IBM 2245 Kanji Printer () was the line printer of the

IBM Kanji System The IBM Kanji System was announced in 1971 to support Japanese language processing on the IBM System/360 computers. It was later enhanced by the support of IBM System/34, IBM 5550 and DOS/V. General The IBM Kanji System became available in a serie ...

, announced in 1971, that allowed printing of Japanese text on

IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...

and System/370 mainframe computers. Later, it would also support printing of Korean and

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

text.

Functions

At the Osaka Expo 1970, a prototype of the

was exhibited . Although the computers in Japan, up to that time, used only the alphanumeric characters like in other countries, this prototype allowed processing of more than ten thousand

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 ...

and other characters that are used in the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

. In 1971, IBM officially announced the IBM Kanji System that consisted of the following:IBM History of Far Eastern Languages in Computing: National ...
/ref> * IBM 5924 Kanji keypunch *IBM 2245 Kanji Printer *IBM System/360-System/370

OS/VS OS/VS may refer to one of a number of IBM operating systems for System/370 and successors characterized by the use of virtual storage (VS): * IBM OS/VS1, successor to MFT II, 1972-1984 * IBM OS/VS2, successor to MVT, including: ** OS/VS2 versi ...

DOS/VSE VSEn (''Virtual Storage Extended'') is an operating system for IBM mainframe computers, the latest one in the DOS/360 lineage, which originated in 1965. DOS/VSE was introduced in 1979 as a successor to DOS/VS; in turn, DOS/VSE was succeeded by ...

programming support The IBM 5924 Kanji Keypunch was an IBM 029 Keypunch (Model T00 with

Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

feature), attached with a specially designed 12-shift Kanji input keyboard. It allowed punching out IBM cards for more than ten thousand kinds of Japanese characters, using two columns (two punch positions) for each Japanese character, to be fed in the regular IBM card reader for being stored in the computer in two bytes for each Japanese character. This new technical approach gave the so-called

Double-Byte Character Set A double-byte character set (DBCS) is a character encoding in which either all characters (including control characters) are encoded in two bytes, or merely every graphic character not representable by an accompanying single-byte character set (SB ...

languages of Japanese, Korean and Chinese languages the ability to be processed by the computer. The IBM 2245 Kanji Printer was a line printer on the system side that connected to System/360 or System/370 via the multiplexer channel, block multiplexer channel or selector channel. The printer basically used the dot matrix impact printing mechanism, already employed in the

IBM 2560 The IBM System/360 Model 20 is the smallest member of the IBM System/360 family announced in November 1964. The Model 20 supports only a subset of the System/360 instruction set, with binary numbers limited to 16 bits and no floating point. In ...

Multi-Function Card Machine that attached to

IBM System/360 Model 20 The IBM System/360 Model 20 is the smallest member of the IBM System/360 family announced in November 1964. The Model 20 supports only a subset of the System/360 instruction set, with binary numbers limited to 16 bits and no floating point. In ...

and later to IBM System/3. Each Japanese double-byte character was printed on continuous paper with 18x22 dots for horizontal writing or with 18x18 for vertical writing. The paper feed mechanism was not a conventional paper tape, but new program control from the computer system was developed.

Development, manufacturing and marketing

The IBM 2245 was developed at IBM Endicott with participation of two or three engineers from

IBM Fujisawa IBM Fujisawa—located in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan—was a manufacturing and development site of IBM Japan, Ltd., a subsidiary of IBM Corporation. Fujisawa manufacturing IBM Fujisawa was established in 1967. As a manufacturing plant, it produce ...

, and manufactured in Endicott. It was marketed as a standard product, whereas the IBM 5924 Kanji punch, developed and manufactured in Fujisawa was a special RPQ product. This printer would later support Korean and

languages, with the effort of IBM Korea's and IBM Taiwan's laboratories, in coordination from IBM Fujisawa.

Application

Although the IBM 2245 Kanji Print could be used in a wide range of applications, it was mainly used to print the names and addresses in corporate correspondence, because the printing span (horizontal width) was relatively narrow. Until that time, the English alphabet and half-width Katakana had been used for computer processing of corporate correspondence, which was quite awkward.

Critique

The information of which wire dot to be hit at which point was prepared on the computer side and transmitted to the printer, which made other jobs in the multitasking OS/360-370 to slow down extensively.

Successor printer

The

IBM 3800 The IBM 3800 is a discontinued continuous forms laser printer designed and manufactured by IBM. It is significant as a product because it was both the first laser printer manufactured by IBM, and the first commercially available continuous forms la ...

Model 2 laser printing subsystem, developed by IBM Rochester, in the second batch announcement of IBM Kanji System in 1979, was the successor machine. Later, it would support not only Korean and

, but also

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

that is used in mainland China.

References

{{Reflist

External links

＜新製品・新技術紹介＞IBM漢字情報処理システム（情報管理 VOLI4 No.7）の「5. IBM 2245漢字印刷装置の特徴」
(Introducing New Product & Technology: IBM Kanji Information Processing System: 5. Functions of IBM 2245 Kanji Printer, in ''Joho Kanri (Information Management)'' Vol. 14 No. 7, in Japanese) IBM mainframe peripherals IBM printers Line printers