HuCard (Who Card or Hugh Card) You decide!

[wildfruit]

Wait, there was Toys R Us in the UK?!  My mind is thoroughly blown at this point.

According to their website since 1985. My earliest memory of one is seeing an Atari lynx for the first time so early 90s I guess. I remember they hung games in vga style acrylic cases rather than on shelves.

[Keith Courage]

I pronounce it "hugh card", but if the "Hu" is from "Hudson", then I guess it should be "huh card"...

I prefer calling it a Huh card.

[schadenfreude]

Yep, even the Japanese Wikipedia page for HuCARD agrees with the "hue" pronunciation:

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/HuCARD

HuCARD（ヒューカード）

Another fun fact: CD-ROM² is pronounced "CD ROM ROM":

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM2

CD-ROM²（シーディーロムロム）

[sunteam_paul]

Fun fact: My brother's character in the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was called Shidi Rommu. I was called HuCARD.

[esteban]

Fun fact: My brother's character in the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was called Shidi Rommu. I was called HuCARD.

Shut up.

Does your brother do any art stuff, these days?

Didn't you two create sprites back when you were youthful and British?

Or...am I remembering incorrectly?

Yep, even the Japanese Wikipedia page for HuCARD agrees with the "hue" pronunciation:

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/HuCARD

HuCARD（ヒューカード）

Another fun fact: CD-ROM² is pronounced "CD ROM ROM":

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM2

CD-ROM²（シーディーロムロム）

As long as those entires weren't authored by undercover FEKA agents, we should be OK.

[Necromancer]

Fun fact: My brother's character in the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was called Shidi Rommu. I was called HuCARD.

Ha!  Don't ever stop being awesome.

[ccovell]

Another fun fact: CD-ROM² is pronounced "CD ROM ROM"

Yes, that's an example of stupid Japanese "word math".

eg:

W = "double" (that's why "DOUBLE RING" and "Double Dungeons" have Ws on their title screens.)
word² is supposed to be read as wordword

:/

Although going by the above logic, CD ROM ROM should really be CD WROM.  Since ROM² would really be R*R+R*O+R*M+R*O+O*O+O*M+R*M+O*M+M*M.

[Black Tiger]

It's not stupid Japanese word math, it was just visionary marketing way ahead of its time. It took a few more years for America to catch on and start naming everything with exponents and replacing letters in the middle of words with numbers and the public apparently loves it.

[Punch]

W = double in japan??? Learn something new every day.

[schadenfreude]

W = "double" (that's why "DOUBLE RING" and "Double Dungeons" have Ws on their title screens.)

Cool, I didn't know about this. Here's a page with more interesting examples: http://legendsoflocalization.com/the-legend-of-the-mysterious-letter-w/

Although going by the above logic, CD ROM ROM should really be CD WROM.  Since ROM² would really be R*R+R*O+R*M+R*O+O*O+O*M+R*M+O*M+M*M.

I'd compute ROM² as ROMM. 

[ccovell]

replacing letters in the middle of words with numbers and the public apparently loves it.

Popularity will not suddenly make me consider something 'not stupid.'

[MisterCrash]

That sum would really be (R + O + M)^2.

That reminds me of the shortcut numbers that some companies use for their brand. For example, 765 for Namco (7 = nana, 6 = muttsu, 5 = go) and 573 for Konami (5 = go, 7 = nana, 3 = mittsu).

[sunteam_paul]

Fun fact: My brother's character in the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was called Shidi Rommu. I was called HuCARD.

Shut up.

Does your brother do any art stuff, these days?

Didn't you two create sprites back when you were youthful and British?

Or...am I remembering incorrectly?

You are remembering incorrectly.

I used to art on the Amiga with a friend called Ian.

[Arkhan]

It's not stupid Japanese word math, it was just visionary marketing way ahead of its time. It took a few more years for America to catch on and start naming everything with exponents and replacing letters in the middle of words with numbers and the public apparently loves it.

It's actually not ahead of it's time as far as PCE is concerned. Kyonkyon was already going by Kyon² before this.   

The PCE just followed suit and did what one of the best pop singers was doing already.

aw yeah.

I don't think we should be calling one of Japan's most famous, and cutest pop singers, or her naming style stupid.

We're all beneath them.   We're not worthy.

[xelement5x]

I only knew about the ROMUROMU pronunciation because of how SuperDeadite would talk about it with the LD-ROM2 games.  Interesting to learn about the W, never really that that fully explained. 

The other unique one Deadite mentioned was how Peke can mean X and it can be used to refer to the X68000.