Last Updated: 27 March, 1995.
As many readers of this page will know, I have an on-going interest in Japan, its people and language. This has led to a number of activities bringing together Japanese and my professional activities in computing and telecommunications.
EDICT PROJECT
Some years ago, I began to experiment with handling Japanese text in computer files, and decided to try writing a dictionary search program which used a simple dictionary file contained in the MOKE (Mark's Own Kanji Editor) package. One thing led to another, until I ended up running what many refer to as the EDICT PROJECT.
Some of the components of this project, to which many, many people have contributed are:
Many other people have contributed to the EDICT Project, and information about them and their role will be added progressively.
Jeffrey Friedl has been an active participant in the project, and as well as making a lot of contributions to the files, has done some very interesting programming work. You can try his dictionary server in the USA or the mirror in Japan. He has also produced comprehensive WWW documentation for EDICT and KANJIDIC, including some overview material on Japanese writing.
Another well-known person in Japanese text-handling circles is Ken Lunde. Ken compiled the important japan.inf document, which was the first succinct summary of Japanese text-handling in English. He then went on to write Understanding Japanese Information Processing (O'Reilly & Assoc. 1993), which is the reference book to have. Many of the sample files and programs mentioned in the book are available on the Web. Ken has also written some important utilities such as jconv.
Users of the freeware Windoze Japanese wordprocessor JWP will know of Stephen Chung. Stephen originally hailed from Hong Kong, and after some time in Australia did CS at UC Berkley and an MBA at Columbia. He wrote JWP during vacations and spare time in his MBA. Stephen is now out there working in the real world, and can be contacted on: SSCHUN@ccmail.monsanto.com. In February 1995, Stephen and I actually met in Singapore. (BTW, The University of Washington has an excellent Web Page for Installing JWP.)
MONASH NIHONGO ARCHIVE
All my Japanese files, plus many other files and programs, are on Monash's nihongo ftp archive, of which I am the administrator. Read the INDEX file for a summary of the contents. This is available in an HTMLized version prepared by Archimedes L. Trajano(cs932070@ariel.cs.yorku.ca).
Anyone wishing to submit material for the archive should send it by ftp to: ftp.cc.monash.edu.au:pub/uploads. Also send some mail to the overall ftp administrator, Steve Balogh, (Stephen.Balogh@cc.monash.edu.au) who will pass the files to me.
OTHER INTERESTING SITES
[Click Here to see a comprehensive list of company sites just provided by Maynard Hogg.]
I am going to include in this page some other interesting Web sites of Japanese information. The list so far includes: