Now that I live in Japan, I've come to learn that for Japanese Windows users, seeing the ¥ symbol as a path separator is normal, it isn't a quirk or a bug. In fact, IIRC the copy machine in the closest convenience store shows a ¥ as the path separator when browsing a USB drive, even though I'm almost certain it's not running Windows.
A few years back, I wrote a CTF challenge around this quirk of SHIFT_JIS. It used a python MySQLdb connection set to SHIFT_JIS mode and a custom naïve mysql escape function. The trick was to use a yen symbol and have it get interpreted as an unescaped backslash, leading to a SQL injection. Also it was all over websockets just to be annoying.
But you can always just use a different layout for your keyboard. So eve with a keyboard with physical key engravings in Japanese you could just use a US layout.
I remember seeing this when I was a CS research intern working at a major Japanese company in Kawasaki back in 2010. I'm from America, and this was my first time in Japan. At the company, our workstations ran Windows XP; I guess the company refused upgrading to Vista, and Windows 7 was not yet approved.
This article brought back two memories:
1. Learning how to code on a Japanese keyboard, where some of the symbols were in different locations, and where I needed to get used to having two small space bars instead of one single, long space bar. Eventually one of my coworkers introduced me to the Happy Hacking Keyboard (https://happyhackingkb.com), which is popular among programmers in Japan due to its typing feel and the fact it has a version with a US-style keyboard layout. I stuck with that keyboard for the rest of my internship.
2. Seeing ¥n in my code instead of \n.
Eventually I ended up installing a Linux virtual machine on my workstation that was localized to American English, though a big reason for this was because my internship project was writing a Linux kernel module. But I still needed to use my Japanese knowledge to use Microsoft Office and other programs on Windows.
My eight months in Kawasaki were among the best in my life. Since then I've been to Japan six more times, and I'm looking forward to visiting Japan again once it's reopen to tourism.
I remember wanting to buy the Happy Hacker keyboard around 15 years ago or so, although I never did. I love this quote from their website:
“Cowboys in the western United States leave their horses when they die. But never leave their saddles, regardless of how long they need to walk in the desert. Saddles are interfaces that are deeply adapted to our bodies whereas horses are consumable items. It should not be forgotten that computers are consumables nowadays, but keyboards are interfaces that we can use through our lives.”
This resonates with me because I decided that I’d use a laptop-sized keyboard and trackpad for all my computing, even at my desk (which is 95% of the time nowadays.)
The apple magic keyboard 2 (I think?) is nearly exactly the same size, layout, and key throw as the pre-2016 MacBook Pro scissor keyboards… and the Magic Trackpad does all the same gestures, etc.
Which means I can switch to my laptop at any time and not have to re-adjust to different ergonomics, everything’s more or less the same. I just can’t wait for my M1 pro max to ship, because I can’t stand the butterfly keyboard having such a different key throw and I’ll be back to more or less parity again.
Interesting - I actually switched to a small keyboard about a year ago because I was getting shoulder pain from my right arm hanging so far to the side so I could work the mouse. The smaller keyboard forces both of my arms closer to my body, and the chronic pain I had in my shoulder for a year or two has disappeared.
Now that a significant number of programmers use Mac keyboard, I frequently see people go for the "International" layout that is available from every Apple stores() for all keyboard including laptops. It's pretty close to the US layout, with a bigger entry key and two more keys as a bonus.
(
) in some store I think it's the "GB international". Also, it's such as shame all layouts aren't available from all countries, when in practice ordering a laptop means having it shipped from China anyway.
I think it’s partially a local inventory issue but more importantly reduces the chance the customer will accidentally order the wrong thing, at the cost of making an unusual case more complicated.
There are significant differences in what's on shift+numbers. Like ( is on 8 and ) on 9. (IIRC they are on 9 and 0 on US keyboards) Other non alphabetical keys have different location too.
I use the normal Portuguese keyboards but with the US intl layout.
Remnants from a time where my iBook g3 keyboard was US, and the Portuguese layout cost extra. I never got used to the Mac Portuguese layout either. Shortcut issues and some symbols in wrong places.
Makes computers easier to resell locally when I upgrade.
