<i>> Mini vMac is better suited for this, but it checks the ROM’s checksum, so I couldn’t boot with mine—it’s not in the recognized list.</i><p>You can compile Mini vMac without checksum verification (either yourself or with the variations service[1]), which will allow you to use unknown or completely custom ROMs, though you need to be aware that it patches the ROM (it doesn’t emulate the original floppy hardware; instead it pokes a custom driver in where the original one ought to be) so if your ROM doesn’t line up with the original you will have problems with random chunks being overwritten.<p>I’ve done this so I could use Mini vMac to learn assembly language: the Mac has the convenient property that pixels on the CRT are 1:1 the contents of a chunk of RAM at a fixed offset, so you can get very immediate visual feedback about what your program is doing. I just set up an assembler to dump raw machine code and named it "Mac128K.ROM" and Mini vMac picked up on it fine.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/var_serv.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/var_serv.html</a> - though since Paul Pratt disappeared a few years ago nobody is quite sure how the server is staying up
Coincidentally I had never heard of KanjiTalk until earlier this week when I stumbled across it on infinite mac.<p><a href="https://infinitemac.org/1996/KanjiTalk%207.5.3" rel="nofollow">https://infinitemac.org/1996/KanjiTalk%207.5.3</a>
For what it’s worth, this wasn’t the first Japanese-localized Mac with Kanji fonts - Canon modified a 512k Mac by adding an extra ROM board and called ugh the Dynamac.<p><a href="http://g00nejp.fc2web.com/Macintosh_CM/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://g00nejp.fc2web.com/Macintosh_CM/index.html</a>
There's also a 1MB EEPROM mod you can do on a Mac Plus that gives you a built-in ramdisk: <a href="https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-rom-inator/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-rom-inator/</a><p>I wonder if one could put this larger ROM, and the other files into a custom built image so no swaps are required.
I found an old, unopened Apple box containing a Japanese Apple II Plus while cleaning out my in-laws house last month. I also found a fake-leather carrying case for it (also unopened). Both are from 1979.<p>It was interesting to discover that the Apple II Plus' ROM didn't support Kanji, but there were third-party add-on cards that added Kanji support. The Apple II Plus I found had a Multitech Kanji Card with it. Multitech later became Acer.