https://www.scmp.com/rss/509940/feed Thomas S Mullaney is a professor of Chinese history of Stanford University, a Guggenheim fellow, and the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress. He is the author or lead editor of six books, including The Chinese Typewriter, Your Computer is on Fire, and the forthcoming The Chinese Computer - The First Comprehensive History of Chinese-language Computing. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com “I dismount from my horse and offer you wine.” So begins one of the most beautiful and well-known Tang dynasty poems, Farewell, composed by Wang Wei (AD699-761). To spell out this passage using Hanyu pinyin, mainland China’s official system of transliterating Chinese characters into Latin alphabetic letters, one needs a total of 17 letters and spaces: xiama yin jun jiu. Cracking open a laptop, however, a Chinese computer user needs only five: xmyjj. With just five keystrokes, the computer’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3263804/how-write-chinese-faster-english-online-chinese-typing-tools-harness-predictive-text-based-pinyin?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3263804/how-write-chinese-faster-english-online-chinese-typing-tools-harness-predictive-text-based-pinyin?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 May 2024 20:15:08 +0000 “Return them to their home countries!” flashed my iPhone home screen, accompanied by a red, scowling, furious emoji. The notification bubble came in reference to a 60-second TikTok video in which I had leaked word that my employer, Stanford University, had just acquired the single largest historical collection of modern Chinese information technology – largest not just in the United States, but the world. Containing more than 2,500 archival items – including dozens of rare Chinese typewriters,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3135934/why-worlds-largest-collection-chinas-modern-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3135934/why-worlds-largest-collection-chinas-modern-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Jun 2021 21:15:16 +0000 I had seen this woman before. Many times now. I was certain of it. But who was she? In a film from 1947, she is operating an electric Chinese typewriter, the first of its kind, manufactured by IBM. Semi-circled by journalists, and a nervous-looking middle-aged Chinese man – Kao Chung-chin, the engineer who invented the machine – she radiates a smile as she pulls a sheet of paper from the device. Kao is biting his lip, his eyes darting between the crowd and the typist. As soon as I saw that film,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3135053/she-memorised-ibm-typewriter-codes-5400-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3135053/she-memorised-ibm-typewriter-codes-5400-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 May 2021 20:15:07 +0000