Display Japanese text on a HPLX Palmtop
(Minimum configuration)

How to set up

  1. Add the following line to your CONFIG.SYS
    device=c:\bin\fontman.exe -b5 -fc:\bin\fontman.ini -d

    This line loads FONTMAN.EXE (Japanese font manager) with following options:

    -b
    buffer size. '-b5' is 5 KB.
    -f
    filespec for the initialization file, FONTMAN.INI in C:\BIN\ directory in this example.
    -d
    disable direct RAM access. (if you have the 100/200LX from early days, when 2MB RAM was the maximum, you can remove this option for faster access. If you have relatively new HPLX, whose memory configuration is different, you should put this option).

  2. Your fontman init file FONTMAN.INI should contain the following three lines:
    [fontx2]
    c:\font\akagi11a.fnt
    c:\font\akagi11k.fnt

    This tells FONTMAN.EXE to handle the FONTX2 format font files AKAGI11A.FNT (single byte character set) and AKAGI11K.FNT (double byte character set) placed in C:\FONT\ directory.

  3. Add the following line to your autoexec.bat, before loading System Manager.
    c:\bin\dsp14a -s11

    This line loads a display manager DSP14A.COM with -s11 (use 11-dot height font) option. (Note: Some people may also want to add option -k to enable the display of half-width katakana)

  4. Reset the system by CTRL-ALT-DEL. Start System Manager. Open any Japanese text for a test).

Note: If you are not always using Japanese language, you can enter "dsp14a -s11" to load the display manager before running a Japanese application and enter "dsp14a -r" to remove it after the usage.

Where to find the necessary files

  1. FONTMAN.EXE
    This font manager is created by MeW, the author of MaxDOS. The latest version (Version 1.2.9, 18-Nov-1994) is available here.
  2. AKAGI11K.FNT and AKAGI11A.FNT
    This beautiful Akagi Font, optimized for use on the LCD screen of the 100/200LX, is designed by Hiroyuki Kobayashi. Its version 3 (March 6, 1996) package is available here. The latest POP style version (Ver 3.8, June 20, 1998, with Comic Sans flavor) is available separately from:
  3. DSP14A.COM
    This is a patched version of DSP14.COM, a display manager created by Yoshihiro Hanaoka (Maruha), the author of EXkey. The latest version (Ver 0.02A, 1994) is available here.

    After downloading the archive and extracted DSP14.COM, you should apply the patch (DS14TO11.PAT) as follows.

    1. Place DS14TO11.PAT and DSP14.COM in the same directory.
    2. Move to that directory with CD command.
    3. Enter "debug dsp14.com < ds14to11.pat"
    This will create DSP14A.COM from DSP14.COM. (This patch changes the acceptable font height range (in dots) of '-s' option from "12,14,16" to "11,12,16".) This patch is created by Cyno and included in the document of Akagi Font. 
    ==== DS14TO11.PAT ====
f 010d 012c 00
e 02ff 5d
m 02f7 030b 02f4
e 0309 41 90 90
e 0407 18
e 041e 5d
e 0421 18
m 0416 042a 0413
e 0428 41 90 90
e 056e 0b
f 06bd 06e4 00
e 06bd 00 01 01 00 01
n dsp14a.com
w
q
==== End DS14TO11.PAT ====

Limitations

  1. This procedure enables only the "display" of Japanese language. The "entry" of Japanese words is a totally different story.
  2. This FONTMAN/DSP14 method works only in System Manager applications. It works also in PAL applications, which uses system fonts. It does not work on DOS applications.
Toshiki Sasabe