They're arranged phonetically by most common "on-yomi" (or kun-yomi in some cases) according to the kana syllabary (many homophones, of course). Can't see the whole circumference of the cylinder but at about 0:30 it's clear that the order doubles back at the ring of mathematical symbols. Red characters help parse the readings. Last character to left of equal sign can be pronounced "kin" (exert) and the first character in next row "gin" (silver), then "ku" (suffer) in red followed by "kuu" (sky, empty), "kuma" (bear), "kun" (teachings, meaning [also the kun in kun-yomi]), "gun" (group), then "kei" (system) in red followed many, homophones of "kei". It's the same order in which (mostly compounded character) words in a normal Japanese monolingual dictionary for Japanese speakers would appear.
“How many words per minute can you type?” “I can type 35 words per minute on....” “That’s not very fast.” “... a Japanese typewriter.” “Holy shit!!! You’re hired!!”
This looks pretty inefficient but it's worth considering A) the operator isn't very skilled B) Japanese characters often pack a ton of meaning. the word "Today" is five keystrokes in English, and only two "今日" on this keyboard. Also Japanese doesn't really have word counts, because without spaces between words, there's no consensus on what counts as a separate word. They use characters instead. Certainly a far cry from the modern method of computer-assisted interpretation Japanese typists use nowadays, but I think this is one of the best case scenarios for a non-digital Japanese keyboard.
Surprisingly, the fastest typists are now Chinese. I guess it took sometime before they developed systems to compete and now beat English language typists. But, now they have, and I believe using several variants. I would guess japanese also have systems approaching - if not surpassing - English typing. I am sure a much faster English system could be developed, but that ship sailed long ago
@@phoslurperr yeah, but those people make stuff that a common people cant read at all. Every single court stenographer has years in experience and they do not use the "normal" typing or neither the normal keyboards
Technically, if Japanese had no Kanji and only either Hiragana or Katakana, it would be even simpler, since it's a syllabic alphabet meaning you could write the same text with much less characters.
Kanji contains meaning, and if you understand the meaning of each kanji then you can get so much more information out of the sentence. It also makes it easier to tell words apart. It also saves space. わたしのなまえはやまだです 私の名前は山田です See these two sentences are the same but the one with kanji is easier to read if you know the meaning of the kanji. Sort of like the top one I have to actually read it to understand it while the bottom one I understand as soon as I glance at it.
Actually, not very complex from what you can see here. The plunger is fixed and the type has always to be centered to that; therefor you have to move that wheel from left to right. When you have selected the symbol you want to write, the whole row is just lifted before the plunger which then prints the symbol you have centered. The rows are offset in a way, that shows you the symbol in the front on a row which has different symbols beneath it, because of course the machine cant lift the row you are looking at but just the one directly in front of the color band
Imagine walking into some Japanese advanced robotics applications lab and see everyone logging their data with these. "Why are you using antiquated typewriters?" "We don't trust logistics to digital hardware."
That sounds quite plausible, knowing Japan. They're often very cautious about adapting to new technology. I think even now, PC ownership isn't very high.
I'm intrigued: was your mother in a diplomatic or intelligence corps, or was her profession related to international business? Was she a citizen or immigrant from an Asian country, or did she learn Japanese/Chinese for school or work?
That feeling when the typewriter is really slow, but it's probably still faster than writing kanji EDIT: after several comments of people telling that kanji is not that slow to write, it seems that I was wrong about it being probable. But I do wonder how a person who is skilled in this machine would do
The fact that engineers can conceptualize, draw precise blueprints, and then build complex mechanical things will never cease to amaze me. Especially devices like this, built well before computer aided design.
It might interest you that Japan is home of the OCD. A group of (super)market entrepreneurs and executives bought a 7-11 franchise to get at the operations binders. At the first store, an executive physically at the pilot store phoned in EVERY SINGLE ITEM SOLD over the day each night. They hadn't figured out how to do inventory, so they just brute forced it.
> Studrnt Reading Japanese Computer typing instructions; Welcome to Japanese Typing 101 ■ To activate program home page please press any key. - Turning the japanees key barrel frantically & thinking; ***Where the hell is the "any" key? ***
They're the people that graduated with the aid of google so that's to be expected.. As technology progress, the amount of competent individual decreases
@@akaraikiriakatsuki3157 Not true or accurate at all. They are only more saturated, but the amount of competent engineers is increasing. Those that truly care about the subject use google and all types of media to educate themselves faster and more efficiently than any of their predecessors could. We are making crazy progress in so many fields. And quite a bit of that progress can be attributed to young engineers around the ages of 25-35.
