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Personal Computing in Japan (1978)

An interview with Professor Haruisha Ishida on computers entering Japanese industry in the 1970s, and what the Arab market can learn from it.

Series: arabic.computer

While going through my collections of computer magazines, I came across an interview with Professor Haruisha Ishida of the University of Tokyo in the March 1978 edition of Personal Computing Magazine. Professor Ishida was one of the early pioneers in Japan to have introduced computers to the Japanese industry. He had worked closely with Intel Japan and worked with the Japanese industry and academia to encourage the adoption of computers. In the interview he discusses the challenges of the computers in Japan. The key insights can very much be relevant to the challenges that the Arab market faced in the time. Hence, it is important to take insights from what the Japanese market faced. My key findings from the article, according to the insights provided by Professor Ishida, are

  • The early computers in Japan were based on the American design but with much less memory (8 kilobytes or 16 kilobytes of RAM). That made it not possible to program in BASIC, which was a popular programming language at the time that many anyone was able to use to program.
  • The cost of shipping computers from the US was expensive and was not affordable for the average user. In addition, Japan takes quality very seriously, and American computers would break easily. Finding support was not easy as well. Japanese markets expected high-quality systems, and the cost of software, delivery, maintenance, and repairs makes it all not affordable.
  • Japanese journalists would publish articles about the benefits of computers, which would entice people to purchase them. But when one person goes to a store to buy one, they find out that they have to build it or program it in machine code.
  • Japanese students are required to learn English in class. They also learn programming languages like COBOL and FORTRAN. When it comes to typing data, they would use the KATAKANA keyboard to enter Japanese letters. Such keyboards were expensive and poorly designed. There were two shifts for the alphanumeric keyboard and two shifts for KATAKANA. A computer user would have to handle all four shifts on the keyboard, which makes the keyboard difficult to use. Also, all the programming is only done in English.
  • According to the professor, there was a bigger interest in computers a few years before 1978, but it declined.
  • The English alphabet has 26 characters, while the Japanese has at least 2000 characters.
  • Students in school are not taught typewriting, which is an important skill to have when it comes to computers.
  • Time-sharing systems were not widely used in Japan. Unlike US universities, where students would log in remotely to a mainframe computer, the concept was not popular.

There is a lot more to take from this article. You can read it in full below. I also ran a machine translator to convert it to Arabic.

PERSONAL COMPUTING IN JAPAN

Interview with Professor Haruisha Ishida of the University of Tokyo

About a year ago we received a letter from Professor Haruisha Ishida of the University of Tokyo ordering multiple copies of our magazine to be distributed to his computer club in Japan. When Harold Buchbinder was in Tokyo, recently, he visited Professor Ishida to discuss the status of the personal computing industry in Japan. Hiro H. Irie of Personal Computing’s Tokyo office and Katsuya Araki, of the Nikkon Kogyo Shimbun (Japan’s largest daily industrial newspaper) accompanied Harold Buchbinder on a tour of the Tokyo University Computer Center and sat in during the following interview with Professor Ishida.

Personal Computing: I’ve toured your University Computer Center and it appears to be among the largest I’ve visited. Yet, I noticed that some of your laboratory rooms have mini and microcomputers. Can you tell us why and how your interest spans such a large spectrum of computers?

Professor Haruisha Ishida: I was formerly interested in very large computers but now I am devoting most of my time to small computers. You might say that I have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. Before January of 1972 I was involved only in the work at the Computer Center and with the big computers they had. In fact, at that time the Computer Center Committee asked me to make the selection of a large computer they wished to buy for the University. I picked the HITAC 8800. It had everything I wished in a large computer.

P.C.: How large of an operation do you have at the computer center now?

H.I.: We have three HITAC 8800 computers and one HITAC 8700 with a total core memory of 8 megabytes. The system is shared by 4000 research people from 100 other universities. The machine rental is two and a half million dollars and the operating cost is about $800,000 a year. The government bears half the expense. But we cost account every record on the computer. You can see we have a very large computer facility at this one university alone.

P.C.: How did you drift into the lower end of the computer spectrum?

