The Chinese typewriter
by Thomas S. Mullaney · first published 2017
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Covers the history of Chinese typewriters and how non-alphabetic writing systems were adapted to the Information Age; recommended as the starting point for readers interested in typing and language technology.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. This book is about those encounters -- in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long q
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Glaring paywall in the article obscuring the actual statement/conclusion aside, I recommend reading "The Chinese Typewriter : A History" by Thomas S. Mullaney (ISBN 9780262536103). The book covers a lot about Chinese language(s) adaptation to an Information Age crisis brought by technologies based on primarily Western/Latin…
on “Why was western printing superior to Asian printing?” ↗I enjoyed "The Chinese Typewriter: A History" by Thomas S. Mullaney [1]. An interesting look into the history and technology used to create typewriters that can produce almost all the Chinese (and later, Japanese) characters in various…
on “The Classic Typewriter Page” ↗…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_script , pointing to https://web.archive.org/web/20101219214315/http://www.t-h-a-... ) I originally heard about this in this fantastic book, which I read earlier this year: https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Typewriter-Thomas-S-Mullaney-... . Its focus is mostly the Chinese keyboard, and it does a great job detailing this, but there's a section about Edwin Mcfarland and his theories: https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/GuV1DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gb...
on “An Archive of a Different Type” ↗See also the book, "The Chinese Typewriter: A History" By Thomas S. Mullaney [1] for more on the history of Japanese and Chinese typewriters. [1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chinese-typewriter
on “Japanese Typewriters” ↗Tom Mullaney, as mentioned in my post, is arguably the global expert on the chinese typewriter and has done a lot of work on chinese printed and digital language technology. His books would be the starting point.
on “Why was western printing superior to Asian printing?” ↗For more on the topic of tyewriters in non-alphabetic languages, I recommend The Chinese Typewriter (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chinese-typewriter) from MIT Press.
on “A Look at Early Japanese Typewriters (2016)” ↗…reflect on how I learn through my experience and how I best form habits. 1: Daniel Yergin, The Quest I loved The Prize and will follow it up with Yergin's other book on energy. 2: Thomas S. Mullaney, The Chinese Typewriter: A History I love tech history and in this case I go into it with all these prejudices about how awful it must be for Chinese people to use modern keyboards, without any real knowledge about it. I will…
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗Yes but not really. The “encoding problem” for Asian languages is real, but it goes back earlier than that, as it emerged with typewriters. See Thomas Mullaney’s “A history of the Chinese typewriter”, and Nanette Gottlieb’s “Word Processing Technology in Japan” for more. By the late 90s/00s it wasn’t a significant primary factor (that is if it was a factor, it was due to cultural inertia, and not…
on “Nintendo’s Philosophy: Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology (2015)” ↗The tray-based design not only permits swapping out the entire characterset, but also sections. My understanding is that Chinese typewriters typically have a large number of characters in common, but also provide for characters specific to specialised activities, e.g., government, commerce, education, science, technology, and the like, which…
on “Japanese Toshiba Typewriter Model BW-2112 (2020) [video]” ↗