AX (Architecture eXtended) was a Japanese computing initiative starting in around 1986 to allow PCs to handle double-byte (DBCS) Japanese text via special hardware chips, whilst allowing compatibility with software written for foreign

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

s. The idea was conceived by

Kazuhiko Nishi is a Japanese businessman and personal computer pioneer. Nishi's father ran a private school. Nishi attended Waseda University but dropped out to help found the first Japanese computer magazine, ''I/O''. Shortly thereafter he launched ''ASCII ...

before he resigned his position as vice president of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Microsoft Japan Microsoft Japan, officially , is a subsidiary of Microsoft based in Japan. Their headquarters are near to Shinagawa station at Minato-ku district of Tokyo. History In 1978, Kazuhiko Nishi, co-founder of ASCII Publisher, partnered with Bill ...

took over the project, and in July 1987 the Preparatory Committee of the AX Consortium started developing its specification. The AX Consortium officially started in October 1987, including ASCII Corporation,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

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Oki Oki or Ōki may refer to: Places * Oki District, Shimane, a district in Shimane Prefecture, Japan * Oki Islands, an archipelago in the Sea of Japan *Oki Province, a former province of Japan *Ōki, Fukuoka, a town in southern Japan * Oki Airport, ...

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

, Canon, Kyocera, Sanyo,

Mitsubishi Electric , established on 15 January 1921, is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi. The products from MELCO include elevators an ...

, etc., but notably excluding

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and

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(who were hence the 'opposition'). At that time,

NEC is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It prov ...

PC-9801 was the dominant PC architecture in the Japanese PC market because IBM PC/AT and its clone PCs could not display Japanese text. However, NEC did not tolerate PC-9801 compatible machines and was fighting court battles with Epson which was the only PC-9801 compatible machine vendor. Therefore, other vendors desperately needed a standard specification for Japanese capable PCs. JEGA Video Adapter (Alps Electric)

To display

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

characters with sufficient clarity, AX machines had screens with a resolution of 640x480 rather than the 640x350 standard

EGA Ega or EGA may refer to: Military * East German Army, the common western name for the National People's Army * Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the emblem of the United States Marine Corps People * Aega (mayor of the palace), 7th-century noble of Neus ...

resolution prevalent elsewhere at the time. Users could typically switch between Japanese and English modes by typing 'JP' and 'US', which would also invoke the AX-BIOS and an

IME Ime is a village in Lindesnes municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located on the east side of the river Mandalselva, along the European route E39 highway. Ime is an eastern suburb of the town of Mandal. Ime might be considered ...

enabling the input of Japanese characters. However, soon after the release of the AX, IBM released the

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now ...

standard with which AX was obviously not compatible (they were not the only one promoting non-standard "super EGA" extensions). Consequently, the AX consortium had to design a compatible . AX-VGA/H was a hardware implementation with AX-BIOS, whereas AX-VGA/S was a software emulation. Due to less available software and its higher cost compared to the PC-9801 series, AX failed and was not able to break into the market in Japan. The Nikkei Personal Computing journal reported in 1989 that only 18 out of 36,165 PCs used in 937 companies were AX machines, and 90% of companies had no plan to purchase the AX machine. In 1990, IBM Japan unveiled DOS/V which enabled IBM PC/AT and its clones to display Japanese text without any additional hardware using a standard VGA card. Soon after, AX disappeared and the decline of NEC PC-9801 began.

References

External links

Mitsubishi Maxy
(information from a Japanese computer museum)

(information from a Japanese computer museum) Graphics hardware Computer-related introductions in 1986 {{Compu-graphics-stub

See also

References

Further reading

External links