H.I.: Before January, 1972, my friend, Mr. Kamo, now of Intel Japan, showed me an interesting device that I had not seen before – the microcomputer chip 4004. He knew that I was interested in small computers, which is why he showed me the chip in the first place. I agreed with Mr. Kamo – this type of system would be very important in the future. We both wished to pay close attention to this.

P.C.: How did you go then, from the 1972 peek at a chip, into the microcomputer field?

H.I.: The next year – 1973 – Intel made an experimental microcomputer based on the 8008. I brought one of these new microcomputers home from Mr. Kamo’s lab and used it with a noisy teletype. I think, therefore, I was one of the very first in Japan to use a microcomputer. Actually, after I saw the first microcomputer chip I wrote a short article on it in a Japanese trade magazine that attracted much attention from different companies.

P.C.: Did you predict in that article what might possibly happen? Would there be a significant market in Japan? An important interest in small computers?

H.I.: I felt that the age of microcomputers was coming. I wrote that in my article. We were going to have a hobby market, I said.

P.C.: Did you build a hobby computer yourself? Or were you able to buy a computer company’s product?

H.I.: I have built computer kits myself. The SDK-80 from Intel was the first one I built. But my interest increased when I returned to the States. In 1975, I was invited by Bell Laboratories to come to New Jersey. I stayed for about 10 months.

P.C.: Working on microcomputers?

H.I.: No. Actually, I was studying computer networks. Although my work was not with microcomputers I was interested in that field. I remember seeing in Popular Electronics the ad: “Let’s give microcomputers as Christmas presents this year.”

P.C.: Did the ad include a price for the microcomputer?

H.I.: About a thousand dollars. They stressed the idea that it was a Christmas present. Star Trek games represented the first time microcomputers were used for game playing.

P.C.: What about your interest in microcomputers? How did you sustain that interest?

H.I.: I subscribed to all the microcomputer magazines. I also contacted many clubs in the States.

P.C.: How did you find out what magazines were covering microcomputers?

H.I.: Through the people at the Bell laboratories. They were playing games with computers and I joined them. In fact, I was instrumental in introducing Star Trek games in Japan as a result of this game playing in the States. Until I introduced Star Trek, the Japanese were not playing computer games. Some people were interested in puzzles, but not games.

Katsuya Araki: On what computer did you introduce Star Trek?

H.I.: We put the program on our large computer and spread the word.

K.A.: Was it the same Star Trek game you played on the smaller computer in the States? Or did you enlarge the game? Also, was it more difficult?

H.I.: It was the standard one. Since then, some of my students have improved the game.

P.C.: With the enlarged memories now available in microcomputers, smaller computers in the States can probably handle a more complicated Star Trek game. When did you get back to Japan?

H.I.: I left Bell Laboratories in January of 1976 and returned to the computer center here at the University. And again my interest grew in microcomputers.

P.C.: Was interest in microcomputers beginning to pop up here in Japan about that time?

H.I.: No, it is almost unbelievable. But until the summer of 1976 we had no microcomputer magazines, no computer stores, no microcomputer kits, and no microcomputer clubs.

Hiro Irie: Who started the first computer club here?

H.I.: I think you could say I started the first club here. It was really called a home-computer club.

Irie: Do you have meetings, now? Do you get together? Swap programs?

H.I.: No. We merely subscribe to American magazines as a way to buy them cheaper. In other words, we subscribe as a group then pass the issues around.

P.C.: How did you recruit your first members for this home-computer club?

H.I.: In January of 1975, I published a book in Japanese on microcomputers and another one in 1977. In each book I discussed American microcomputer magazines and added one line at the end: such magazines, when you join a home-computer club, would be available through the club. And I inserted my address. So people who read the book became possible members and possible subscribers.

P.C.: How did you find the time to form a club? Didn’t it interfere with your work here at the center?

H.I.: I started the computer club in Japan because publishers of computer magazines in the States had no real circulation in Japan. One magazine had only five subscribers here. Imagine that, only five in the entire country of Japan! So I decided to pass the word for them here.

P.C.: Did your book on microcomputers have anything to do with creating a demand for microcomputers – the chips?

