Kazuhiko Nishi

Kazuhiko "Kay" Nishi (西 和彦, Nishi Kazuhiko, born February 10, 1956 in Kobe, Japan) is a Japanese businessman and personal computer pioneer.

Nishi's father ran a private school. Nishi attended Waseda University but dropped out to help found the first Japanese computer magazine, I/O. Shortly thereafter he launched ASCII magazine (a Japanese equivalent of Byte or Creative Computing) and, in 1978, ASCII Corporation, which began by making a rough translation from English to Japanese of the game Wizardry. He wanted to lead the personal computer market, but ASCII Corporation didn't have enough capital to develop personal computers. He knew Microsoft BASIC was becoming the industry standard in North America, and conceived selling it to Japanese companies. At the 1978 National Computer Conference, he met and got along with Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

In Japan, Nishi worked with NEC on developing the PC-8001, an early consumer-ready personal computer not requiring assembly, which became a standard in Japan, and was involved in the design of the Kyotronic 85 which, sold to Radio Shack, became the TRS-80 Model 100, an early laptop computer.

Nishi's relationship with Bill Gates helped ASCII Corporation to grow. MSX, a new personal computer format, was jointly developed by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation for the Japanese market. But Nishi and Gates fell out, and Microsoft in 1986 disclosed the end of the partnership. Stating that Nishi owed the company more than $500,000, which it did not expect him to repay, Microsoft set up its own Japanese subsidiary. But ASCII Corporation continued to thrive.

Mr. Nishi was also inclined to make important decisions on impulse and to spend without restraint, which led Microsoft to break with Ascii in 1986. One of the drops that broke the camel's back was when Mr. Nishi spent $1 million to get a huge mechanical dinosaur to build in Tokyo as an advertising device. The break between Mr. Gates and Mr. Nishi was bitter, though the two now speak periodically.

Ascii even launched himself into the helicopter rental sector and, like many other companies, invested in art and real estate, which seemed to be great investments in a period of rising prices. Nishi was planning to build an industrial park for software companies in northern Japan, equipped with modern electronic technologies and its own airport. The project was then shelved.