> Japan got trapped in the 90s, the fax era, and it is difficult to change The fax machine in Japan is always treated like it's proof they're stuck in a timewa

> Japan got trapped in the 90s, the fax era, and it is difficult to change The fax machine in Japan is always treated like it's proof they're stuck in a timewarp, an earlier age, and just haven't moved on. But I think it makes sense. Japan was introduced to fax technology early on. Japanese is traditionally written vertically. It is written with Chinese characters. In handwritten Japanese, people actually invent/modify characters on the spot. (Much as how Engl. text might be littered with randomly-invented abbr'vns.) They're not going to be able to enter those into a computer easily. Some Japanese newspapers were using traditional typesetting techniques right into the 21st century because vertical text support was, and largely still is, an afterthought in most publishing software. Software has only recently gotten to the point where it can replace a fax machine and handwriting, for reproducing Japanese texts in the manner the Japanese expect. Besides scanning/taking a photo of a page and emailing it, which isn't enough of an improvement to motivate the change. (Particularly as business faxes just end up digitized and emailed anyway.)