Kay Nishi’s ASCII Corp, which got big by marketing MS-DOS in Japan until a temporary rift between Nishi and Bill Gates, and now a major player in personal computer software, data communications services and magazines, is hungry for a slice of the European personal computer communications market, and has begun negotiations with a number of European companies. It hopes to find a partner in which it can invest, and make the company the operator of the European node for its ASCIInet electronic mail and bulletin board network. For the benefit of non-English customers, ASCII is planning to incorporate a mach ine translation service. ASCII has already invested in a Massachusetts viewdata company, General Videotext Inc, and is planning by next month to start providing access to that firm’s viewdata service from Japan.
