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[Bolkonskij]

I realize a majority of Mac OS users are probably Americans or non-English speakers who simply don’t care but …

let’s talk about localization. It appears a bit shrouded in mystery, ocassionally you see questions pop up like this one (that often basically go unanswered)

http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/easiest-way-please-the-dragon-chinese-charset

Or I myself asked some time ago on how to add cyrillic to my OS 9 install
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=6245.msg46766#msg46766

There’s many others („how do I get a Hungarian keyboard layout?“) and my impression is that this is pretty much a little unexplored territory.Any place where to key keyboard layouts?


A lot of times, if there is an answer, it’s usually along the lines of „install a language specific OS version“. Well, if you’re lucky you can find one. But in the case of e.g. our Mac OS 9 Lives installers for the Mac Mini, you’re out of luck, since they’re English only.

To give a little background - my oldest daugher is slowly becoming a young teen and I’d like for her to have her own computer in her room where she can write / print stuff, play (educational) games, draw things and just be creative in a safe, friendly environment. No internet connection, no push notifications etc.

A Mac Mini G4 with OS 9 might be such a wonderful solution, as she knows Mac OS 9 from using my computers, it runs her favorite games and programs. BUT - she knows very little English, since our native language is German. So this is where I’m coming from.

I realize, to change things after installation will probably include a lot of file swapping but I’d be interested nonetheless. Is there anybody who would be willing to shed some light onto this?

I’d volunteer helping to test/debug and write it all up in an article for our mainpage, where people could be directed to. (ideally, I’d envision a step-by-step tutorial, from simply adding keyboard layouts to changing the language of the whole OS)

[wove]

That would be an interesting and useful topic to have well explained.

Perhaps this article from Nisus would be a starting point.

<https://www.nisus.com/NisusWriter/Support/Tips/LanguageKitsOS9.php>

[ssp3]

But in the case of e.g. our Mac OS 9 Lives installers for the Mac Mini, you’re out of luck, since they’re English only.

Bolkonskij, I think you can always cobble together your system for Mini by using parts from other installers or installed systems and adding modified ROM file and ATI extensions only. MacOS is so easy and so forgiving.

I have this set laying around. If you need me to pull the OS9 installer part out of it, let me know.
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2627.msg53914#msg53914

In the same thread Windoze also mentioned that he has something similar.

[laulandn]

Full localized MacOS  9 installs rename even the files that make up the System Folder, which can be quite jarring if you need to debug control panels or system extensions.  I noticed I had gotten so used to looking for certain system parts in particular places where they showed up alphabetically in English.  In different languages they can be in wildly different orders.

Be aware you may end up doubling things by accident, if you mix and match parts.  I did this with a Japanese system, where even the tm or copyright symbol on things like QuickTime were different from English.  But I've found classic MacOS is quite forgiving.  At some point a software package came with and silently installed a US QuickTime update on the Japanese machine, and I ended up having two versions of QuickTime at the same time without noticing for a while.  Irritating, but I don't believe I suffered any ill effects, as far as I could tell.

Then on a French MacOS 9, I needed to update the Carbon extension to run something.  In that case, the US update installer refused to run, but I was happily able to find  " L’Extension Carbone" I needed at MG.

So on one machine I have all three System Folders (including English), and switch between them when I need to switch languages.

This is an old Beige machine, so I'm just using standard MacOS 9, and doesn't directly apply to your question AT ALL!  But I figured I'd mention my experience, as you'll notice similar things once you get a Cyrillic install going.