IBM Kanji System
| Company type | Product line |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer hardware and software |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Headquarters | Japan |
| Products | Kanji printers, Kanji keypunch, programming support for System/360 and System/370, terminals, emulation software |
The IBM Kanji System made its debut in 1971, designed to facilitate Japanese language processing on IBM System/360 machines. Its capabilities were subsequently expanded to encompass IBM System/34, IBM 5550, and DOS/V environments.
General
The introduction of the IBM Kanji System occurred through phased announcements, beginning with a demonstration at Expo '70 in Osaka, followed by an official launch in 1971. The initial offering included:
- IBM 2245 Kanji Printer
- IBM 5924 Kanji Keypunch
- Programming support for IBM System/360-System/370 under OS/VS1 and DOS/VSE
The Kanji Keypunch allowed entry of up to 2,950 Kanji characters by utilizing a combination of 15 shift keys operated by the left hand and 240 characters accessed with the right hand. Prior to this system, IBM mainframes were limited to processing English alphanumeric characters and half-width Katakana. This innovation laid the groundwork for handling approximately 10,000 commonly used Japanese characters.
September 1979 saw significant upgrades including:
Hardware
- Offline input/output devices:
- IBM 5924 T01 Kanji Keypunch (an enhanced version of the IBM 029 Key Punch featuring a 12-shift key Kanji keyboard) - RPQ
- Online terminals:
- IBM 3270 Subsystem components:
- IBM 3274 model 52C Control Unit equipped for Kanji processing
- IBM 3278 model 52 Display with a 12-shift key Kanji keyboard
- IBM 3283 model 52 Inkjet Printer
- IBM 3270 Subsystem components:
- Online printing device:
- IBM 3800-2 Printing Subsystem
Software support for Kanji included:
- Operating Systems:
- Programming Languages:
- Double-byte character set (DBCS) support within:
- Various utility programs
Development efforts were spearheaded by the Double-byte Technical Coordination Organization (DTCO) alongside IBM Fujisawa Laboratory, with collaboration from multiple IBM research centers such as Endicott, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Santa Teresa, Hursley, and Boeblingen, as well as external partners.
Later releases comprised:
- IBM System/34 Kanji System featuring an IBM 5250 display (October 1979)
- IBM 3283-053 Kanji Printer (1981)
- IBM 3200 Kanji Printer (1982)
- Emulation of IBM 3270 and IBM 5250 terminals on Japanese personal computers:
Competition and cooperation
Throughout its development phase, Japan’s major mainframe manufacturers independently engineered Japanese language processing solutions while collaborating to define the industry-standard Japanese character encoding (JIS X 0208). Prominent systems developed included:
Effect on support for other languages
Following the establishment of Japanese language processing capabilities, similar support was extended to languages such as Korean and Chinese, covering both Traditional and Simplified character sets.