jamesmnw

Fast company have published an interesting article by Thomas S. Mullaney about a Chinese typewriter and its operator, Lois Lew. I thought some of you might get a kick out of it.

"The IBM Chinese typewriter was a formidable machine—not something just anyone could handle with the aplomb of the young typist in the film. On the keyboard affixed to the hulking, gunmetal gray chassis, 36 keys were divided into four banks: 0 through 5; 0 through 9; 0 through 9; and 0 through 9. With just these 36 keys, the machine was capable of producing up to 5,400 Chinese characters in all, wielding a language that was infinitely more diffi