Adventures with a Japanese Keyboard
A couple of thoughtful friends got me a Japanese USB keyboard for christmas (thanks guys!), and I’ve been trying to read through the documentation that came with it, but it’s really slow going. n.n; It’s very interesting however, the slight differences in the basic keyboard layout. The english alphabet characters are still in the standard QWERTY layout, but the difference is in where some of the symbol keys are (or more correctly, what symbols are on what keys), and the fact that it has a few extra keys in the layout.
Both the ASDF and the ZXCV rows have extra keys on the right-hand sides of them, next to the enter and right-shift keys, respectively. Also there are three extra keys at the bottom of the keyboard that make the spacebar shorter, one to the left of the spacebar, and two to the left. The one next to the right alt key I figure is used for switching between hiragana, katakana, and roomaji, since those are the three words written on it, I haven’t translated the other two keys yet.
These differences make it a bit challenging to type English on it like I’m used to, but the real reason I had wanted one of these keyboards, I haven’t figured out how to make work yet. That being direct input of hiragana/katakana from the keyboard, without having to go through an IME typing roomaji and having that converted to kana.
Anyway, I’m gonna go mess around with this some more and see if I can figure it out.
じゃあまた、みんなさん！
– Tasunke
