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nihongo

With its Author
Last update : May 27, 2001

Gathering photo taken with the camera in my left hand.

Recently, Takamichi, the webmaster of this site, met Lex Lechz/Rudolf Lechleitener (pronounced Ru-do-l-f Le-f-lei-te-naa, shortened Rudi (cute-sounding)), the author of RuMSX who lives in Austria (somewhere not Australia; Osterreich if spelled properly).

I was doing a tourist in Wien (Vienna) the megacity for a few days. I used to think all Austrians are Schwarzeneggers, but in reality they were small people who largely resemble Japanese (I often mistook "another Japanese tourist here... no, he/she's blond") and this country was where the legion of Mozarts and Mari-Antoinettes were licking ice cream in the cafes (outdoor catering stools) in middle of the day and were munching "Wien specialty sushi" (hey what happened to Japanese pride?) which was served once every 100 meters. The food were extraordinarily cheap, half the price and double the amount compared to Japan, beer being 50 yen but water being 200 yen and carbonated thus agitating thirst even more, so I almost died from the humid hotness that exceeded 30 degrees centigrade. Some of the photos taken in Wien :
One of the magazines. I have no idea what's this trying to say.

In manga shop in Mariaphilferstrasse, a Wien version of Harajuku-Takeshitadoori shopping mall in Japan.

The shopkeeper slices ham and sausage with plane and sell you.

More than one of these statues were in the station.I cannot think of what to say.

German (I heard pronunciation differs a lot from Germany but I don't know) is the official Austrian language, but I never knew any German before, so I managed to survive by effort such as forcibly converting the sounds to Dutch, and in the end I left Wien - imperial capital of the Hapsburg empire, the queer city where gay magazines are openly sold in the streets - in May 4th of 2001, and reached Carinthia (Karntel, where "I'm the queer neonazi" Haider rules despite lack of any support (laughter)) capital city Klagenfurt (pronounced k-la-ke-n-fu-ru-t. Population : 90000. Size is inferior to Villach the adjacent city).
Up until then Rudi used to pronounce my name Takami "hi" (because in German all "ch" is pronounced "h").

Dragon dude in the central square. You can hear unknown music every morning.

Later in the hotel, we opened my laptop and discussed on current task in the RuMSX development. I also asked about symbols on my PC windows, for instance "x" in the windows and check boxes had turned into peculiar jumbles, but it seemed that font-related things went completely haywire, and we couldn't fix my problem.
And, next day, we decided to go sightseeing a nearby castle. I did not blow alpine horn all the way, but I did if I had one.;)

Hochosterwitz castle report here

Two too happy dudes.

In the restaurant at the summit.

Gulaschsuppe (sort of minestrone that tastes of curry) and sort of dumpling with cheeses stuffing (I heard this is kind of traditional dish, but looked strikingly Chinese to me) kicked ass.
After poking at every facilities situated, feeling insecure at the rock which crumbled when I grabbed, and taking photos of me swinging the miniature sword I bought at the souvenir shop while shouting "Angriff!" ("Charge!"; looks some father really liked it because he was repeating same in front of his son),
A 9th century throne built in middle of the field. Heavily corroded by rainfall.
we headed (Austrian cars are really small by the way, for instance Skoda) to Rudi's home (a large public rent house), and I met his girlfriend Gabi.
I heard, that while usually in initial part of an MSX image, there are two bytes which correspond "AB" then the address of the location where program resides, such address pointer does not exist in the Harry Fox Yuki no Mao image, therefore the program location address is not recognizable by standard procedure, so he's developing another detection routine now. (Related information was submitted by ATARULUM)

I sometimes pretend I am drawing artist, so I was always considering how cool it will be if I could use my WACOM tablet with Graphsaurs kind of MSX drawing software which is running on RuMSX. So I asked him to modify on the spot, but how much he tried RuMSX can only recognize keyboard as the "mouse" device,
<- There's no mouse or tablet with 109 buttons.

Us concentrating into development.
Scribble I drew from behind. ;)

and failed. I changed the tablet setting in various ways, but to no avail.
According to Rudi, RuMSX cannot properly recognize non-Direct-X-supported mice either.

If you know solution or a tablet that can be recognized, INFORM ME!

We mutually ICQed in a same room, he showed me case of the RuMSX development kit CD,
<- He made this image using one Win3.1 application. Quite artistic in my opinion.

I showed off the drawings I scribbled so far (what do I think I am, fool?), and he showed me the old MSX books used in the German speaking region.

THE MSX RED BOOK, the technical document released 1985 in UK. Digitized version is available everywhere.

Young Nishi Kazuhiko signing autograph for author of the German book. ;)

And I asked him when did the RuMSX development start, and he replied it was 1997. I knew him since August of 1997, which was pretty soon after the start of the development, to think of it. The time flies fast. To recall, RuMSX was yet to be disclosed then, and even the turboR emulation wasn't complete.

Later we decided to go to dinner, and came to one inn in the deep of Alps, a sort where the bugbear guised as innkeeper eats guest in some fairytale. Some unknown woman talked to me in German and I answered irrelevantly and angered her. Well, I ordered what I heard as "Carinthian special" (800 yen),
and I received what is regarded as four person's serving in Japan (laughter). Boiled pork with horse radish, a very non-Japanese combination of the typical Japanese food, tasted pretty handsome anyway. However, the schnapps liquid situated in middle of the plate which they told me as throat-clearer tasted purely alcohol and hurt my throat (sob).
I did my best and managed to eat half of the dish, but I had to bring rest wrapped in aluminum foil. I compliment myself for finishing all of them in the end. Everything Austrian, including that hamburg (Salisbury steak) Rudi was eating, tastes Japanese in one way the other.
But there's not fatso which are plentiful in other Western countries, Austrians are thinner than Japanese, though none of them leave food on the plate! Illogical, they eat so lot!
We took a memorial photo in a lake ("see"), and I said good bye to Rudi and Gabi.

Not only in Wien, but even in this 90000-population Klagenfurt, the shop windows are fully lit even in the midnight, and there were so many lingerie shops (does anyone know why?).

"Geisha"? Don't be silly. And there was a poster featuring Japanese doll next to this.

Toy shop called "Mini haus". Some goods were of purely Japanese version

I left Austria next day.

So far, this trip was pretty impressive to me, in the way that Austria the country where everyone is practically (though maybe not exactly money-ridden) nobleperson, was unexpectedly somewhat Japan-ish.
I would like to keep my eye on RuMSX, which is still vigorously being developed in the Alps mountains, the world of folklore.