Japanese Keyboards

The following information is compiled from various Usenet posts
and Internet tech support archives. It describes how to use a
Japanese kana keyboard with Western Windows -- Fabian.

http://www.libertec.com/Support/FAQs/jkeyboard.htm
http://www.cjmag.co.jp/magazine/issues/1998/feb98/helpdesk.html

In Windows 95, you can change the language layout by selecting Keyboard
in the Control Panel. Unfortunately, Japanese is not a keyboard language
option for English Windows 95. The following procedure allows English
Windows to use a Japanese keyboard, and is derived from information
at the above URLs.

1. Copy the Japanese W95 keyboard driver, which is named "kbdjpa01.kbd"
from the W95JP\system directory to the W95EN\system directory. If you
have deleted your Japanese windows, you will need to borrow this file
from a friend.

3. Start the "regedit.exe" program.

4. Go to the following folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\keyboard layouts.

5. Click the "keyboard layouts" folder.

6. Create a new key using the edit/new/key menu item.

7. Type in your favourite number, preferably one that resembles the
existing numbers, yet does not match any of them, and press enter. I
entered a number less than the lowest number in the current list, so it
would appear at the top of the list.

8. Now, with that number selected, from the Edit menu choose New/String
value. In the right-hand window, a new string value appears with the
name "New Value #1".

9. Type the words "layout file" (lower case, without the double-quote
marks). Since the name is already selected, the words you type with
overwrite it.

10. Double-click this value and an Edit String dialog box opens. 

11. In the value data box, enter "kbdjpa01.kbd".

12. From the Edit menu, choose New/String value.

13. This time, enter "layout text" for the value name.

14. Double click this value and an Edit String dialog box opens. 

15. In the value data box, enter "Japanese" or something similar.

16. Exit the regedit program.

17. From the Start menu, choose Settings/Control Panel.

18. Double-click the Keyboard icon. The Keyboard Properties dialog box
appears.

Now here is where the plot thickens. You might think that you would add
a language to the keyboard language and layouts, but you don't.

19. Click the Language tab.

20. Click the English (United States) keyboard in the Installed
keyboard and language layouts box.

21. Click the Properties button. The Language Properties dialog box
appears.

22. In the Language Properties dialog box, click the down-arrow of the
Keyboard layout drop-down box.

23. Choose the text you entered in the value data box for layout text
(in my case, Japanese).

24. Click OK to close the Language Properties dialog box.

25. Click the Apply button to apply your changes.

26. Click OK to close the Keyboard Properties dialog box.

27. Use Notepad or WordPad to edit both the config.sys and
config.dos files. In these files, change the line that says:

DEVICE=C:\DOS\JKEYB.SYS /106 C:\DOS\JKEYBRD.SYS

to

DEVICE=C:\W95J\JKEYB.SYS /106 C:\WIN95JP\JKEYBRD.SYS

(where WIN95JP is the directory where Windows 95 J is installed)

If this line does not exist, please add it in. This will allow the
Japanese keyboard driver to work in a DOS window.

28. Save your changes to the config.sys and config.dos files and
restart your computer for those changes to take effect.

---

Differences between USA and Japanese keyboards

1. Contains kana so you can kana-type (not many people do) - switch by
using a kana/romaji key located to the right of the right-ALT key. Most
people type using romaji and Win98J will convert it to kana. For kanji
you use the next keys.

2. Contains "henkou" (change) and "muhenkou" (no change) keys for
converting (or not) kana to kanji, which are located on either side of
the miniscule space bar.

3. The right side of the middle row looks like jkl;:] instead of jkl;'
(so you get one extra key there, which means the enter key is different
as well - more vertical instead of horizontal.

4. Similarly, the bottom row looks like nm,./\ so the shift is smaller
and when I type I keep hitting \x instead of X.

5. Quote mark is over the 2, not above apostrophe (which is over the 7)

6. Other things: @, +, *, = are all in weird locations, ; and : are 2
different keys instead of one, [ and ] are no longer next to each other

All in all, annoying as heck. Of course, if you don't touch type you may
not really be as affected by all this.