I just ordered the new MBP with US Keyboard from Apple Store in Japan. Default is Japanese JIS keyboard. Drop down selection for keyboard also had other localities and language options.
Oh man, I had a similar experience with the keyboard and a large Japanese company, but I just got used to it. Going back and forth between my laptop at the company dorm(!) and work was disorienting. Really liked being able to hit " without holding shift though. And I think @ was somewhere more reasonable? Too lazy to look it up right now but boy was that "fun". My memory's hazy, but I think my machine's language was set to en so at least I had normal backslashes.
In ex Yugoslavian keyboards, back in the days of DOS 3.x, the backslash was frequently usurped by the letter Đ.
It's 30 years later, I've been speaking and dreaming and internal monologuing in English longer than in my native language (whatever it might be:) - but I still mentally read c:\Program Files\my folder\my file.txt
As
See colon DJ program files DJ my folder DJ my file dot tee ex tee
(where DJ or Đ is closest pronounced as G in angel or Angelica though not quite)
I would say it's actually closer to DŽ; I just couldn't figure out the English equivalent late at night :->
I think Angelica, or perhaps Jeans or Jacob may be closer to Đ?
>>Does it vary by speaker?
Yes; and not only formally - it many parts of ex-Yu, a lot of people can't really distinguish between č and ć; and also dž and đ. (my dad has spoken the language(s) as a native for 75 years, yet though much more of a Canadian who barely remembers my initial tongue, I can still spell words like ćevapčići more consistently than him - some people just have a correct feel and others don't)
The funny part is that to this day, many places still show ¥ instead of \ in Japanese locales, even with UTF-8. Starting with the Windows command line prompt.
And on the opposite side, in a terminal, on macOS, hitting the ¥ key inputs a \, but not in other applications (including vscode), where you need to use option+¥ for a \.
(BTW, I have no idea how to type ¥ in the terminal on macos with a Japanese keyboard)
And conversely, because those users/developers see ¥, they think everyone else does too. I regularly get emails from Japanese shops with currency denominated in \.
I know a couple of people that went out of their way to have the yen backslash on their PC. It certainly is charming in a way. Kind of like how email addresses used to be written like:
Wow. I was today years old when I learned that Japan considers ￥ as the canonical directory separator.
I always saw this when I switched to Japanese and thought it was a display quirk of being the English version of whatever software and that a "real" version of Japanese Windows, or whatever, would have \'s.
Never stopped to consider that ￥ might be considered the canonical separator.
I remember changing my Windows XP machine to Japanese in order to learn the language (protip: try to learn the characters for the common things before doing this) and suddenly all my file paths had ¥ in them.
I thought I must have messed something up, it was very jarring to see. I think the yens everywhere were more of a reason for me to revert the change than the fact that I essentially locked myself out of changing any of the settings that I had not yet memorised...
More accurately, this is one of last artifacts from ISO/IEC 646 which allowed several punctuations to be replaced with local characters in domestic variants. Currency characters in particular commonly replaced # or $, but East Asian variants instead chose \ and that got stuck in their own multibyte character encodings.
Readit News
A few years back, I wrote a CTF challenge around this quirk of SHIFT_JIS. It used a python MySQLdb connection set to SHIFT_JIS mode and a custom naïve mysql escape function. The trick was to use a yen symbol and have it get interpreted as an unescaped backslash, leading to a SQL injection. Also it was all over websockets just to be annoying.
There's a few nice writeups from it:
https://www.kernelpicnic.net/2016/03/06/BKPCTF-Wonderland-Go...
https://0day.work/boston-key-party-ctf-2016-writeups/
https://security.szurek.pl/en/boston-key-party-ctf-2016-good... (this one has the original challenge source)
Also for people working in many Japanese MNCs.
This article brought back two memories:
1. Learning how to code on a Japanese keyboard, where some of the symbols were in different locations, and where I needed to get used to having two small space bars instead of one single, long space bar. Eventually one of my coworkers introduced me to the Happy Hacking Keyboard (https://happyhackingkb.com), which is popular among programmers in Japan due to its typing feel and the fact it has a version with a US-style keyboard layout. I stuck with that keyboard for the rest of my internship.