H.I.: Many people have told me so. But it required a year-and-a-half from the publication of the first book to the opening of the computer market here.

P.C.: Can you tell us something about the current boom in Japan? In other words, what’s the status today, what happened from the summer of ’76 to now, and where do you think you’re going from here?

H.I.: One of the strangest characteristics of Japanese business, and especially so in the microcomputer field, is that nobody wants to be the front runner. But once somebody starts to run then everyone jumps on the bandwagon. For example, Nippon Electric introduced a microcomputer kit in the summer of 1976 and this, I would say, started the microcomputer boom. Now we have many kinds of microcomputer kits, microcomputer shops, and magazines of our own.

P.C.: From your point of view, your personal interest, which of these magazines is of greatest use to you?

H.I.: None of them. The articles they carry are very primitive. Very, very low-level. They talk about kit or kit signals or timing or how to cut printed wires, because Japanese kits don’t have extended ability. If you want to add memory you have to cut printed wires. And all kits are single-board types with no extended benefits.

P.C.: Are extendable American kits available now?

H.I.: Yes, but they are very expensive. Two or three times as expensive as in the States. That is due to the quantity. Because your kits are so expensive they can’t sell many. And if they don’t sell many, then the price does not come down.

P.C.: What about the language problem? Japanese who use programs in BASIC must know English.

H.I.: Language is, yes, a very great problem. Many Japanese don’t know about BASIC language. Also, because in Japan the time-sharing system has not been used very widely, we have not been using BASIC minicomputers. Our typical minicomputers are very small.

P.C.: What’s the memory size?

H.I.: Eight kilobytes. Sixteen kilobytes. They are smaller than today’s microcomputers. And we do not have any disk on the minicomputers. That is one of the reasons you cannot use BASIC in Japan.

P.C.: What did you use to store large quantities of data?

H.I.: We have almost no memory storage capacity at all. We use paper tape to load the program. So programming for microcomputers has been mainly on assembly languages.

P.C.: Going back to language problems, for a minute. Do you have anything that is used with Japanese characters? Do you use codes?

H.I.: The only Japanese characters we use are with the KATAKANA keyboard. They are very expensive keyboards to use with microcomputers.

P.C.: How much would the KATAKANA displays cost over American keyboards?

H.I.: About twice as much.

P.C.: That obviously gives the personal computer hobbyist a real incentive for learning English.

H.I.: We do teach English in our schools. We begin at about the middle-school level, which would be about the 7th grade. In principle, every Japanese should be able to read or speak English. They should be able to handle English with a computer, if nothing else.

P.C.: That should mean that Japanese children going through the school systems, now, represent a good future market for computers. Are they taught enough English to communicate with computers?

H.I.: Incidentally, there is an examination here for college entrance. You have to pass a very strict test to enter. Therefore, if you are interested in a college, you must study English hard in high school, otherwise you will not pass.

P.C.: Where do your current programmers come from? Are they coming from universities or from special schools that teach programming?

H.I.: Entrance into a good university doesn’t guarantee a good job. People have a misunderstanding about the university role. And we do have private computer schools where one goes for six months or a year or more. They teach only computer courses.

P.C.: At these schools, is programming taught in English or in KATAKANA?

H.I.: In English. Because, also, they teach other languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. But as for data – they may use KATAKANA. But the program itself is written in English.

P.C.: Now that computers are increasing in popularity is there a boom in these private schools?

H.I.: No. There was a boom, several years ago. But I believe it’s declining now. The schools are not very capable. Many people have been disappointed by them.

Katsuya Araki: Earlier, you were talking about microcomputer clubs. How many do we have in Japan, today?

H.I.: I have one organization here at the university. We call it a microcomputer lab. It is part of our computer center. The purpose of this lab is to teach university faculty and students how to use microcomputers. Especially those involved in experiments. The lab allows them to put microcomputers into their experimental apparatus.

Katsuya Araki: Are the computers at the lab only for the engineering sciences?

H.I.: No. For the most part, the engineering community has its own computers and its own microcomputers. So our programs are used by faculty and students in other sciences like medicine, physics, social sciences.

