Mac OSX + 17,500 Kanji

[Stephen Cremin]

I didn't catch Steve Job's keynote in Tokyo but I believe he announced that Mac OSX (out 24 March) would be supplied with Japanese fonts representing 17,500 kanji. Presumably, Mac OSX is using Unicode to represent text internally. I database information in Japanese (as well as Chinese and Korean) and I generally takes the lowest common denominator approach. I approximate characters to what can be displayed back to me [in the Japanese version of Mac OS8.0 running various language kits], with a note of the correct Unicode codepoint for future reference. Another factor that dictates how accurately I store kanji correctly is what I can expect to present to people over the internet. Presumably using UTF8 encoding, other Mac OSX users who install the Japanese fonts can now display these 17,500 kanji leading to greater accuracy in online information. But, of course, Mac OS X will still be a minority even among Mac users for the next year or more. Forgive me for being so insular, but what is the situation in the non-Mac world? How many characters can the typical Japanese-enabled UNIX or IBM compatible handle? I understand that different fonts may not render all codepoints, but what is typical for a pre-installed Japanese user's system in the non Mac-world? And what changes are taking place in the near future? I don't want a Mac vs IBM vs UNIX debate, just an idea that as a web developer, how many kanji can I presume to work with and in what timeframe? And any announcements from Apple on Chinese and Korean fonts? If this 17,500 kanji refers to a specific "Unicode font" then I presume there are various Chinese, Japanese and Korean flavours. And what other advances are there in Mac OSX in terms of tagging unicode to aid sorting, etc? It would be more than wonderful if I could assume that every "carbonised" application will allow me to sort in my choice of language and its variants [North Korean sort order, South Korean sort order, etc], search two-byte text reliably, searching two-byte text "intelligently" (allowing for semantically correct variants, allowing for commonly mistaken kanji, etc), etc? But I'm not so optimistic. Stephen Cremin