Zaurus Otaku Kurabu

Z O K

- Zaurus PDA Dictionary Extension: The World in your Pocket -

Synopsis

We put together the one and only truely useful Japanese-German and Japanese-English electronic dictionary. Other languages can be handled in the same way.
A useful electronic dictionary tool for foreigners in Japan should have the following functions:

Chinese character entry through handwriting recognition
A search function to find kanji script, pronunciation and the translation of a given word
True pocket size
Sufficient vocabulary to read any Japanese newspaper
Flexibility to add additional languages and specialized vocabulary

The SHARP Zaurus is the only device that fulfills points 1-3. To teach it points 4 and 5, installed additional dictionary files. The largest of the 10 or so dictionaries available has 1 mio. entries.

Why don't you have a look at the Screen shots before we start talking!

This page is to make it as easy as a few mouse clicks for you to get a dictionary into your shirt pocket. If you are good with computers and have time to spare, see the technical page with instructions how to install everything yourself for free.

You need

A Sharp Zaurus PDA (Model information)
A compact flash memory card (Size: 256MB recommended, 32MB minimum)
Dictionary software

How to

Assemble and order your machine below!
Visit the Operation Guide and print or bookmark the page until your machine arrives.
That's all. Professional translators and scholars will envy you!

Recommended Sets: S - simple / D - dictionary hero / P - professional
(Recommendation based on my subjective judgement of utility vs. cost.)

Item	Size, Price	Comment	Set
Zaurus Models
MI-P10	11000 Yen	Tiny but powerful, yet cheap - unfortunately running out of stock quickly. Ask whether it is still available.	S D
MI-E1	19000 Yen	Display backlight, multimedia (MP3 and MPEG player) Comes loaded with sample files: an MP3 song, courtesy of MineJazz, E-books by Natsume Soseki and the windows-like file manager Tree Explorer Plus by Taku Sato	P
MI-E21	37000 Yen	Improved user friendlyness and multimedia functions Comes with same sample files as the E1	P
MI-E25DC	45000 Yen	With digital camera, slightly thicker case, otherwise technically identical to E21. Comes with the same sample files.
SL-A300	37000 Yen	Japanese LINUX machine with excellent kanji handwriting recognition, the smallest full scale PDA on the market (as of Aug. 2002). For geeks only! You can tweak it into displaying English menues and install dictionaries on it, but you have to do it yourself. Read the FAQs!
Other Linux		SL-B500, SL-C700: As for the SL-300, installation service is not available but we can help you get it shipped overseas. Please inquire.
WindowsCE		Click if you already own a Windows CE/Pocket PC machine
Dictionaries		Note: For CD-ROM dictionaries, the price of the CD-ROM is indicated. For copyrihgt reasons, you have to purchase the original CD-ROM unless you can prove me that you own the respective CD-ROM already. In other words, if you buy the CD-ROM on your own and give me a photocopy of the bill, I will give you the respective dictonary free of charge.
Jim Breen's EDICT family	28MB, free	EDICT basic and specialized dictinaries "the lot" (17MB) KanjiDIC (1MB) Names and Places (10MB) in J-E and E-J directions	S D P
Jean-Pierre Desperier's FDICT	3MB, free	Basically a translation of EDICT into French. The project is in progress, presently just short of 20 000 entries.
Paul Denisovsky and Erik Peterson's CEDICT family	2MB, free	Originally a Chinese-English dictionary with 23500 entries. I converted it to Japanese fonts, added an inverted English-Chinese file and trough out some of those Character entries which have no Japanese correspondent and therefore can't be displayed on the Zaurus.
Ulrich Apel's WaDokuJT	52MB, free	Japanese-German (24MB) German-Japanese (27MB)	D P
DING Engl-German-Engl.	9MB, free	by the free software community	D P
Eijiro	107MB, 2000 Yen	Japanese-English (52MB) English-Japanese (52MB) Giongo: Onomatopoetic Expressions (1MB) Abbreviations (2MB) If short of memory, the omatopoietics and abbreviations alone are a blast. The main dictionary is a matter of taste: Examples and repetitions clogg the tiny PDA screen.	S D P
Webster	27MB, free	Merriam Webster, 1913 edition (copyrigh expired) from Project Gutenberg. America's standard English-English dictionary.	D P
Kojien 広辞苑	37MB, 13000 Yen	Iwanami Kojien, THE standard Japanese-Japanese dictionary. Requires purchase of the CD-Rom for copyright reasons	D P
Nihonshi 日本史	10MB, 10000 Yen	Iwanami Nihonshi Jiten, dictionary of Japanese history (Japanese-Japanese). Requires purchase of the CD-Rom for copyright reasons	P
Crown Dokuwa	9MB, 8000 Yen	Sanseido's Crown German-Japanese, designed for Japanese users (no hiragana). Requires purchase of CD-ROM.
Custom made		If we have the time, we would like compile more dictionaries. Please inquire whether we can compile a dictionary of our choice. We have made good experiences with EPWING CD-ROMS, so check whether they offer what you need. Because the Zaurus uses only the Japanese character set Shift-JIS, other scripts (Korean or Russian, German umlauts, French accents ...) cannot be displayed.
Memory Cards
32 MB	2000 Yen	For the EDICT family only, for example	S
64 MB	4000 Yen	Fits Wadoku and a bit (for example, EDICT's KanjiDIC and Names and Places)
128 MB	6000 Yen
256 MB	11000 Yen	In most cases large enough to accomodate all the dictionaries you dream of plus a pile of E-books.	D P
512 MB	21000 Yen	Best price per megabyte. Fits all our dictionaries plus plenty of photos from you digital camera, MP3 files and backup data from your notebook computer.
1 GB	82000 Yen	Because of the high price, I havn't held one in my hand. So I can't guarantee the Zaurus can use it.
Installation Service	9000 Yen	Discounts are available for the purchase of several devices and for students.
Payment/Shipment		Shipment is half price if you order no machine but only a CF memory card and data or 1000 Yen for data only, on CD-ROM.
pick-up, cash	free	Pick it up at my place, namely around Nezu Station, Subway Chiyoda or Nishi Nippori, JR Yamanote line, in Tokyo.
Collect Mail	2000 Yen	You pay the post man when he brings you the parcel. Easy, quick and safe, but only possible in Japan.
EMS, postal money order	4000 Yen	Recommended overseas: Insured express mail.

All prices are approximate and include sales tax (5%). Tax-free purchase is not possible.
Memory card: Dictionary sizes are always rounded up. 1-2MB on the card should be left free for Zaurus system files. A bit of free memory space is never a mistake.

Finally, note that hardware prices tend to fall quicker than I update the page (date at the bottom). Especially high-end machines may in fact be cheaper than quoted. In any case, Prices may change without notice in either direction.

to assemble your machine

Dealers Welcome
So far, I have not been able to establish any firm relationship with any hardware supplier. I am looking for distributors dealers who are willing to supply any of the necessary hardware at a good price to me as well as to any visitors of this website. Of you have connections, please put me in touch!

Front Technical Download FAQ Examples Reviews

Updated August 23, 2002 by Armin Rump

Never mind:

Community Membership Banners

[前 | 次 | 偶 | 表 ]