New find - NEC "mini7 GX" word processor

I was at a recent vehicle auction at the Volunteers of America (to look at the single-engine "experimental" one-seat airplane (that sold for ~$3600) and ran across an 1977 electronic sub-hunt game from Milton Bradley and an NEC mini7 GX dedicated word processor. I picked up the electronic game because it was 75% off green-tags day (making the game about $0.67) and I picked up the word processor because it came complete with all docs, spare floppies (720K 3.5"), spare ribbon, and an unused sheet feeder. Oh... I should mention... the docs and all the onscreen messages are in Japanese. It's my second Japanese WP (the first is a portable Sharp I got at a hamfest, but I've never found ribbons for it). After an extensive search on the web, all I could find (including on Japanese web pages) were a couple of translating utilities and a web page for a company that does media conversions. I do read _some_ Japanese (thus the interest in a word processor), but not much Kanji (a few, but mostly I read Katakana and Hirigana). The slim "getting started" guide is somewhat helpful, mostly because of all the pictures and labels in kana. Nevertheless, I am finding it quite difficult to get started with this thing. Has anyone on the list ever seen an NEC mini7? There are several models, some with dual floppy, some with floppy and hard disk (and, I think, a mini5 that may have dual floppy _plus_ hard disk). At this point, I can only read about 60% of the keyboard (lots of function keys, but I think I've figured out "shifuto" and "supeesu" ;-) The copyright dates in the docs and on screen indicate that this was made around 1986-1987. I haven't disassembled it yet (I've barely had time to power it on), but I'm guessing it has a V20 or similar processor in it. There is an optional RS-232 opening in the back (blank on mine) and a what appears to be a 36-pin centronics connector for an external printer as well as a smaller connector nearby that I'm guessing goes to the sheet feeder. *Any* information on this or something similar would be helpful. If I had a way to input kanji into Babelfish, I'd start translating keytops and phrases in the manual. I've been making a list of certain kanji I see over and over again and figure I'll need to learn. Thanks, -ethan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/