P.C.: What kinds of problems do you have training these users?

H.I.: These people can handle programs in FORTRAN but they know nothing at all about hardware.

P.C.: Do you teach them machine language?

H.I.: Yes, I do. I also lend them the microcomputers. I have a collection of them. Seventeen microcomputers. Different makes. Not all of them are in the labs now. I think I have ten out on loan. They are mostly of the single board type. Not too big.

P.C.: Your students can come in and borrow a computer any time?

H.I.: If they wish, yes. And if I have one available.

P.C.: Where do they take them?

H.I.: They can take them home or bring them to their own laboratories. But for two weeks only.

P.C.: Do you charge for this service?

H.I.: There is no charge. It is completely free. Many of the microcomputers we have here are donated by various manufacturers. That is why I have so many and why I am able to lend them out.

P.C.: You had mentioned kits before. What do you consider the best type of kit in Japan?

H.I.: The best one is the 68TR, made by Hitachi. However, they are really not kits at all. They come assembled. We really call them training modules.

P.C.: Do you have Japanese-made computers like Altair or Imsai to which you can add floppy disk drives, terminals and printers?

H.I.: Not yet. All are American-made products.

P.C.: Can you buy these American products in Japan?

H.I.: Yes. But they are very expensive. Although when I say there is a microcomputer kit boom in Japan, I mean the single board type – $400 is the limit. So I am anxious to see when PET and the TRS-80 are introduced in Japan. Their price is a bit higher but it’s going to be a long time before they get here. I understand that there is a production backlog in the States. I hear it will be quite some time before they start exporting.

We have another problem in Japan. Journalists have generally shown great interest in microcomputers. And they carry many articles for lay people on microcomputers. They attempt to stress the eventual, wonderful use of the microcomputer. You can do this thing and that thing with the cheap microcomputers, they say. So people get interested. But when they go to the computer stores, all they can buy is the single board computer. And they have to program it.

It is quite impossible for the ordinary person to use this kind of microcomputer. The people are being deceived by these articles. They bought the single board computer expecting to be able to do many things with it. Instead, they have been greatly disappointed.

P.C.: Japanese manufacturers in this industry are considered equal and sometimes superior to American manufacturers. Why, then, haven’t your own manufacturers come out with the same kind of units now available from so many manufacturers in the States?

H.I.: There have been microcomputers like Altair in the past but for professional use, only. We have many small companies manufacturing this type of microcomputer. But they’re not for the hobbyist. Because they are for professionals, they are built very carefully and they have a very good product. And they have a very high reliability.

We tend to place too much emphasis on reliability in Japan. But, you know reliability is very important. For example, it took me about six months to get my American built computers working. Every time I got one thing fixed, something else would go. From that viewpoint, and by comparison to Japanese products, American microcomputers are not as reliable.

Let me change the subject for a bit. This publication I have in my hand is called a “mook”. It means a combination of a magazine and a book. The purpose of the mook is to interest ordinary people in computers. It contains a map which is very important if you wish to go to a microcomputer shop. These shops are difficult to locate, you see. You have to go to some corner of the city, on a side street, in an old building and climb up to the third floor to a computer store. That is why you need the map.

Say you know which product you want. This is typical Japanese behavior. You make a phone call to the computer shop, rather than visiting it. You order the microcomputer over the phone. But if something happens to the microcomputer when delivered you will have to call the computer shop again to get a repairman to come to your place and fix your machine. Installation, reliability, plus repairs keep microcomputer costs high in this country.

P.C.: What about software?

H.I.: The software, of course, must come free of charge, otherwise you could not afford it. Other costs to be added are delivery, maintenance and repairs. It is very difficult to sell naked microcomputers in the Japanese market. Everybody expects the other services to come along free of charge and when they have to pay for them, they hesitate to buy.

P.C.: You have other books on the desk that look like computer books.

H.I.: These are beginner’s books on computers.

P.C.: Are there many of them in Japan?

H.I.: Yes. The Japanese market has many such books for beginners. As I have said, the Japanese are very much interested in the microcomputer and as soon as the price comes down you will see an increase. For the moment, they are content to learn about them through books like these.

