[KS] Korean typewriters

[David McCann]

The office person in the school where I taught– The Andong Agriculture 
and Forestry High School– had a big typewriter. Looked like those old 
manuals, but big. I tried it, and it had shift keys that would move the 
roller carriage up and even back into position for the completion of the 
combination of letters, syllable by syllable.

I also remember some years later, in 1974, to be precise, sitting with 
some other grad students then in Korea for dissertation research, 
dreaming about the perfect machine. We pictured a typewriter with a huge 
roll of paper so you could just keep going and going, when you broke 
through the logjam of research and out into the swift currents of 
thought. Wishful thinking.

And then, of course, Screens! Computers! Bliss!

David McCann

On 9/19/06 4:46 PM, Stefan Ewing wrote:

> Dear KS list members:
>
> Not to detract from the seriousness of Bell's Palsy or the other 
> weighty matters of late, but I have an off-topic question--one that 
> has long stumped me and that I have not been able to answer. I suspect 
> some of you may be able to help out.
>
> How did Korean (or more precisely, Hangeul/Han'gu^l) typewriters work?
>
> How did a typist move from one syllable to the next--by tapping the 
> space bar? (More than once to move to the next word?) And how did he 
> or she place a consonant within a syllable (up or down)--by simply 
> adjusting the carriage up or down, or was there a more automated way 
> to do this (perhaps with the shift key)? Did different typewriters or 
> different keyboard arrangements carry out these tasks in different 
> manners?
>
> Having just seen a picture of an old manual Korean typewriter and 
> being reminded of this vexing issue, I must throw this question out so 
> I won't lie awake at night trying to figure it out!
>
> Yours sincerely (sincerely!),
> Stefan Ewing
>
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