Comments on: Tokyo assembly election: Meet the candidates (Part 7 of 10) – Naoki Takashima (LDP) http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/07/10/tokyo-assembly-election-meet-the-candidates-part-7-of-10-%e2%80%93-naoki-takashima-ldp/ Photos, Stories and articles on East Asia Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:54:22 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Adrian D. Havill http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/07/10/tokyo-assembly-election-meet-the-candidates-part-7-of-10-%e2%80%93-naoki-takashima-ldp/comment-page-1/#comment-393741 Adrian D. Havill Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:23:20 +0000 http://www.mutantfrog.com/?p=4543#comment-393741 Slight nitpick: "Older keyboards in Japan used a unique keyboard layout that assigned a key to each kana character (the relics of that system remain on the current keyboards)." The Kana layout is a JIS B 9509 standard. There are still many Japanese touch typists (12%*) that use the kana system instead of the rōmaji system, and they are faster typers. As even modern Japanese OSes can switch to that layout with a key combo or mouse click, I wouldn't call it a "relic." * http://whatjapanthinks.com/2009/06/11/keyboard-habits-of-japanese-computer-users/ The biggest problem with the kana layout is that there are characters on the number row, which is very difficult to reach for touch typing. It's still faster than rōmaji. JIS tried to address the kana-on-numbers problem with the New/Neo JIS layout (JIS X 6004). Like Dvorak, that layout was never mass adopted, even though it's better. Slight nitpick:

“Older keyboards in Japan used a unique keyboard layout that assigned a key to each kana character (the relics of that system remain on the current keyboards).”

The Kana layout is a JIS B 9509 standard. There are still many Japanese touch typists (12%*) that use the kana system instead of the rōmaji system, and they are faster typers. As even modern Japanese OSes can switch to that layout with a key combo or mouse click, I wouldn’t call it a “relic.”

The biggest problem with the kana layout is that there are characters on the number row, which is very difficult to reach for touch typing. It’s still faster than rōmaji.

JIS tried to address the kana-on-numbers problem with the New/Neo JIS layout (JIS X 6004). Like Dvorak, that layout was never mass adopted, even though it’s better.

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