P.C.: You were editor of a special issue the Japanese version of the Scientific American. Can you tell me something about that?

H.I.: This issue on my desk written in Japanese and by Japanese writers is a special issue on microcomputers. The authors are my friends. Because the Japanese computer market is so small, at this moment, I know almost all the key people in the industry. So I called my friends to help me compile this special computer issue. I had to rely entirely on American products because we cannot as yet get this type of microcomputer in Japan.

P.C.: About how many hobbyists do you think there are in Japan right now?

H.I.: My discussion with manufacturer and computer outlets indicates that we must have about 25,000 kits operational in Japan. All of them are the single board type costing under $400. We estimate the amount of money the hobbyist can afford to spend is around $400.

P.C.: In the United States there are many physicians, teachers, lawyers and other professionals who spend anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000 on a boat – some even more than that. And they only use it four or five months each year – sometimes only on weekends. Many of these people will spend $2,000 or $3,000 for a computer they can use all year. Also, they can now share it with their children. Do you think there’s a Japanese market for computers costing $2,000 to $3,000?

H.I.: Eventually, yes. But in going into that we would have to prepare many programs and that would present many problems.

P.C.: Such as what? Are you speaking now of educational problems, or the problems associated with microcomputer training?

H.I.: First of all, we are not used to the typewriter. We do not type as much as the Americans. So, we do not have many people who like to sit down to keyboards. And it is very difficult for them to use keyboards of any type; Japanese keyboards are very poorly designed and very hard to redesign. Even the national, standard keyboard is very poor. It is divided into four sections. Two shifts for the alphanumeric keyboard and two shifts for KATAKANA. You will have to handle four shifts on the keyboard and that would make the keyboard very difficult to use. Like a big American organ.

P.C.: What about the American keyboard with only two shifts, if users understood English?

H.I.: Of course that would be much better. But there would be some apprehension toward any keyboard at all. We do not teach typing in the schools. So this would represent a new skill and a new training that will have to be learned.

I believe very strongly that we should be teaching typewriting in Japanese schools. I have been advocating this for several years now, but we have another problem to consider. The general use of KATAKANA characters on the Japanese keyboards would be very expensive. So we have the language problem. Time-sharing systems are not widely used in Japan. You don’t operate the keyboard yourself. There are people trained just for that. So, all in all, the introduction of microcomputers to Japan would be very useful.

P.C.: Is any effort made to introduce or stimulate interest among high school or college students in computers?

H.I.: Many newspapers in Japan are now reporting on the importance of using computers. Newspapers are a good way for Japanese to become interested in microcomputers. High school kids become interested from articles in newspapers. And, as a result, I have met many high school students who say they want to use microcomputers.

P.C.: Many high schools in the States now have computers available for students.

H.I.: No. There is no high school market as yet. You see, many people are wondering what use they can make of the computer, anyway, if they got one. It’s not easy for ordinary people to use. Japanese children can’t understand English. Even if you try to let them play with games the messages are in English. High school students are not proficient enough in English or typing even with 2 fingers to use computers.

P.C.: Is it possible to make a breakthrough to the computer using Japanese characters? In other words adapting the Japanese language to the computer?

H.I.: That is not likely to come about because the nature of the language almost prohibits it. English has 26 characters. Japanese has 2000 characters, at least.

P.C.: That would make for a horrendous keyboard. Somebody mentioned an organ keyboard. I see what you mean.

H.I.: Yes. Using English when we talk with computers will give students the incentive to learn English if they ever hope to advance to college and to the sciences. So far, we have been teaching only literature in the English language. Our students probably know more Shakespeare, for example, than your students do in the States. It is strange that we teach Shakespeare but we don’t teach the more important technical languages. We should be placing more emphasis on technical languages.

P.C.: Those students who aren’t too happy with Shakespeare might find the use of technical dialogue a welcome relief. Shakespeare isn’t very popular among students in the States. But we do note how many Japanese students try to write in English no matter how poorly they do it. What would letters look like if they were written by Americans using Japanese characters?

