jwb@csse.monash.edu.au wrote:
> For no particular reason I was wondering how long we'd been using the
> word "gaigin". I poked around in Google's Usenet archive and found on
> comp.sys.amiga:
> 
> 
>>Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
>>From: wayn...@tekig5.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp)
>>Date: 21 Jun 88 19:14:31 GMT
>>Local: Wed, Jun 22 1988 5:14 am
>>Subject: Re: "Units sold" numbers?
>>
>>...
>>
>>My wife is Japanese, and even though I have an Amiga 1000 and Atari ST she
>>still wants a Mac.  In fact before coming over here the Mac was the only
>>computer she knew that she liked, and from last count there were maybe 6
>>Amiga's in Japan all own by gaigin's.   My wife say's that IBM, Apple and
>>even Atari are well know in Japan, but Amiga is completly unknow.  She
>>was teaching English and said even the Junior high kids talk about Apple.  
>>She never heard of Amiga though until I showed her mine. 
> [...]

Within a year or two of that posting, IIRC (history was never my strong
point), there was a company offering a Japanese version of Amiga OS
(they wouldn't sell it outside Japan), and a number of Japanese have
contributed Amiga programs through the '90s, so it can't have been only
six gaigin Amigas in 1988.

I don't think Wayne Knapp was one of us ("how long *we'd* been using the
word"); this is just one of those odd spellings like "cyanata" for
"goodbye" and "honcho."

Bart