Well, to be more precise, the system I am about to show you is called B-right/V release 4.5 from 2006. It is an implementation of BTRON, Business TRON specification. You can think about it this way: FreeBSD is a UNIX system. Bright/V is a TRON system.

TRON, or The Real-time Operating system Nucleus, began as an open architecture project by Japanese professor Ken Sakamura in 1984. There are multiple sub-projects, including ITRON for electronics and cars, BTRON for desktops and PDAs, CTRON for telecoms, and many more.

There is a lot of information on its English website http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/homepage.html but it barely scratches the surface.

Yes, TRON was used for NTT DoCoMo i-mode phones and some Roland synthesisers, and most camera operating systems are also TRON forks. Yes, it runs on pretty much any 8, 16 or 32 bit architecture you can think of. Yes, it was used in home automation and cars, too.

But this system is also the basis for Mentor Graphics Nucleus RTOS, and eCos and RTEMS APIs, and that makes it BIG.

Space probes, smart phones, dumb phones, calculators, and even some Intel motherboard chips are running TRON systems or their derivatives.

This system is THAT big. Perhaps, today there are more choices among embedded operating systems, and more devices are simply running Linux, but I think the claim that in 2003 TRON used to be the most popular operating system is somewhat substantiated.

Now, tell me, HOW COME no one in the West have heard about desktop version of TRON that could run on i286/386, and, from what I can tell, Sun workstations?

Edu-rant is over, time to show you the system :D Follow me!

These days, finding the installation media for the B-right/V OS itself can be hard. But the operating system is still sold on Amazon as "Chokanji V, TRON runs on Windows" input system. 超漢字V means "Super Kanji 5", by the way. There is MacOS X version, too.

Either version is just installing BTRON in VMWare, and runs the input method somewhat seamlessly.

Archive.org has installation media for B-right/V 4.5 from 2006, but it will not run in Qemu properly. https://archive.org/details/chokanji

The iso contains a file called bright00 which is a boot floppy for B-right/V installer. It should work on most i386-based computers, but it requires supported CD, IDE and mouse. After a bit of tinkering with PCem, I managed to make it work.

The installer shows not one but two splash screens: B-right/V TRON OS first, and Chokanji V second. Then it starts a very simply-looking disk partitioning and OS installing tool. Make no mistake, at this point TRON OS is already running. The mouse cursor is a bit funny/unusual, showing cup of green tea whenever there's a delay ("hourglass").

While it loads, you might contemplate: why did they bother to make a whole OS? Well, my dear friends, they needed a system that could support kanji, RTL and vertical input before Unicode was invented.

First launch.

The system is booting, and it is quite fast. Before we can begin, we should answer a few simple questions.

Do we want BTRON style settings or Windows style settings?
Which key you want as KANA key?
Romaji input - BTRON style or Windows style?
Ctrl+ZXCV behaviour - BTRON or Windows?

I am curious how things are in BTRON, but not enough to set it to non-Windows and get lost/confused.

The desktop after the launch has two important windows. The smaller one shows your running applications - inbox, applets tool, "Notice from Personal Media Inc" and "Choukanji V tutorial". The bigger window has buttons to create new documents of all the registered types (text, drawing, cabinet, email, browser and many more).

Windows don't have any controls or menus. If you want to interface with a window, you just right-click it to call a pop-up menu. It has application options like "save" and "exit", as well as OS-wide options (start an applet, rearrange windows). The pop-up shows a long list of applets, let's check them out!

The most important applet of them all is System Settings. You can change things from wallpapers to PCMCIA IRQs here.

Then there is glossary/help system. You search for a topic, and then you can read a document about it. Note that the help document here has hyperlinks. In fact, "Choukanji V Tutorial" launched on the start is also just a BTRON document. TRON specifies a standard data bus for data exchange between the apps, so it only makes sense they'd do that.

Then there's kanji search, which is super important for anyone who works with kanji. Like, seriously.

And then there's a post-code look up applet. It can find a Japanese post code by address, and address by post code. I have no idea why include this into your core OS, but perhaps it's an important tool for businesses.

I wanted to tell you more about other applets, like on-screen keyboard, calculator, backup, clock and file manager, but I found a KITTEN.

This app serves the same purpose as the "mouse pointer trail" in Windows, but instead of the trail, your computer mouse is chased by computer kittens. You can have up to 8 of them on your desktop, and not all of them will be following the cursor - some will get tired and will fall asleep on the spot.

You can give belly rubs to all your computer kittens. Hey @netkitty can I give you a belly rub too?