How this long-lost Chinese typewriter from the 1940s changed modern computing

The MingKwai typewriter’s keys enable the typist to find and retrieve Chinese characters. Elisabeth von Boch/Stanford

Elisabeth von Boch/Stanford

STANFORD, California — Scholars in the U.S., Taiwan and China are buzzing about the discovery of an old typewriter, because the long-lost machine is part of the origin story of modern Chinese computing — and central to ongoing questions about the politics of language.

China’s entry into modern computing was critical in allowing the country to become the technological powerhouse it is today. But before this, some of the brightest Chinese minds of the 20th century had to figure out a