2. Seeing ¥n in my code instead of \n.
Eventually I ended up installing a Linux virtual machine on my workstation that was localized to American English, though a big reason for this was because my internship project was writing a Linux kernel module. But I still needed to use my Japanese knowledge to use Microsoft Office and other programs on Windows.
My eight months in Kawasaki were among the best in my life. Since then I've been to Japan six more times, and I'm looking forward to visiting Japan again once it's reopen to tourism.
“Cowboys in the western United States leave their horses when they die. But never leave their saddles, regardless of how long they need to walk in the desert. Saddles are interfaces that are deeply adapted to our bodies whereas horses are consumable items. It should not be forgotten that computers are consumables nowadays, but keyboards are interfaces that we can use through our lives.”
This resonates with me because I decided that I’d use a laptop-sized keyboard and trackpad for all my computing, even at my desk (which is 95% of the time nowadays.)
The apple magic keyboard 2 (I think?) is nearly exactly the same size, layout, and key throw as the pre-2016 MacBook Pro scissor keyboards… and the Magic Trackpad does all the same gestures, etc.
Which means I can switch to my laptop at any time and not have to re-adjust to different ergonomics, everything’s more or less the same. I just can’t wait for my M1 pro max to ship, because I can’t stand the butterfly keyboard having such a different key throw and I’ll be back to more or less parity again.
Interesting - I actually switched to a small keyboard about a year ago because I was getting shoulder pain from my right arm hanging so far to the side so I could work the mouse. The smaller keyboard forces both of my arms closer to my body, and the chronic pain I had in my shoulder for a year or two has disappeared.
(
) in some store I think it's the "GB international". Also, it's such as shame all layouts aren't available from all countries, when in practice ordering a laptop means having it shipped from China anyway.Remnants from a time where my iBook g3 keyboard was US, and the Portuguese layout cost extra. I never got used to the Mac Portuguese layout either. Shortcut issues and some symbols in wrong places.
Makes computers easier to resell locally when I upgrade.
It becomes second nature after awhile. If you can shift+1 to type !, you can spacebar+w to go up a line.
It's a feature of a font, it simply has ¥ glyph for the reverse solidus character. You should be able to get it back by using a different font.
It's 30 years later, I've been speaking and dreaming and internal monologuing in English longer than in my native language (whatever it might be:) - but I still mentally read c:\Program Files\my folder\my file.txt
As
See colon DJ program files DJ my folder DJ my file dot tee ex tee
(where DJ or Đ is closest pronounced as G in angel or Angelica though not quite)
At late 80s I had a Hercules graphics card where you could pick ASCII/YUSCII by flipping the switch on the back of the card.
Deleted Comment
Would you say the English sound is closer to Đ or DŽ? Does it vary by speaker?
Does Đ use the tip of the tongue, or the middle?
Đ - angel ("soft", tip of the tongue) DŽ - jeans ("hard", middle)
I think Angelica, or perhaps Jeans or Jacob may be closer to Đ?
>>Does it vary by speaker?
Yes; and not only formally - it many parts of ex-Yu, a lot of people can't really distinguish between č and ć; and also dž and đ. (my dad has spoken the language(s) as a native for 75 years, yet though much more of a Canadian who barely remembers my initial tongue, I can still spell words like ćevapčići more consistently than him - some people just have a correct feel and others don't)
And on the opposite side, in a terminal, on macOS, hitting the ¥ key inputs a \, but not in other applications (including vscode), where you need to use option+¥ for a \.
(BTW, I have no idea how to type ¥ in the terminal on macos with a Japanese keyboard)
fn+¥ works for me
eddie!STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM!CStacy@EDDIE.MIT.EDU
I always saw this when I switched to Japanese and thought it was a display quirk of being the English version of whatever software and that a "real" version of Japanese Windows, or whatever, would have \'s.
Never stopped to consider that ￥ might be considered the canonical separator.
I thought I must have messed something up, it was very jarring to see. I think the yens everywhere were more of a reason for me to revert the change than the fact that I essentially locked myself out of changing any of the settings that I had not yet memorised...