When I first came to Japan in 1981 these (or similar) were still being used in the office. Only a few skilled women could "type" like this so most business was done by writing by hand. Very soon after this computers changed everything. Obviously the person in this video has no idea what they are typing and that is not close to being Japanese but the sounds the machines make are very nostalgic to me.
A Japanese printing company can use around 2000-3000 characters to type almost anything. A Chinese printing company would need more than that, about 5000-6000 characters, because Chinese characters generally have a more exact meaning and because Chinese doesn't have additional phonetic ''alphabet-like'' syllabic symbols like hiragana and katakana for grammar and writing names, they use separate characters for that. Therefore building a typewriter with the same design for writing Chinese as you can for writing Japanese is close to impossible.
I can't believe I've lived this long without ever wondering what a Japanese typewriter would look like. Amazingly enough, that knob-and-slider action seems both more ergonomic and faster to use than our latin keyboards.
@@mjaysaratchandra8196 The fact that character has its own word doesn't mean it can't be used in compound words like normal. My point was that as far as I can see Japanese has more characters than Chinese that are basically only used in compound words.
@@mjaysaratchandra8196 It can be a little frustrating to go to the trouble of learning a whole character and its meaning, yes character can have meaning, but not a word, and not be able to use it at all without learning another character.
I don't think Japanese students wrote theses on these things. Typewriters in China and Japan were almost always found in offices. In fact, in China, typewriters had to be registered and it was illegal to have one for personal use, whereas in Japan the only people who used it were those trained to work with them.
ランダムに打っているようですが 0:47「座談」 1:14 「自失」は単語として成立しています You seem to be typing randomly, but 0:47 「座談」(ZADAN) "round‐table talk" and 1:14 「自失」(JISITSU) "lose yourself" are words that work.
"The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare." I guess that applies to Japanese too.
Clearly, the engineers of Toshiba tried to make this product as usable and compact as possible. Probably, the kanji display rows background was clearer when new on the character drum selector, but the typist would have a good indication what kanji was pulsing with the arrow indicator over the desired row and row field on the selector. A very nice and pretty machine, really. :) However, the wappuro machines and software were really an urgent need when developed and spread in the commerce and offices first, and later distributed among the general public.
A Japanese journalist once told me that the ease with which Japanese people can type out Kanji on electronic devices is actually slowly killing the writing abilities of Japanese people. Even my wife said that she remembers how to write much less Kanji then when she was in High School, mainly because almost everything is typed once you enter the workforce. She discovered this when applying for a job at some kind of school textbook company, which required her to take a Kanji test. You are correct that it was urgently needed back then but it seems to have come full circle in that it is now starting to do harm. Having said that, the ENglish speaking world is no better. I tend to flare up a bit whenever I read online comments from all kinds of people, including some very intelligent ones, who cannot be bothered to differentiate "your" and "you're" or "there" and "their". Most likely only following the auto-suggest on their devices.
@@ondrejsedlak4935 As an aside, My wife and I used to write notes to each other in cursive so the grand kids couldn't read them. :) Every new generation has lost something. ( My brother told me while in the military that's why they start a war every 20 years so the old generals can pass on their expertise to the recruits .)
Bao’s family is like an electric scatter brush for the treatment of miscellaneous problems. It is suitable for the purpose of being just. The brothers plan to discuss the type of Wakita Kazuo’s obstacles. Translation for 0:49
I can't imagine too much faster, because I feel like you have to make sure you're lined up properly or get a bad stamp. Maybe ~1.5 a second if you spent years on it. At least they won't have to worry about having to sort it in the most inconvenient order to force you to slow down. _Looking at you QWERTY_
That would be nice video or not? Some bad ass old Office lady that worked on this monster. It's like watching old Chinese people working with a abacus 🧮 We had once such guy invented by our Prof. Made little contest chinese veggie seller with abacus Vs. German students with calculator. You could guess 😁 Old guy playing with wood marbles won 😍
@@jellomaster5629 Well, at least the way I've heard it is that QWERTY was designed to separate commonly used letters to forcibly slow down the rate at which you type. Otherwise typewriters would mess up.
