitomi Kamada, Compuserve:101014,556/Nifty:GBE00556 From SYSOP: Everybody's welcome ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: IM BBS Fort Lee, NJ, USA Access Number: 201-224-2688 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: 28800bps Kanji Code: Shift-Jis SYSOP: Tim Nishimura, 275 Dorin Court Road Fort Lee, NJ 07024 From SYSOP: Promoting mutual understanding as a bridge between USA & Japan. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: NJ PCClub, Ramsey, NJ Access Number: 201-236-8662 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: akeshi Takenaka ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: CompXpress BBS, Hyattsville, MD Access Number: 301-779-3711 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 28800 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: Etsuhi Riu, 76427.2270@compuserve.com e.riu@genie.geis.com From SYSOP: This is a brand new BBS! I am trying hard to support. Your access is quite welcomed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: LOS/V BBS, Los Angeles, CA Access Number: 818-701-0632 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: Takeo Mukasa ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: Valcan BBS, San Francisco, CA Access Number: 415-348-8750 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: Hirota's BBS, Chicago,IL Access Number: 708-766-9699 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: Mr. Hirota ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: Micky's BBS, Chicago,IL Access Number: 708-882-7088 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: Micky Nishioka Japanese BBS in Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: DOS/Vancouver BBS, Vancouver, CANADA Access Number: 604-272-0744 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: 9220 Garden City Road Richmond, B.C. Canada V7A 2S1 From SYSOP: Rakugo series postings and 'Gomi Board', and Suppon System operater are our goodwill! Expert of OS/2 (OS/2 no Tatsujin) _lives_ in here! Japanese BBS in UK ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name of BBS: J-NET, London, England Access Number: 801-715-9533 Open: 24 hours Baudrate: upto 14400 bps Kanji Code: Sift - JIS SYSOP: Kiichi Chiba 'Echo'ed Japanese BBSs in Japan EBISU-NET, Tokyo 03-3727-5370 Con2-Serve BBS, Tsukuba,Ibaragi 0298-92-8235 Reading Rabbits, Osaka 06-956-1160 Go.Go-NET, Yokohama,Kanagawa 045-772-8596 SkyBlue-NET Kobe 078-707-6185 and many more... 11/26/94 by Etsuhi Riu 3/23/95 Translated by Hideki Hirayama Appendix. F Niftyserve Access Points See the file named csap01.txt on Hideki's sites