Gong Byeong-u's syllable-block Hangul typewriter
Máquina de escribir de hangul por bloques silábicos (Gong Byeong-u)
- Date
- 1949 · confidence medium
- Place
- Seoul, South Korea
- Credited to
- Gong Byeong-u
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A typewriter that composes each Hangul syllable by combining initial, vowel and final consonant in block position. Earlier Korean typewriters were slow or impractical because they required a keyboard of hundreds of characters.
There were earlier Korean typewriter prototypes (for example Yi Won-ik's, 1914). Gong, an ophthalmologist, patented in 1949 the block-based model that proved practical; dates and priority of each prototype are debated.
What it led to
- mechanical writing in Hangul and its three-set keyboard (sebeolsik)
- the debate over the standard Korean keyboard (dubeolsik)
- foundation of Hangul writing on computers