@@thedemonslayer51 Sorta, it was designed to separate commonly used letters to try to prevent two adjacent keys from being struck so close together that they jammed the mechanism. It's not an issue on anything except mechanical typewriters but the layout stuck. If you're looking for a layout designed for speed, the DVORAK layout is apparently great for that. I've never used it personally so I don't know for sure
This is a lovely video. Thank you. The Japanese written language is incredibly complex. And yet, the Japanese spoken laguage is incredibly concise. We live in a world of juxtapositions.
you can type japanese by typing by *basically* typing it's romaji (of course you need a autofill dictionary since there's lots of kanji with the same readings)
@@f__kyoudegenerates because you are used to it. Ask somebody who hasn't used one before to type a one page text. It will take a few good seconds to find each character. I was 4 when I typed first, and I was using only the right index finger. When computers became cheap enough in the late 90s, everybody new to it was doing the same right index only typing, like a child. Even today, a lot of people don't use all fingers and type with indexes only. A trained japanese could type with this machine fast enough, those characters are syllables if I am not mistaking, possibly words or part of words.
@@thecsofans6957 Printer nowadays have the wireless feature where it connect to any device with Bluetooth, so the need to have PC is not as critical for functioning
Beautiful type writer, and the fonts are tastefully carved. Too bad there might be some problem for all strikes to miss upper portion. Would have been better if they had designed it to have a foot driven striker for freeing up both hands to maneuver for characters.
What an extraordinary machine. According to the Virtual Typewriter Museum, Toshiba made this kind of typewriter from 1940 to 1954. Thanks for posting this to TH-cam.
Someone should make a mechanical Unicode typewriter. I'm imagining a giant wheel made up of drums like this one, with a typewriter essentially "riding" the rim so the drum you select can lock in to the regular mechanism.
You would need to be able to keep adding code pages to keep up with changes to the standard, but that's a great idea ... for like an art installation or something.
@@brandonlewis2599 Interesting point... I wonder if there's some way a wheel can be constructed so that its radius can be increased. I guess it would be easier to use some sort of track / conveyor belt, so you could just extend it in length.
@@metacob That would make it pretty slow and complex, i like the idea as an art instalation though, you'd probably have to walk into the typewriter with all the structural elements to keep it from collapsing
I collected typewriters years ago (as did my ex who's still a good friend) and when browsing online for antique typewriters I stumbled upon one probably about a decade older than this. The $23,000 price tag drove me to only admire it, but I'd all but kill to get one of these in my collection.
Assuming this isn't a joke, this would be fairly trivial to make as a keyboard, actually. Easier than building this typewriter, at least. I'm not sure it would be an improvement over kana input with computer interpretation, which seems to be the fastest way to type Japanese right now, but it's worth a shot :)
Something about japanese product design really resonates with me. Things are ordered and formed in a way that to me is very organic, harmonious and clean. All the elements work together to form the total aesthetic. I find it all over the place across various products and even the things that make up the products themselves. Somehow too, written and spoken japanese also follow this philosophy. I really admire that.
@@caminoprojectUS You realize that you could have simply physically switched the keys and changed the keyboard layout to any other system of your preference, right?
I am Japanese. I'm talking using a translator. I have never seen a typewriter like this. I would like to get it someday. Also, what I learned from watching this video is that you don't understand Japanese, just as I can't understand English.
This video answer a question I asked to myself since I started to study Japanese language ten years ago: how a Japanese typewriter looked like and was it even possible to write Japanese on typewriter before the creation of computers? Greatings from France !
Wow! Amazing how compact they were able to make such a thing. Looks like smooth and easy gliding to the next character, too! Marty wasn't kidding when he said that "all the best stuff is made in Japan"! Thanks for sharing this awesome part of your collection with us, it's a beautiful bit of mechanical goodness :)
To Japanese people: 1.) Were such typewriters used frequently in Japan? 2.) Doesn't it take a lot of time to search for the character you need on the cylinder? How fast is writing on such a thing compared to writing in a western language on a typewriter with latin alphabet?
I gather it was only a device for use in a business office, by specially trained typists. I get the impression that the green columns are intended as a reference key to make finding characters easier, and there's probably some commonality in meaning or reading that would be much more obvious to a native speaker. But these were not fast machines to use.
@@nonamenoname2618 Not that I'm aware of. Due to the nature of the writing system, the only ways to make it easier would be to eliminate the kanji characters, restricting it to hiragana, katakana, and Roman letters. Such a typewriter would still be about three times as complex as a normal Western type.
Basically the problem of Japanese machine typing remained unsolved until electronic word processors with integrated printers appeared. I think fully mechanical machines like this were used for something very official that has to be printed but only few copies are needed that it doesn’t make sense to use printing presses.
