The Chinese Computer

The Chinese Computer PDF Author: Thomas S. Mullaney
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262047519
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
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, Thomas S. 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.

The Chinese Typewriter

The Chinese Typewriter PDF Author: Thomas S. Mullaney
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262536102
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 501

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Book Description
How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China's information technology successes today. Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. This book is about those encounters—in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter. The earliest Chinese typewriters, Mullaney tells us, were figments of popular imagination, sensational accounts of twelve-foot keyboards with 5,000 keys. One of the first Chinese typewriters actually constructed was invented by a Christian missionary, who organized characters by common usage (but promoted the less-common characters for “Jesus" to the common usage level). Later came typewriters manufactured for use in Chinese offices, and typewriting schools that turned out trained “typewriter girls” and “typewriter boys.” Still later was the “Double Pigeon” typewriter produced by the Shanghai Calculator and Typewriter Factory, the typewriter of choice under Mao. Clerks and secretaries in this era experimented with alternative ways of organizing characters on their tray beds, inventing an input method that was the first instance of “predictive text.” Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology. The Chinese Typewriter, not just an “object history” but grappling with broad questions of technological change and global communication, shows how this happened. A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute Columbia University

The Chinese Computer

The Chinese Computer PDF Author: Thomas S. Mullaney
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262047519
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
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, Thomas S. 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.

The East Asian Computer Chip War

The East Asian Computer Chip War PDF Author: Ming-chin Monique Chu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317961552
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
The semiconductor industry is a vital industry for military establishments worldwide, and the control of, or loss of control of, this key industry has enormous strategic implications. This book focuses on the globalization of the strategic semiconductor industry and the security ramifications of this process. It examines in particular the migration of the Taiwanese chip industry to China as part of the globalization of production processes, and the extent to which such a globalization process poses security challenges to the United States, China and Taiwan. Transcending disciplinary boundaries between international political economy, security studies, and the history of science and technology, this multidisciplinary work provides an in-depth understanding of the globalization-security nexus, and disentangles the key policy issues connected to a potential explosive flashpoint in world politics today.

Computer Systems

Computer Systems PDF Author: J. Stanley Warford
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
ISBN: 0763771449
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 731

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Book Description
Computer Architecture/Software Engineering

Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist)

Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist) PDF Author: Jing Tsu
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735214743
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 What does it take to reinvent a language? After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today. With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China’s tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.

AI Superpowers

AI Superpowers PDF Author: Kai-Fu Lee
Publisher: Harper Business
ISBN: 132854639X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
AI Superpowers is Kai-Fu Lee's New York Times and USA Today bestseller about the American-Chinese competition over the future of artificial intelligence.

Your Computer Is on Fire

Your Computer Is on Fire PDF Author: Thomas S. Mullaney
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026253973X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Technology scholars declare an emergency: attention must be paid to the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems. This book sounds an alarm: we can no longer afford to be lulled into complacency by narratives of techno-utopianism, or even techno-neutrality. We should not be reassured by such soothing generalities as "human error," "virtual reality," or "the cloud." We need to realize that nothing is virtual: everything that "happens online," "virtually," or "autonomously" happens offline first, and often involves human beings whose labor is deliberately kept invisible. Everything is IRL. In Your Computer Is on Fire, technology scholars train a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems.

The Chinese Defense Establishment

The Chinese Defense Establishment PDF Author: Paul H. B. Godwin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000315401
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Complex issues of national security and defense modernization continue to be a major preoccupation of the PRC leadership. In the 1970s, especially during the second half of that crucial decade, critical decisions were made that led to Beijing's alignment with the West against the USSR and a revitalization of its armed forces. This book looks at Chi

The Chinese Electronics Industry

The Chinese Electronics Industry PDF Author: Michael Pecht
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351838296
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The Chinese Electronics Industry documents the technologies, capabilities, and infrastructure that has made China a major player in the Asian electronics industry. This book covers the major segments of China's electronics industry, including semiconductors, packaging, printed circuit boards, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, and electronic systems. In addition, this book examines the role of government, research organizations, educational institutions, and major companies in establishing an infrastructure where the industry can flourish. Specifically, this book will help readers: Comprehend the historical developments, current status, and future growth of China's electronics industry Understand the cultural, economic, and technological factors that drive and inhibit market access and success in China Make decisions on strategic issues, such as market entry, establishing joint ventures or strategic alliances with Chinese electronics companies in order to access world's largest emerging market Formulate strategy to cooperate and compete in the global electronics industry

An Introduction To Chinese, Japanese And Korean Computing

An Introduction To Chinese, Japanese And Korean Computing PDF Author: Timothy D Huang
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814507512
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
This first book of its kind gives a comprehensive introduction to Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) Computing. Every possible related issue is covered but an in-depth look into Chinese, Japanese and Korean computing problems and environment in particular, is also discussed.Besides being of interest to Oriental Language computing professionals, it also provides a clear overview of the subject to individuals learning CJK Computing and computer companies working on CJK systems.