HuCard (Who Card or Hugh Card) You decide!

[NecroPhile]

Fun fact: My brother's character in the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was called Shidi Rommu. I was called HuCARD.

Ha!  Don't ever stop being awesome.

[ccovell]

Another fun fact: CD-ROM² is pronounced "CD ROM ROM"

Yes, that's an example of stupid Japanese "word math".

eg:

W = "double" (that's why "DOUBLE RING" and "Double Dungeons" have Ws on their title screens.)
word² is supposed to be read as wordword

:/

Although going by the above logic, CD ROM ROM should really be CD WROM.  Since ROM² would really be R*R+R*O+R*M+R*O+O*O+O*M+R*M+O*M+M*M.

[CrackTiger]

It's not stupid Japanese word math, it was just visionary marketing way ahead of its time. It took a few more years for America to catch on and start naming everything with exponents and replacing letters in the middle of words with numbers and the public apparently loves it.

[Psycho Punch]

W = double in japan??? Learn something new every day.

[schadenfreude]

W = "double" (that's why "DOUBLE RING" and "Double Dungeons" have Ws on their title screens.)

Cool, I didn't know about this. Here's a page with more interesting examples: http://legendsoflocalization.com/the-legend-of-the-mysterious-letter-w/

Although going by the above logic, CD ROM ROM should really be CD WROM.  Since ROM² would really be R*R+R*O+R*M+R*O+O*O+O*M+R*M+O*M+M*M.

I'd compute ROM² as ROMM. 

[ccovell]

replacing letters in the middle of words with numbers and the public apparently loves it.

Popularity will not suddenly make me consider something 'not stupid.'

[MisterCrash]

That sum would really be (R + O + M)^2.

That reminds me of the shortcut numbers that some companies use for their brand. For example, 765 for Namco (7 = nana, 6 = muttsu, 5 = go) and 573 for Konami (5 = go, 7 = nana, 3 = mittsu).

[_Paul]

Fun fact: My brother's character in the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was called Shidi Rommu. I was called HuCARD.

Shut up.

Does your brother do any art stuff, these days?

Didn't you two create sprites back when you were youthful and British?

Or...am I remembering incorrectly?

You are remembering incorrectly.

I used to art on the Amiga with a friend called Ian.

[Arkhan Asylum]

It's not stupid Japanese word math, it was just visionary marketing way ahead of its time. It took a few more years for America to catch on and start naming everything with exponents and replacing letters in the middle of words with numbers and the public apparently loves it.

It's actually not ahead of it's time as far as PCE is concerned. Kyonkyon was already going by Kyon² before this.   

The PCE just followed suit and did what one of the best pop singers was doing already.

https://youtu.be/PG6I0ix9Yoo


aw yeah.

I don't think we should be calling one of Japan's most famous, and cutest pop singers, or her naming style stupid.

We're all beneath them.   We're not worthy.

[xcrement5x]

I only knew about the ROMUROMU pronunciation because of how SuperDeadite would talk about it with the LD-ROM2 games.  Interesting to learn about the W, never really that that fully explained. 

The other unique one Deadite mentioned was how Peke can mean X and it can be used to refer to the X68000. 

[Arkhan Asylum]

I only knew about the ROMUROMU pronunciation because of how SuperDeadite would talk about it with the LD-ROM2 games.  Interesting to learn about the W, never really that that fully explained. 

The other unique one Deadite mentioned was how Peke can mean X and it can be used to refer to the X68000. 

most of my friends call it the X rokumanhassen.

They're literally just calling it the X68000 in Japanese at that point, lol.


Its really funny to hear it when they talk about it.    Its also funny to talk to some of them about how they yearned super hard for Amigas even though they had X68000s.    They wanted it more for computational/3D/Fancy stuff though.

I'd imagine, if the Amiga was unleashed in Japan and Japanese developers got to work with it, maybe the library wouldn't be a hodgepodge of shitty wannabe Valis style games.

[schadenfreude]

That sum would really be (R + O + M)^2.

You never know — maybe they only wanted to square the memory.

[Arkhan Asylum]

That sum would really be (R + O + M)^2.

You never know — maybe they only wanted to square the memory.

it wouldn't be (R + O + M)², though.  You can't just add plus signs to things because you feel like it.   The absence of an operator implies multiplication.   The absence of exponents implies there's a power of 1.

So,
(ROM)² (using exponent rule) is: R²O²M².   You just take each term and distribute the exponent in.   So R^1*2O^1*2M^1*2

But, this assumes you treat R O and M as three separate variables.

If you assume it's one single variable ie: ("ROM")², you would get ROMROM.

Which is what the Japanese did.

[MisterCrash]

Although going by the above logic, CD ROM ROM should really be CD WROM.  Since ROM² would really be R*R+R*O+R*M+R*O+O*O+O*M+R*M+O*M+M*M.

Sorry I wasn't clearer. My response was to ccovell (quoted above) noting that the sum he cited was really equivalent to (R + O + M)^2. As you point out, it's not the same as (ROM)^2.

[ccovell]

My point was that they're words (sequences of syllables or letters), and so mathematical rules cannot possibly apply in a logical way.  Yet the Japanese try.

[Psycho Punch]

I'll start calling the PCE cd rom^2 as CD WR Momo , it's a valid rearrange after all. Fitting name for something that had a idol dating sim as a launch title.

[schadenfreude]

If you assume it's one single variable ie: ("ROM")2, you would get ROMROM.

Which is what the Japanese did.

I was making a joke about how the individual letters look like part of a math equation, such as "E = mc²". What I was getting at is that the M variable is the one that is raised to the second power, not the others. If it had been written as "(ROM)²" with parentheses around ROM, then yes, the entire expression would be squared, and the result would be "ROMROM". But without the parentheses, only the M is squared, and thus the result is "ROMM".

But anyway, this is all silly because it's clear that they wanted to double "ROM" since they see those three letters as one unit, not individual variables.

[Arkhan Asylum]

(sequences of syllables or letters), and so mathematical rules cannot possibly apply in a logical way.

mmmm.... careful, lol.

Calculus loves them some sequences of letters and shit.   


It seems fair that if they're treating ROM as one word unit, as we all do.  (seriously, if you say CD Are Oh Emm, you are a tool and should never open your face again)

So since it's one unit, squaring it works.   It's really no different than any other substitution crap used in Calculus with exponents.

we have X^2, squiggly greek letters ^ 2, why not have ROM^2 too. 

X^2 = XX, ROM^2 = ROMROM.

It all makes sense really.

[ccovell]

It all makes sense really.

You've got Japanese Stockholm syndrome already without ever having lived here; that's impressive.  ;-)