I've seen some pics of the WWII Japanese military letters typed in Kana only. I believe it was typed by a typewriter similar to QWERTY since there are less than 50 Kanas. But people need to be very careful in making sentences to avoid misunderstanding, especially for the military.
Given that most languages have only around 1000 words that are used in day-to-day communication, that's probably all that you would need. Obviously that does nothing to help in the cases of the 10's of thousands of technical words that aren't in that 1000.
@@FreeManFreeThought Characters are not words. The kanji characters have a meaning, yes, but they are not all words. For more technical terms you often use 3 or 4 kanji chracters.
This got me curious about Japanese typing history in general. Like how widespread these were? When were they adopted and in what context? How was the transition to computers? and so many more questions. I would greatly appriciate any book recomendations about the subject.
I only have a rudimentary knowledge of the history but it seems like the first JP typewriters are from the 1910s-1920s with a sheet of characters instead of a wheel. I don't know for sure how common they were by WWII, but by the mid-century they were standard in offices. Typewriter users seem to have been more specialized than in the West. By the '70s or early 80s electronic typewriters came out, using systems more like modern keyboards, including the use of Latin letters to phonetically type out words which then get transferred to characters. In the 80s computers came out of course, but early systems didn't support kanji which led to the MSX architecture which could handle kanji being adopted as a de facto standard.
@@bureidokaiza2829 Also interestingly enough, Japan was one of the first countries to use email for early mobile phone messaging, as opposed to SMS. Reason being the SMS protocol at the time, couldn't handle multi-byte ASCII characters required for Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, whereas email already could. In that respect, Japanese mobile communication was ahead of the world, when they were still relying on SMS. By the mid 2000's however, SMS was updated to handle complex ASCII sets, so using email from that point on in Japan was kind of redundant but it is still widely used in Japan, along with standard SMS.
During that time Japan build all types of devices for Japanese market by themselves localising it according to Japanese needs by themselves they just kept Latin alphabet as it would be necessary for business or government transactions.
和文タイプライター(Japanese Typewriter）に搭載される文字数は約2000です。文字の配列は共通化されていますが、それでもその中から文字をファインダーで選択して打ち込む作業は容易ではありません。故に、和文タイプライターは商工会が定める専用の資格がありました。当時の日本において、女性が職を得るには最適な技能職の一つであったため、多くの女性が和文タイプライターの資格を得て社会に進出していきました。 日本語の文字数の多さと規則の複雑さから、タイプライターの電子化（Japanese word processor device)の普及は1980年代まで待たなければなりません。 A Japanese typewriter has about 2000 characters. Although the arrangement of the characters is standardized, it is still not easy to select and type the characters from among them using a finder. For this reason, Japanese typewriters had special qualifications set by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Since it was one of the best technical jobs for women in Japan at that time, many women became certified as Japanese typewriters and entered the society. Due to the large number of characters in Japanese and the complexity of the rules, electronic typewriters (Japanese word processor devices) did not become popular until the 1980s. Translated with DeepL
The Chinese writer Lin yutang once built a typewriter himself, the machine makes typing 90;000 Chinese characters possible, using a unique combinatory system. The inventor of the machine went bankrupt for building it, an American company named Carl E. Krum was commissioned to build the prototype, only finding out that no one was willing to finance the mass production of it because of the high manufacture cost. The prototype was lost when the author moved from one house to another. If only could rebuild the machine, it would be great to see an analog machine for type Chinese, the design was truly ingenious.
I know this is not really related to this video, but I would really appreciate some advice form you guys. I've a 1915 Hammond Multiplex. It looks all glossy and nice, I've oiled the machine, gave it a fresh ribbon and all parts seem to be moving freely and smoothly. However, it's not making any imprint... The hammer in the back doesn't seem to be hitting the back of the impression strip hard enough and I don't know how to fix it. Any advice?
@@TypewriterCollector Thank you for the quick response! I'll film and send the video as soon as I get to the house where the machine's at, likely tomorrow morning.
Ha ha ha! He was just choosing random things and pressing the key. Using this machine for real would be slow even for an expert, none of whom are still alive today, I'm sure.
It’s crazy to think that they could conduct 5-6 years of a world war with only this, while the allies could type exponentially faster on convential Latin Typewriters.
For the most part, they would hand-write documents for military use; it's almost as fast and many more people knew how. Typewriting was only for neatness. Radio communications was often using a variant of Morse code called Wabun, which essentially encodes kana characters rather than kanji, and the encryption systems the Japanese used were also based on a romanisation of kana.
