OMRON SOFTWARE: What’s Wnn

Solution of embedded software design for mobile appliances

Where does Wnn come from?

Wnn was jointly developed by Kyoto University, Omron Co. and Astec Co. in 1985 and launched in 1987 as a kana-kanji conversion system on UNIX systems.

The Wnn system was able to convert the entire sentence at once, which was considered innovative technology at that time. " Wnn"stands for "Watashino Namaeha Nakanodesu".

History

1985	Development of Wnn as a kana-kanji conversion system began Omron, Kyoto Univ. and other organizations jointly begin developing software to create an environment on UNIX systems that would enable users to convert a phrase range mixed with kana and kanji.
1989	Worldwide standardization Wnn 4 is adopted as a Japanese input system in a standardized package format for X11R4, a UNIX-standard Windows operating system.
1991	Multilingualization (1) Chinese input system Wnn 4.1 developed.
1991	Multilingualization (2) Omron Software develops Korean input system Wnn 4.2.
1995	Commercialization Omron accepts Wnn products for sale, including support services, and Wnn 6 is released onto the market. Sun Microsystems, Inc., SGI Japan, Ltd. and IBM Japan adopt Wnn 6 as the standard Japanese input system for their Japanese UNIX systems.
1996	Wnn for Windows 95 released Omron Software releases the multilingual input system Wnn 95 series for Windows 95.
1997	Wnn for Linux and Java released Omron Software quickly adopts Linux, which had begun to gain popularity, and releases Wnn 6 for Linux/BSD, and also develops Wnn 6 for Java.
1998	Wnn for Network Computers Various network computers are released in order to reduce the total cost of large-scale network systems. Omron Software develops Wnn 6 for network computers.
1999	Wnn for mobile appliances Omron Software develops Mobile Wnn to meet growing demands for a high-performance Japanese input system for mobile appliances, PHSs and PDAs.
2000	Wnn for computer games and home electronic appliances Omron Software develops Mini Mobile Wnn for Japanese input on computers and other information devices with limited system capacity, including computer game software and audio-visual equipment.
2001	Next-generation input system Wnn 7 for Linux released. Omron Software releases Wnn 7 Personal, with functions that anticipate what character users will input next, and shows converted examples before completing input. The Wnn input system evolves from efficient conversion to efficient input.

Glossary

Wnn	A phrase range kana/kanji conversion system on UNIX developed by Omron, Kyoto Univ. and other organizations. Hoping to develop an accurate conversion system, their goal for the system was for it to convert the phrase range Watashino Namaeha Nakanodesu (or "Wnn") at one time. See above for a detailed history.
PDA	An acronym for personal digital assistant, it is a handheld computer that fuses the functions of home electronic appliances and computers.
Client-server	A computing architecture in which users send requests from a client and receive answers from a server. The servers manage the data and maintenance environment for software utilities.
Multilingual	Usually, "multilingual" means speaking or using several different languages. But in our case, it means languages other than Japanese available on Wnn input systems, including Chinese, Korean and English.
Mobile	Originally meaning to be able to move or travel about easily, Wnn uses this feature as a product name for its kana/kanji conversion system for mobile appliances.
IME	An acronym for input method editor. This application software is designed to input non-alphabetic characters such as kana and kanji for countries like Japan and China.
OCR	An acronym for optical character reader, it is a technology consisting of a scanner and equipment comprising an optical character reader (or computer software).

| OMRON Co., Ltd. | Contact Us |