Hanzi machine

Vasil Stanev

Hi, found this interesting poster on the internet, anyone have any info about what's written and what the machine is?

George Thomas

The picture is from the front cover of a book about invention of the Chinese typewriter.

Simon Cozens

Yes, you’ll want to read Thomas Mullaney’s “The Chinese Typewriter.”

John Savard

The typewriter is a Double Pigeon.

Simon Cozens

And the wording just says "Double Pigeon Brand Chinese Typewriter". (Caution: I read Japanese, not Chinese. But I bet that's it.) Wonderfully, the Chinese characters used for "typewriter" are "letter-striking device".

Vasil Stanev

Simon Cozens said:

Wonderfully, the Chinese characters used for "typewriter" are "letter-striking device".

Indeed wonderful! Mandarin seems much more methodical to me than English once you get past the initial hard climb of the learning curve.

I am currently dabbling with global Spanish and a word can have wildly different hispanoamerican meanings.  I am sure it can lead to some funny misunderstandings

The first time I saw a kanji typewriter was in the erotic movie "The Pillow Book" from 1996. It was the weirdest movie to watch as a 14-year old, luckilly I understood almost nothing from the innuendos. 

Vasil Stanev

Hi, did not want to open up a new thread, but I came around this interesting video and would like some of you guys to share similar resources that you like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lre_HIVsiAc
It's not exactly type-related but I find it fascinating and would love to share what you guys find with the GenZ crowd on my local facebook group

Nick Curtis

Several years ago when I was working for a small typesetting/pre-press shop in Dallas, one of our customers needed typeset Chinese for a product package he was developing. I found a Chinese newspaper that did job work in nearby Richardson. They used a gizmo which looked remarkably like this one, IIRC. Watching a person operate it carried the same wonder that watching someone hand-set foundry type.