Thanks to Google recommendations, sad there are no drawings or physical disassembly. 🤔although I reviewed it more carefully and everything became clear)
I recall seeing a picture of an early Chinese typewriter that was the size of a dining table. However, I'm told that the delay in technology actually benefitted the Chinese in the end. The simplified Chinese keyboard developed for word processors and computers is apparently easier to use - for bi-lingual Chinese - than the Western Qwerty keyboard original designed to stop mechanical typewriters from sticking.
@@collectioneur Yes, because I spent years studying English and English literature in University, but when it comes to scriptio continua in a foreign language, it's hard to tell things apart if you're not fluent. And I would know, because English isn't my native language. From experience, Japanese is a generally simple language to learn (conversationally) with the necessity of kanji to break words apart, but I'm saying that kanji could have theoretically been abolished, making it easier to read as a result. But at least there's always furigana.
Hey, folks! This is just insane. We should like every single video on such a rare channel. Hey, this channel did my day! I am in love with these machines!
@@takatamiyagawa5688 True: but I’m assuming the mechanics of this keyboard would be different from a QWERTY keyboard. And, speaking as a lefty, myself? I feel the QWERTY one ALSO needs work: certainly in where the enter key is …
After watching the video several times, I think it works like this: Each row on the selector drum corresponds to a row of type blocks inside the drum. When you rotate the drum, you also are selecting which row of type blocks will be raised, and when you move the drum from side to side, you determine which type block will be in the striking position. Then, when you push down the impression lever, the row of type blocks rises and the hammer strikes the type block that is at the impression position, pressing it against the ribbon and making a mark on the paper. The hammer always strikes at the same position, so the same rotational and side-to-side motion that positions the desired character under the selection pointer also positions the desired type block under the hammer.The closest equivalent I can think of is the “flying-chain” printers used by 1960s computers, where the type slugs moved continuously and the hammer would fire when the desired character was in front of it. By the way, I was impressed by the beautifully clear impressions made by the machine, and its industrial design is very clean and modern-looking. But seeing it at work reminded me of the scene in the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora” where the American decoding officer was bragging that his group could read Imperial Navy signals faster than the Japanese could do it themselves...
I'm fastinated about japanese writing, characters allow for a more complex expresion and a faster reading, but that complexity makes it a nightmare to write, yet it's so beautiful
Its amazing how japan has never been like "okay guys we need to figure out a better system here" Seems like this typewriter would have been the catalyst for a change in the writing system if anything.
i wish they'd just accept romanji and be done with it. don't change anything, just... learn romanji and slowly transition to it as the main method over a century or whatever. that way i'd be able to read and understand their stuff. i'm never going to learn the runes.
🤯 I think even locals would have a hard time finding the characters on that thing, But even at your speed, it would take an entire day to type out a 10 page document, forget a whole scroll or book. Japanese calligraphers would be far faster at hand writing a document. Reading them is a whole different story. 😵
@@TheJDgaff I'm not a native speaker so I sometimes fall short on things like punctuation (not that Im very good at text articulation in other languages)... But as someone who speaks other languages, I can tell you that english is relatively easy. especially if you compare it to russian or german etc.
Thank you for making the Japanese typewriter into a beautiful video. It is very retro and cool. Toshiba is also the company that made the world's first Japanese word processor. As a result, we can create Japanese sentences while typing. This feat must have been made possible by the company's efforts in creating the typewriter. 和文タイプライタをきれいな動画にしていただき有難うございます。とてもレトロでかっこいいです。 東芝は、世界初の日本語ワードプロセッサを作った企業でもあります。このおかげで、タイプしながら日本語の文章が作れるようになりました。この偉業も、タイプライターを作った企業努力があってのことでしょう。
Interesting mechanism. Rotary/linear selector.Lift mechanism lifts the line of type. Simple hammer lever strikes. Ribbon lift probably similar to a regular typewriter, or linked to the line lifter. Normal escapement. I used to be a typewriter mechanic on IBM golfball machines. Fun.
Are the characters sorted in some way to make it easier to find the right one?
They're arranged phonetically by most common "on-yomi" (or kun-yomi in some cases) according to the kana syllabary (many homophones, of course). Can't see the whole circumference of the cylinder but at about 0:30 it's clear that the order doubles back at the ring of mathematical symbols. Red characters help parse the readings. Last character to left of equal sign can be pronounced "kin" (exert) and the first character in next row "gin" (silver), then "ku" (suffer) in red followed by "kuu" (sky, empty), "kuma" (bear), "kun" (teachings, meaning [also the kun in kun-yomi]), "gun" (group), then "kei" (system) in red followed many, homophones of "kei". It's the same order in which (mostly compounded character) words in a normal Japanese monolingual dictionary for Japanese speakers would appear.
