Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age" (MIT Press, 2024)

Mar 29, 2024

In this engaging conversation, Thomas S. Mullaney, a Professor of Chinese History at Stanford and Guggenheim Fellow, uncovers the intricate history of Chinese computing. He explains how the Chinese language adapted to digital input, from early IBM electric typewriters to modern input methods, highlighting challenges like typing thousands of characters. Mullaney introduces us to innovative minds behind these tech advancements and explores the concept of 'hypography,' emphasizing how technology reshapes both language and communication in the digital age.

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INSIGHT

How Chinese IMEs Work

Chinese input on modern computers uses input method editors (IMEs) that convert QWERTY keystrokes into characters.
This mediated feedback loop contrasts with immediate letter-by-letter input common in alphabetic languages.

ANECDOTE

IBM Chinese Typewriter Challenge

The IBM electric Chinese typewriter required memorizing 6,000 four-digit codes for characters.
Lois Liu demonstrated its use flawlessly despite no feedback mechanism, proving the human capacity for complex coding.

INSIGHT

First Chinese Computer and Autocompletion

Samuel Caldwell created the first Chinese computer using stroke order to program a QWERTY keyboard input.
He discovered autocompletion decades before it appeared in western computing.

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The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing. A standard QWERTY keyboard has a few dozen keys. How can Chinese—a language with tens of thousands of characters and no alphabet—be input on such a device?

In The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age (MIT Press, 2024), Thomas Mullaney sets out to resolve this paradox, and in doing so, discovers that the key to this seemingly impossible riddle has given rise to a new epoch in the history of writing—a form of writing he calls “hypography.” Based on fifteen years of research, this pathbreaking history of the Chinese language charts the beginnings of electronic Chinese technology in the wake of World War II up through to its many iterations in the present day. Mullaney takes the reader back through the history and evolution of Chinese language computing technology, showing the development of electronic Chinese input methods—software programs that enable Chinese characters to be produced using alphanumeric symbols—and the profound impact they have had on the way Chinese is written. Along the way, Mullaney introduces a cast of brilliant and eccentric personalities drawn from the ranks of IBM, MIT, the CIA, the Pentagon, the Taiwanese military, and the highest rungs of mainland Chinese establishment, to name a few, and the unexpected roles they played in developing Chinese language computing. Finally, he shows how China and the non-Western world—because of the hypographic technologies they had to invent in order to join the personal computing revolution—“saved” the Western computer from its deep biases, enabling it to achieve a meaningful presence in markets outside of the Americas and Europe. An eminently engaging and artfully told history, The Chinese Computer is a must-read for anyone interested in how culture informs computing and how computing, in turn, shapes culture.

Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of Chinese History at Stanford University and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Caleb Zakarin is Editor at the New Books Network.

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