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What a Long Lost Typewriter Says About Chinese Culture

By Emily Feng,
Greg Dixon
Published July 8, 2025 at 4:21 PM EDT
The MingKwai typewriter's keys enable the typist to find and retrieve Chinese characters.
Elisabeth von Boch
/
Stanford
The MingKwai typewriter's keys enable the typist to find and retrieve Chinese characters.

A typewriter recently discovered in a basement in upstate New York holds important clues about the origins of Chinese computing. And brings up questions about language and culture.

Copyright 2025 NPR

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Emily Feng
Emily Feng is NPR's Beijing correspondent.
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Greg Dixon
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
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