Thread on Japanese computer industry:
It's surreal watching this. In the 80 and very early 90s, Japan was the 2nd largest PC market. The term "IBM compatible PC" didn't exist (well not until at least Windows 95). Seriously, PCs that did run some sort of MSDOS were localised (1/n)

And had major differences such as "\\" being replaced with "¥" and "C:\\" always assigned as "A:\\". Monitors had strange refresh rates (56khz vertical and 24khz horizontal), motherboards had dedicated "Chinese character creation" chips, I/O was propriatary (2/n)

and every company had their own operating system that was incompatible eg: The Sharp X68000 will not work with any software designed for the MSX or Windows 3.0 for the PC98. (3/n)

The Nip scare was real. People back then really thought Japanese computers would overtake the world as they had done with cameras, cars, tvs and other consumer electronics. Fast forward to 2020, my PC contains ABSOLUTELY NO Japanese components whatsoever. (4/n)

Japan has completely and utterly been blown by Chinese, Korean and American hardware and software manufacturers. Why is that? Why couldn't they stay relevant? (5/n)

Looking at old Japanese computers, it seriously was fascinating to see this entire ecosystem completely separate from the rest of the world.
Japan used to be the 2nd largest PC market. Now they're completely irrelevant. (6/n)

American TV series "The Computer Chronicles" episode which was broadcasted in 1984, examines Japanese computers and the various reasons they failed to establish a strong market share overseas. (7/n)