H.I.: The computer center here has a problem, too. We require English technical assistance. There is no word-processing market in Japan. One of the areas I am working on at the center is text-editing assistance for English composition because we have to write papers in English to be read by scientists in other countries.

P.C.: If typing is such a problem in Japan, how does a Japanese businessman write a business letter?

H.I.: He does it himself. Sometimes he can dictate the letter to a secretary. Mostly he writes it by hand, himself. Sometimes letters are very vague for that reason. But they are elegantly vague with nice scrolls and flourishes. Official papers, however, are not handwritten. They are typewritten, which is very expensive in Japan, because it must be done by professionals. Also, publishing costs have skyrocketed. That’s why publications are very expensive here.

P.C.: Have you thought of using optical character recognition to get rid of the keyboard. You could have routines handwritten, and then pass the optical scanner over it and go right into the computer.

H.I.: About two years ago we did try that technique. We borrowed an optical character reader and tested it for use by ordinary people. But then we ran into difficulties. Many users for the optical system write characters in many different ways. And the machine, we found, could not handle this problem. Also, to make characters familiar enough for the scanner to recognize they would have to be written very carefully in a specified square. It is very tiring to write in a restricted way. Our users did not like this system for that reason and we gave up on the test.

P.C.: Then, you function like an experimental test lab, too?

H.I.: Yes. But they must be confined to computer problems. By the way, that is how we get so many products at half price. We buy the test models and report back to the manufacturer.

P.C.: What other kinds of tests do you run?

H.I.: Many companies bring their terminals here before they start marketing and almost once a week some person will bring in a terminal for testing. We also test displays. And these days, of course, we test the microcomputers. My personal observation is that Japanese manufacturers are very good at mass production because they get the bugs out before they start. If the PET computers and the Heathkit computers sell very good in the States then the Japanese manufacturers would make an all out effort to make such products themselves.

P.C.: Are computer clubs active in Japan? How many members are in your own club?

H.I.: One hundred sixty. And there are two or three nationwide clubs. When they have a national meeting it is not possible to get them all into one place. One club has 2000 members. The possibilities of Japan becoming a big market for microcomputers is very good. Remember that we have ten million people here. And it would not be too difficult to get tens of thousands interested from one year to the next.

P.C.: What is the most important help you get now from the States.

H.I.: I would say that it is your magazines. They are very helpful to us here and very excellent. They are probably the best help we are getting now from the States. And for that I thank you and ask you to keep it up.

In the preface to his book, How to Use Microcomputers, Professor Haruisha Ishida recalls the night he met the 4004 chip. He found the experience traumatic, as you can tell from this English translation of the Japanese text supplied by Katsuya Araki.

One evening in January of 1972, a group of us were having dinner at a fancy sky-top restaurant in one of Tokyo’s tall buildings. Besides myself, there were my friends, Mr. Kamo of Intel, Japan, and Mr. Kitahara, an electronic distributor. In between our dinner courses we held heated discussions about the computer business in general – it’s nice to have heated discussions on cold nights in Japan’s winter season.

Looking out the windows of the restaurant and across the rooftops of Tokyo, we could see the fascinating glare of the millions of lights that illuminate our great city. Suddenly, one of the group pointed to a small object on the table. Mr. Kamo had brought it from the U.S. to show us. It was an LSI – a general purpose single chip CPU! This tiny thing that had just been brought to Japan was destined to start this whole microcomputer madness that has engulfed our country.

“We are currently working on an international network link for load sharing in the future. There is a time difference of nine hours between California and Tokyo. While we are sleeping you can use our chemical abstract data base, X-ray crystallographic data and analysis programs and excellent FORTRAN compiler. We also have game programs such as Musashi, Gomoku and Othello. Games over an international link? Yes, while your boss is out of town. Your centers, of course, have abundant software that we would like to use in January, our busiest month at the computer center.”

— Professor Ishida in Perspective, September 1977

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End of article — Personal Computing, March 1978

A downloadable link to the magazine is available at archive.org -> https://dn721609.ca.archive.org/0/items/PersonalComputing197803/Personal%20Computing%201978-03.pdf