AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE WORDTANK For the last couple of months I have been using what I believe is a viable alternative to the Canon Wordtank as a hand-held electronic dictionary. I have decided to put together a detailed posting on this alternative. The system I have been using is the HP 100LX Palmtop PC, a hand-held and fully functional PC measuring about 16x8cm. Onto this I have loaded my JDIC & JREADER programs and the EDICT, etc. dictionary files. JDIC performs well on this system, to the extent that I now only use my trusty old WT (8500 plus upgrade card) on the rare occasions when a word I want is not in EDICT. (It usually isn't in the Wordtank either). A few words about the Palmtop. It comes with many Mb of preloaded software: Lotus123, database, editor, HP Calculator. CCMail, Phonebook, Appointment manager, XTREE-like Filer, Stopwatch, etc. All this is in a "D:" drive in ROM. The basic systems have 1M of CMOS of which 640K is DOS's memory and the rest a RAMdrive (C:). In an expansion slot (A:) goes a 8x5x0.5cm "Flashdisk"; I have a 10M version, which comes with Stacker installed, so there is plenty of capacity for JDIC etc. The processor is an 80186, which seems to perform at about the speed of a 12Mhz 8088. There is an Application Manager which looks after programs through Icons and pop-down menus, or you can run programs from the DOS prompt. Curiously, powering the system off only turns off the display, the applications stay there. I have only rebooted twice. The Palmtop has a CGA display. Unlike earlier models, the 100LX has a full 80x25 line screen, i.e. 640x200 pixels in high-res CGA. I have always found the aspect ratio of high-res CGA pretty poor for display of the 16x16 kana/kanji, but the crisp LCD of the Palmtop combined with the rather flat aspect ratio make the display every bit as good as a monochrome VGA. The Palmtop has a serial port and built-in Kermit, Xmodem, etc. protocols. An optional Connectivity Pack enables files to be copied back and forth between a PC and a Palmtop, and for them to access each others files. It also contains PC versions of many of the applications. Of course, the keyboard (full QWERTY) is tiny, and you can forget about two-handed touch typing. I have developed a one-handed "hunt-and-pick" which works well, particularly as it has a "sticky" Shift key. With the Palmtop and CGA in mind, I have made some format changes in version 2.4 of JDIC and JREADER (now in beta-test), mainly to get the maximum information into the reduced screen size. Also I added some features which I understand have also appeared in the latest (8xxx?) version of the Wordtank. Among them are: saving & retrieval of the last 10 search keys, a "jump search" where the key comes from a display line, and the ability to log entries to a file for later review. The kanji selection via bushu also now has an option to specify the stroke count. So how do they compare? Well I have not seen the latest Wordtank, which I hear is quite improved, so this comparison is largely limited to the earlier models. SIZE: almost the same. The Palmtop is a bit thicker (about 2.5cm), and heavier, and has the typical tough HP case. It runs on a pair of AA batteries, & has an external 110/230V adaptor which can charge NiCads in situ. The Palmtop screen is more than twice as large, and with the smaller size of displayed characters packs a lot more information. PRICE: not surprisingly the Palmtop is quite a bit more expensive. I don't know the US price, but extrapolating the Australian, I expect it is about $US850, plus a couple of hundred more for the Flashdisk. Bear in mind, though, that for this you get a LOT more than a just a Wordtank, you are getting a PC with a lot of built-in applications, including a copy of Lotus123. JDIC, EDICT, etc. are, of course, free. DICTIONARY: EDICT & KANJIDIC total about 3.5M, which is somewhat less than the Wordtank's claimed dictionary. However the 7200/8500 had separate E->J and J->E dictionaries, which was wasteful. JDIC can access the full JIS 1 & 2 sets, whereas many are missing from the Wordtank. From my observation, there is not much in the Wordtank which is not now in EDICT, and EDICT's English translations are much more complete. Both can access kanji via reading, bush and/or stroke counts. JDIC also accesses by JIS code, KUTEN, Nelson and Halpern nos. KANJIDIC's collection of readings seems much more comprehensive than those in the Wordtank. Also, JDIC, EDICT, etc. are being regularly upgraded, and thus the Palmtop option can improve for no extra outlay. SPEED: the Wordtank is much faster. The typical word search on the Palmtop takes an average of 4 seconds (cf 2.2 on my 16Mhz 386). This may reduce if Stacker were disabled. Kanji searches take about a second, but a full screen takes about 3 seconds to paint. This is understandable, given the general nature of the Palmtop vs the ASICs in the Wordtank. OTHER APPLICATIONS: The address book, phone-list and calculator in the Palmtop are infinitely superior to those on the Wordtank. Really the applications do not compare, as the Palmtop is packed with goodies. I find the Appointment system very impressive, particularly in the way it can migrate the details back and forth between the Palmtop and a PC. I often carry my Palmtop in my coat packet, and find it very convenient to use the built-in editor (Memo) for jotting down notes, drafting text, etc. I have also loaded the JREADER program on board, and to prove it was possible, downloaded a copy of the Genji Monogatari. A bit meaty reading for train journeys, but feasible. I also installed a copy of MOKE, which is the only wa-puro I know of for vanilla PCs which can function on a CGA. MOKE works fine. It gave me quite a buzz to enter kanji and kana text on such a tiny system, but it does it well. (I believe there is a localized version of the HP Memo program available in Japan, but I have no details of it.) I realize this is partly blowing my own trumpet, but I strongly recommend that people who are thinking about buying a hand-held electronic dictionary consider the Palmtop as an alternative. With JDIC, etc installed it performs, I think, every bit as well as a Wordtank, and in some aspects a lot better. Also it is a far more versatile system, with all the potential of a full PC, as well as having many good application packages. I think HP have done an amazing job of packing so much into such a small container. After all, can you imagine a Wordtank that is also Japanese word-processor, runs Lotus and has a full-function HP Business Calculator. [Author's note: I wrote this article in November 1993 while on sabbatical in France, and posted it on the sci.lang.japan newsgroup. Since then the HP100LX has moved on, with the 2Mb model, and now the 200LX. Versions 2.4 of JDIC and JREADER were released in February 1994, and included a few features which made them friendlier on the Palmtop.] Jim Breen (jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au) Monash University, Australia August 1994. July 1999 Update. Well the HP100/200LX series are getting harder to obtain, and many people are using other PDAs such as the WindowsCE hamdhelds & palmtops. I have heard that JDIC & JREADER work OK on a WinCE system if you use a 80186 emulator. There is one available for $US40 from: http://www.xt-ce.com This is not an endorsement; just passing on the comment. Jim Breen jwb@csse.monash.edu.au Monash University, Australia July 1999.