KDPLUS

By JWS (see address at the bottom of this page).

very old!

[KDPLUS logo]

Japanese language system for ms-dos PC's

KDPLUS is a much improved version of the KD kanji driver program by Izumi Ohzawa. KDPLUS can be used to obtain Japanese character display, and allow Japanese character input, in many text-mode programs for MS-DOS.

Obviously the number of text-mode MS-DOS diehards is small, and dwindling rapidly. The number of those interested in the Japanese language must be infinitesimal. However, the WEB is vast, and for those few who are interested, KDPLUS offers Japanese-language capability for many DOS programs, like Wordstar, Wordperfect, DBASE III+, Blue Wave, Telix (useful for accessing Japanese sites through Internet shell accounts), and many others.

Features of KDPLUS

Modest hardware requirements: works on any PC from a 286 onward.
Comes with utilities for printing Japanese texts on dot-matrix, deskjet, and laserjet printers.
A Japanese text editor (JWRITE) is included.
KEDICT pop-up utility for access to EDICT, the big English <--> Japanese dictionary maintained by Jim Breen of Monash University, Australia.
Utilities for conversion between different kanji code systems (SJIS, JIS, and EUC).
Telix scripts for access to on-line systems using different kanji code systems.

Download kdp442.zip (main program package)
Download kdp-b.zip (screen font and kana-kanji conversion dictionary)
Download kdp-c.zip (24 dot print font)

Installation instructions: make a directory \kdplus on your hard disk; unzip the 3 kdp files there. Test by typing kdp -k jwrite how2use.doc; this displays the main instruction manual. For installing the dictionary pop-up utility KEDICT, read KEDICT.DOC.

NOTE (1998)

KDPLUS works fine under all versions of DOS and also in DOS windows in Windows 3.1. It also successfully "Japanizes" DOS programs running in DOS boxes under Win 95/98; however, built-in DOS functions like dir and type sometimes don't work well in Win 95/98 DOS boxes, depending on the exact Windows version you use (don't know why Microsoft introduced a new screen writing method. Am not going to find out. Have stopped working on this project ages ago).
KDPLUS is now officially FREEWARE. No matter what the DOC's say, you don't have to pay anything for using it. And here is the source code: kdpsrc.lzh. For Turbo C 1.5 / TASM 3.0 basically. Some bits may be MASM 4.0. It may not be trivial to make the .EXE using more modern tools.

Some Japanese utilities for Unix/Linux

Here are some Japanese-language utilities for Unix/Linux, derived from corresponding utilities in KDPLUS :
To download, press shift+right mouse button in a browser like Netscape

kprint is a Laserjet/Deskjet kanji print program for Unix/Linux. It offers only 24-dot print quality, but it is simple and fast (doesn't involve Ghostscript) and is suitable for use e.g. with pine. To use kprint, you also need the 24-dot font file in kdp-c.zip, above (unpack this, under Linux, with "unzip" instead of "gunzip").

Download kprint.tgz (8262 bytes)

jwrite is a very simple ncurses-based Japanese-capable editor with a Wordstar-like interface for people who think vi is too difficult and emacs too big. It has a special pine mode for use in combination with the pine mail program. Also contains a patch file for the Linux Japanese console program KON (in the JE distribution) which makes KON's emulation of the Linux console a bit better.

Download jwrite-002.tgz (37,151 bytes)

konfont-new is a set of 16-dot fonts to replace the 14-dot fonts that come with KON.

Download konfont-new.tgz (145,618 bytes)

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