Description

Hardware

The Sony HBS-B012D package called Japanese Word Processor - Document Writer (日本語ワープロ・文書作左衛門) is also known as Bunsyo Sakuzaemon (ぶんしょさくざえもん).

It is a professional application, developed by Brøderbund Japan and released in 1988 by Sony. It includes

a program disk
a second disk containing a collection of about 100 illustrations
a manual

This Japanese Word Processor requires a MSX2 or higher computer with built-in or external MSX-JE + Kanji-ROM (JIS1 + optionally JIS2).

Launch price: ¥6,800

A version with only the program disk was provided with the Sony HB-F1XV MSX2+ computer.

Software

Function keys give access to submenus:

F1 = Input (JIS Code - Character Selection - Ruled Line (Bold) - Ruled Line (Thin) - Erase Ruled Lines - Page Break)
F2 = Font Size (Half Size - Full Width - Double Height - Double Width - Quadruple Width)
F3 = Character Decoration (None - Underline - Overline - Italic - Outline - Shading)
F4 = Edit (Cut - Copy - Paste - Left Margin - Centering - Right Margin)
F5 = Document (Load - Insert - Save - Print - Delete All Text - Quit)
F6 = Display (First Page - Last Page - Page Setting - Layout - Search - Replace)
F7 = Configuration (Roma/Kana - Full Width/Half Width - Document Format - Tab Position - Screen Colors)
F8 = Disk (Format - Utilities)
F9 = Illustration (Edit - Paste - Display)
F10 = Dictionary (Load Short Sentence - Save Short Sentence - Delete Short Sentence - Save in Dictionary - Delete from Dictionary - Save Extra Character)

The kana-kanji conversion can be made at any moment by pressing the spacebar.

F2/F3 options and some F1 options are available only after having used the SELECT key to determine the type of concerned characters (Hiragana, Katakana, Half Size, English Characters).

The Illustration Edit option also uses the function keys whose role can change according the work step:

F1 = Drive or Load (File or JIS Code)
F2 = File Names or Edit (use of SELECT key before is required for active access in most cases)
F3 = Call File
F4 = Delete
F5 = Save

Functions keys are used in the Illustration Paste option too: F1 = Paste - F2 = Select - F3 = Size - F4 = Display.

The Disk Utilities menu has 5 options:

Disk Backup
Document Save
Document Delete
Conversion of Kan Juku Tomato Documents - info about this JWP: see Sony HBS-B004D
Conversion of Wordship Documents.

Notes:

The default color scheme is not handy, at least on emulators. You can fix that by pressing F7, then selecting Screen Colors to choose a better color scheme.
MSX-DOS 1 is included on the program disk. To run it, you need to press CTRL+STOP when booting with the disk in drive A, this to avoid the launching of the Word Processor.
From the Word Processor, you can access MSX-DOS by pressing F5, then choosing the Quit option. If you want to go back to the Word Processor, just enter TITLE or MSXWP on the command line.