I remember seeing this when I was a CS research intern working at a major Japanese company in Kawasaki back in 2010. I'm from America, and this was my first time in Japan. At the company, our workstations ran Windows XP; I guess the company refused upgrading to Vista, and Windows 7 was not yet approved.

This article brought back two memories:

1. Learning how to code on a Japanese keyboard, where some of the symbols were in different locations, and where I needed to get used to having two small space bars instead of one single, long space bar. Eventually one of my coworkers introduced me to the Happy Hacking Keyboard (https://happyhackingkb.com), which is popular among programmers in Japan due to its typing feel and the fact it has a version with a US-style keyboard layout. I stuck with that keyboard for the rest of my internship.

2. Seeing ¥n in my code instead of \n.

Eventually I ended up installing a Linux virtual machine on my workstation that was localized to American English, though a big reason for this was because my internship project was writing a Linux kernel module. But I still needed to use my Japanese knowledge to use Microsoft Office and other programs on Windows.

My eight months in Kawasaki were among the best in my life. Since then I've been to Japan six more times, and I'm looking forward to visiting Japan again once it's reopen to tourism.