Chinese typewriter
Máquina de escribir china
- Date
- 1916-1926 · confidence medium
- Place
- Shanghai, China
- Credited to
- Zhou Houkun (1916); Shu Zhendong and the Commercial Press (1926)
- People
- 👤 Zhou Houkun1889–
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A machine with a tray of about 2500 character types that the operator selects with a lever and stamps one at a time. It made it possible to mechanise writing in Chinese without an alphabet.
It has been studied by Thomas Mullaney (The Chinese Typewriter, 2017).
What it led to
- typewriting in Chinese offices
- organisation of characters by frequency of use