@@amontaval thanks for sharing that info!
@@TypewriterCollector My pleasure. Had to make a couple of edits for meaning of characters :)
Nope. it is completely random. And the technicians will rearrange them from time to time just to mess with you.
@@janakakumara3836 yep, some models also have random celtic symbols mixed into the japanese characters
- Looks at keyboard
- looks at video
I will never complain about too many keys on my keyboard....
Same
and thanks to IME
And someone actually made a computer keyboard equivalent www.flickriver.com/photos/pengin/340943701/
@@jackmcslay That's amazing. I kinda want one just to have one.
we all thought japanese typewriter should have a lot of keys, but no one expected it to be just one XD
“How many words per minute can you type?”
“I can type 35 words per minute on....”
“That’s not very fast.”
“... a Japanese typewriter.”
“Holy shit!!! You’re hired!!”
This looks pretty inefficient but it's worth considering A) the operator isn't very skilled B) Japanese characters often pack a ton of meaning. the word "Today" is five keystrokes in English, and only two "今日" on this keyboard. Also Japanese doesn't really have word counts, because without spaces between words, there's no consensus on what counts as a separate word. They use characters instead. Certainly a far cry from the modern method of computer-assisted interpretation Japanese typists use nowadays, but I think this is one of the best case scenarios for a non-digital Japanese keyboard.
Surprisingly, the fastest typists are now Chinese. I guess it took sometime before they developed systems to compete and now beat English language typists. But, now they have, and I believe using several variants. I would guess japanese also have systems approaching - if not surpassing - English typing.
I am sure a much faster English system could be developed, but that ship sailed long ago
Actually - I guess court stenographers do have a stem that goes over 250wpm so they may be faster.
@@phoslurperr yeah, but those people make stuff that a common people cant read at all. Every single court stenographer has years in experience and they do not use the "normal" typing or neither the normal keyboards
@Java Monsoon How much do you write a day to destroy a membrane-keyboard? I even hit it with my fist when I'm angry and still works.
I am thankful for the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals.
Technicly those are Indian numericals :P
Arabs had better PR.
Technically, if Japanese had no Kanji and only either Hiragana or Katakana, it would be even simpler, since it's a syllabic alphabet meaning you could write the same text with much less characters.
I think they understand that though, yet Kanji lives on.
@@UltimatePerfection Yeah. I wonder if homophone words would be a pain in the ass, since Japanese has a lot of them, but you rely on context.
Kanji contains meaning, and if you understand the meaning of each kanji then you can get so much more information out of the sentence. It also makes it easier to tell words apart. It also saves space.
わたしのなまえはやまだです
私の名前は山田です
See these two sentences are the same but the one with kanji is easier to read if you know the meaning of the kanji. Sort of like the top one I have to actually read it to understand it while the bottom one I understand as soon as I glance at it.
If Kubrick used this in "The Shining" it would have added an extra 20 minutes to the film.
Th shinning have more than 15 minutes of deleted scenes.
And 5 months worth of outtakes for the actors
I can't even imagine how complex insides of this thing must be
Probably looks like a grandfather clock threw up in it
Actually, not very complex from what you can see here. The plunger is fixed and the type has always to be centered to that; therefor you have to move that wheel from left to right. When you have selected the symbol you want to write, the whole row is just lifted before the plunger which then prints the symbol you have centered. The rows are offset in a way, that shows you the symbol in the front on a row which has different symbols beneath it, because of course the machine cant lift the row you are looking at but just the one directly in front of the color band
@@systemforever3192 It looks less complicated than a normal English typewriter.
@@systemforever3192 buddy that is complex to the average IQ
@@eduwino151 Characters on front, stamps on side. Point at character, hit button, stamp slides up, hammer hits stamp, stamp slides down.
Imagine walking into some Japanese advanced robotics applications lab and see everyone logging their data with these.
"Why are you using antiquated typewriters?"
"We don't trust logistics to digital hardware."
walks in and se robot workers. and robots typing on these things......
That sounds quite plausible, knowing Japan. They're often very cautious about adapting to new technology. I think even now, PC ownership isn't very high.
They’d use another kind of typewriter than this
My mother used one of those as a secretary in world war 2. She described it many times, but I never saw one until now.
I wonder how fast she was typing a page.
