M-system

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Left hand M-system key cluster on an NEC PC-8801-KI keyboard

The M-system, M-type layout or M-shiki is an input system for Japanese, especially Kanji, based on the phonetic composition of Japanese words.

Unlike JIS it could be touch-typed on a keyboard with three rows and five columns for each hand. The Shift keys were used for shifting between short and long phonetics. Unlike the Nicola and TRON systems it was based not on Kana but on Romaji (spelling Japanese using Latin script) which made it more compact and so it did not require different left and right Shift keys.

It was developed by Morita Masasuke at NEC, which introduced it in 1983 for the PC-8800 series of personal computers.<ref name="ipsj" /> NEC's keyboards had either columnar layout, symmetric staggering or even split matrix layout.<ref name="impress" />

Q E Ek

L U Uk

J I Ik

F A Ak

C O Ok

@ "

[ {

M M My

Y R Ry

R Y

W W

P P Py

E e En

U u Un

I i In

A a An

O o On

' *

] }

K K Ky

S S Sy

T T Ty

N N Ny

H Hy

Ei Et

X Un Ut

V Ii It

Ai At

Ou Ot

/ ?

, <

G G Gy

Z Z Zy

D D

. > h

B B By

(Romaji in bold.)

External links

• Esrille: Japanese Key Layouts
• DigiTech Labs: 写真で見るＭ式キーボードの歴史 (History of M-type keyboard seen in photos)

Forum threads

• Deskthority—NEC PC-9801-98-S02. Posted by hasu on 2013-02-22.

References

<references> <ref name="impress">PC Watch — 写真で見る歴史的なコンピュータ。～「情報技術のエポック展」レポート (Japanese only) Retrieved 2015-07-15.</ref> <ref name="ipsj">IPSJ Computer Museum — 【NEC】 Keyboard based on new input system (M system). Retrieved 2015-07-15.</ref> </references>