NEC M-System keyboard

By Xah Lee. Date: 2014-02-28. Last updated: 2019-12-15.

In 1983, NEC 日本電気 came out with a new keyboard and new Japanese input system, called M-system (M式 aka M-type).

M-system is designed by Dr. Masasuke Morita at NEC.

M-system is 2 things:

A efficient Japanese input system. It's a romanji input system. (you type English Letter then convert to kata (Japanese alphabet)) The English letter arrangement is optimized for either kana.
A physical keyboard design.

Note that the vowels {E, U, I, A, O} are all on the left hand home row.

Other M-system Designs

Over the years, there are several M-system keyboard designs.

[【NEC】 Keyboard based on new input system (M system) 2013-01-21 By Information Processing Society Of Japan. At http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/word/0027.html ]

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