I'm intrigued: was your mother in a diplomatic or intelligence corps, or was her profession related to international business? Was she a citizen or immigrant from an Asian country, or did she learn Japanese/Chinese for school or work?
ah!! its tokyo roses child!
I’m happy you found this video.
@@micahwhite7484 or maybe she was just Japanese..
That feeling when the typewriter is really slow, but it's probably still faster than writing kanji
EDIT: after several comments of people telling that kanji is not that slow to write, it seems that I was wrong about it being probable. But I do wonder how a person who is skilled in this machine would do
Not probably, definitely.
One of many reason why China now uses a simplified version (kanji is based on traditional Chinese, where Taiwan and Hong Kong still uses)
I'm Japanese and I think we can write Kanji faster than using this. It's very interesting but looks unuseful.
Continental Drift Is faster than writing in katakana
Nah not at all.
The fact that engineers can conceptualize, draw precise blueprints, and then build complex mechanical things will never cease to amaze me. Especially devices like this, built well before computer aided design.
It might interest you that Japan is home of the OCD. A group of (super)market entrepreneurs and executives bought a 7-11 franchise to get at the operations binders. At the first store, an executive physically at the pilot store phoned in EVERY SINGLE ITEM SOLD over the day each night. They hadn't figured out how to do inventory, so they just brute forced it.
> Studrnt Reading Japanese Computer typing instructions;
Welcome to Japanese Typing 101
■ To activate program home page please press any key.
- Turning the japanees key barrel frantically & thinking;
***Where the hell is the "any" key? ***
They're the people that graduated with the aid of google so that's to be expected..
As technology progress, the amount of competent individual decreases
@@akaraikiriakatsuki3157 Not true or accurate at all. They are only more saturated, but the amount of competent engineers is increasing. Those that truly care about the subject use google and all types of media to educate themselves faster and more efficiently than any of their predecessors could.
We are making crazy progress in so many fields. And quite a bit of that progress can be attributed to young engineers around the ages of 25-35.
I didn't know what this was or how it would work. It is amazing that people are capable of when presented with a problem that needs a solution.
When I first came to Japan in 1981 these (or similar) were still being used in the office. Only a few skilled women could "type" like this so most business was done by writing by hand. Very soon after this computers changed everything. Obviously the person in this video has no idea what they are typing and that is not close to being Japanese but the sounds the machines make are very nostalgic to me.
I was simply demonstrating how it works. I have no idea what I typed :)
This is actually much smaller and smarter than most east Asian typewriters. Wonderful Japanese engineering!
I was really surprised with the compact size as well!
A Japanese printing company can use around 2000-3000 characters to type almost anything.
A Chinese printing company would need more than that, about 5000-6000 characters, because Chinese characters generally have a more exact meaning and because Chinese doesn't have additional phonetic ''alphabet-like'' syllabic symbols like hiragana and katakana for grammar and writing names, they use separate characters for that.
Therefore building a typewriter with the same design for writing Chinese as you can for writing Japanese is close to impossible.
Man in ushanka thanks for sharing!
haha but have you seen korean typewriters
I don't know, Korean ones are practically QWERTY lay outs
I can't believe I've lived this long without ever wondering what a Japanese typewriter would look like. Amazingly enough, that knob-and-slider action seems both more ergonomic and faster to use than our latin keyboards.
With over 3600 symbols to choose from, typewriters were never commonly used in Japan, and people far more frequently wrote by hand.
I'm near my mid 30s and this is my first time seeing one, too.
It's a good thing that some of the characters in Kanji are already fully fledged words
I mean. Can you imagine another reason for a language to have such a ridiculous amount of characters?
Most are not. It would be way too convenient to give every character its own word.
@@mjaysaratchandra8196 The fact that character has its own word doesn't mean it can't be used in compound words like normal. My point was that as far as I can see Japanese has more characters than Chinese that are basically only used in compound words.
@@mjaysaratchandra8196 It can be a little frustrating to go to the trouble of learning a whole character and its meaning, yes character can have meaning, but not a word, and not be able to use it at all without learning another character.
@@jholotanbest2688 imagine adopting a crazy ancient script to your own crazy complex language.
What did the Romans ever do for us?
This actually looks like a fairly effective "push into the deep end" way to learn kanji.
It shows japanese intelligence and ingenuity. Dealing with a so complex language in such a simple way.... Respect !
Indeed!
Wow. I can't imagine writing a thesis on that machine. 🙄
I don't think Japanese students wrote theses on these things. Typewriters in China and Japan were almost always found in offices. In fact, in China, typewriters had to be registered and it was illegal to have one for personal use, whereas in Japan the only people who used it were those trained to work with them.
