Eero Suoranta / 艾若思<p>So yesterday, I was giving a lecture on Lin Yutang and his MingKwai typewriter and a student informed me that, apparently, it had been found.</p><p>Let me elaborate: The MingKwai was a revolutionary machine that could be used to type a theoretical maximum of 90 000 Chinese characters, almost twice as much as in Imperial China's largest dictionary. The legacy of its "Magic Eye" viewfinder system and Lin's statistical analysis can still be seen in how Chinese is written on computers today. According to Thomas S. Mullaney, it marked the birth of "input". Its only prototype was believed to have been lost, possibly thrown away or disassembled for parts.</p><p>And it was found. In a basement in New York. This January.</p><p>*high-pitched noises*</p><p>Original Facebook post that is either reporting the find or a very elaborate scam: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/127768622643436/permalink/950194670400823/?rdid=WoJvYLekDUuGmSYh&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2Fp%2F19qjBZdYpj%2F" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">facebook.com/groups/1277686226</span><span class="invisible">43436/permalink/950194670400823/?rdid=WoJvYLekDUuGmSYh&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2Fp%2F19qjBZdYpj%2F</span></a></p><p>Blog post by Richard Polt with pictures: <a href="https://writingball.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-discovery-of-lin-yutangs-mingkwai.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">writingball.blogspot.com/2025/</span><span class="invisible">02/the-discovery-of-lin-yutangs-mingkwai.html</span></a></p><p><a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/MingKwai" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>MingKwai</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/LinYutang" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LinYutang</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/typewriters" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>typewriters</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/ChineseLanguage" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ChineseLanguage</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/languages" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>languages</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/input" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>input</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/InputMethods" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>InputMethods</span></a></p>