New Typewriter Conquers Chinese Symbols (Nov, 1947)
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1947
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New Typewriter Conquers Chinese Symbols
FOR the first time since the development of modern Chinese script more than 16 centuries ago, a way has been found to copy quickly all of the language’s thousands of complex characters. It is the unique “Mingkwai” (clear and quick) typewriter, invented by Lin Yutang, Chinese author.
Reducing a day’s hand copying to an hour’s typing, the electrically driven machine can print 90,000 characters and reproduce every known Chinese word. Chinese writing does not use the letters of an alphabet; instead, each word is an individual symbol. Other Chinese typewriters require memorizing the position of 5,000 characters and filling in missing words by hand.
A simple, “self-evident” keyboard, the result of 30 years’ research, is the secret of Mr. Lin’s typewriter. Perhaps even more important than the typewriter itself is the adaptability of the system to typesetting and teletype machines.The keyboard has 72 keys: 36 representing the top and 28 the bottom sections of Chinese characters, plus eight printing keys. Pressing a top and a bottom key brings the type roller into position to print a “unit” of eight possible combinations of the basic sections—eight different words.
At the same time, duplicate cylinders bring a replica of this unit to where it can be seen by the typist through a “magic viewer” window. He then selects a character by pressing the corresponding key. This turns and shifts the type roller into position and prints the character.
The printing mechanism consists of six cylinders, each having six type rollers that contain 7,000 complete characters and over 1,400 components. Additional words up to a theoretical 90,000 are formed by typing combinations, such as sun+moon, which means “clear.” All the characters are duplicated on the six “viewing” cylinders.
Designed for Chinese, the machine can also be used for writing English, Russian, and Japanese by pressing keys that shift into printing position type rollers of faces of the desired language. It types vertical columns, so that when English is used, the typescript has to be turned sideways.
The description of this strikes me as incomplete or confused. It characterizes the system as splitting the hanzi characters into “top” and “bottom”, but in reality a character’s component radicals (collections of strokes that categorize or provide meaning to a character) can be arranged in any of a few dozen layouts. Add to this the fact that many radicals change shape and size when placed elsewhere, and this typewriter might merely generate a funny sort of shorthand for proper typesetters (which was the intent of the original English typewriters, to be fair).
I believe that the bit about the eight different sections was trying to describe this, but got confused about the roles of radicals and complete characters. Still, I’d love to see what the output really looks like!
Comment by Nick Moffitt — January 7, 2008 @ 1:35 am
In order to understand the genius of Dr. Lin’s method of organizing Chinese characters, you ned to refer to the frontpiece of his Chinese dictionary which was not published until the 1970’s. Both the Chinese communists and the American military did not want to see this typewriter put into production. The machine itself was made obsolete by electronic typewriters. Dr. Lin was a person of rare courage. He spent his own money to bring this machine into existence. It was his gift to china and the world.
Comment by Gladys Li — October 9, 2008 @ 11:53 pm