is a Japanese businessman and

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

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 ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

'' magazine (a Japanese equivalent of ''

Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

'' or ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

'') and, in 1978, ASCII Corporation, which began by making a rough translation from English to Japanese of the game '' Wizardry''. He wanted to lead the personal computer market, but ASCII Corporation didn't have enough capital to develop personal computers. He knew Microsoft BASIC was becoming the industry standard in North America, and conceived selling it to Japanese companies. At 1978

National Computer Conference The Joint Computer Conferences were a series of computer conferences in the United States held under various names between 1951 and 1987. The conferences were the venue for presentations and papers representing "cumulative work in the omputerfield ...

, he met and got along with

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 ...

founder

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

. In Japan, Nishi worked with

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 ...

on developing the

PC-8001 The is a line of personal computers developed for the Japanese market by NEC. The PC-8001 model was also sold in the United States and Canada as the PC-8001A. Original models of the NEC PC-8001B (or sometimes the NEC PC-8000) were also sold in so ...

, an early consumer-ready personal computer not requiring assembly, which became a standard in Japan, and was involved in the design of the Kyotronic 85 which, sold to Radio Shack, became the TRS-80 Model 100, an early

laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

computer. Nishi's relationship with Bill Gates helped ASCII Corporation to grow.

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

, a new personal computer format, was jointly developed by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation for the Japanese market. But Nishi and Gates fell out, the partnership was dissolved in 1986, and Microsoft set up its own Japanese software subsidiary. But ASCII Corporation continued to thrive. Under Nishi's direction, ASCII Corporation invested heavily in American startups in the electronics industry. By 1992 ASCII Corporation was heavily in debt and its stock price collapsed. At the direction of the

Ministry of International Trade and Industry The was a ministry of the Government of Japan from 1949 to 2001. The MITI was one of the most powerful government agencies in Japan and, at the height of its influence, effectively ran much of Japanese industrial policy, funding research and di ...

, the Industrial Bank of Japan and other banks bailed out the company, which rebounded. ASCII Corporation became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, and became

ASCII Media Works ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

. After 1986, Nishi wrote for

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s and authored a number of books. He sat in several committees on behalf of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and of the

, and he is a member of the

Committee for World Economy in the 21st Century A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

. Nishi is the president of MSX Association, a private organization originating from an assembly of people with affinity with the MSX standard, and the president of

Digital do MaiN is a Japanese audio engineering company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company name emphasises symbiosis of analog and digital technologies (implemented, for example, in a volume control subsystem); the logo symbolizes an input pin ...

, audio engineering company. In 2005, Nishi ran unsuccessfully for president of a small university in rural Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nishi, Kazuhiko 1956 births Living people Japanese businesspeople People from Kobe