What if you make a mistake at the end of the page? Most probably they do harakiri :)
@@TypewriterCollector and that person is me, i wrote my graduation thesis on Japanese history with it
@@parasatc8183 Who the fuck use typewriters in China and what the fuck is that illegal shit. What universe are you in?
@@parasatc8183 china be like: a typewriter, my worst enemy!
Like if a Chinese couldn't write by hand
ランダムに打っているようですが 0:47「座談」 1:14 「自失」は単語として成立しています
You seem to be typing randomly, but 0:47 「座談」(ZADAN) "round‐table talk" and 1:14 「自失」(JISITSU) "lose yourself" are words that work.
"The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare."
I guess that applies to Japanese too.
I was simply demonstrating how it works. I have no idea what I typed :)
Clearly, the engineers of Toshiba tried to make this product as usable and compact as possible.
Probably, the kanji display rows background was clearer when new on the character drum selector, but the typist would have a good indication what kanji was pulsing with the arrow indicator over the desired row and row field on the selector.
A very nice and pretty machine, really. :)
However, the wappuro machines and software were really an urgent need when developed and spread in the commerce and offices first, and later distributed among the general public.
A Japanese journalist once told me that the ease with which Japanese people can type out Kanji on electronic devices is actually slowly killing the writing abilities of Japanese people. Even my wife said that she remembers how to write much less Kanji then when she was in High School, mainly because almost everything is typed once you enter the workforce. She discovered this when applying for a job at some kind of school textbook company, which required her to take a Kanji test.
You are correct that it was urgently needed back then but it seems to have come full circle in that it is now starting to do harm.
Having said that, the ENglish speaking world is no better. I tend to flare up a bit whenever I read online comments from all kinds of people, including some very intelligent ones, who cannot be bothered to differentiate "your" and "you're" or "there" and "their". Most likely only following the auto-suggest on their devices.
@@ondrejsedlak4935 As an aside, My wife and I used to write notes to each other in cursive so the grand kids couldn't read them. :) Every new generation has lost something. ( My brother told me while in the military that's why they start a war every 20 years so the old generals can pass on their expertise to the recruits .)
Bao’s family is like an electric scatter brush for the treatment of miscellaneous problems. It is suitable for the purpose of being just. The brothers plan to discuss the type of Wakita Kazuo’s obstacles.
Translation for 0:49
LOL
I'm surprised it was even able to be made sense of lmao
It is like Japanese version of Lorem Ipsum?
This is a really clever way of dealing with a language that uses loads and loads of distinct characters.
Imagine how fast that thing spins with someone who really knows it in and out
Yeah I wanna see like a room full of japanese reporters working with this thing.
I wonder what kind of typing speeds a good operator could be expected to achieve with one of these once muscle memory sets in.
I can't imagine too much faster, because I feel like you have to make sure you're lined up properly or get a bad stamp. Maybe ~1.5 a second if you spent years on it.
At least they won't have to worry about having to sort it in the most inconvenient order to force you to slow down. _Looking at you QWERTY_
That would be nice video or not? Some bad ass old Office lady that worked on this monster.
It's like watching old Chinese people working with a abacus 🧮
We had once such guy invented by our Prof. Made little contest chinese veggie seller with abacus Vs. German students with calculator.
You could guess 😁
Old guy playing with wood marbles won 😍
i could do about 75-100 Japanese characters per minute, i actually like this more than the QWERTY keyboards where i have to use the selection tab
@@jellomaster5629 Well, at least the way I've heard it is that QWERTY was designed to separate commonly used letters to forcibly slow down the rate at which you type. Otherwise typewriters would mess up.
@@thedemonslayer51 Sorta, it was designed to separate commonly used letters to try to prevent two adjacent keys from being struck so close together that they jammed the mechanism. It's not an issue on anything except mechanical typewriters but the layout stuck. If you're looking for a layout designed for speed, the DVORAK layout is apparently great for that. I've never used it personally so I don't know for sure
This is a lovely video. Thank you. The Japanese written language is incredibly complex. And yet, the Japanese spoken laguage is incredibly concise. We live in a world of juxtapositions.
Virgin Qwerty typewriter vs Chad japanese type writer
@AKALIBA101 qwerty fan VS qzerty enjoyer
Virgin weaboo comment. Stop that.
@@suprememasteroftheuniverse , you both are a kitty funny.
@@suprememasteroftheuniverse coming from the guy who has the same photo as the worst youtuber ever
you can type japanese by typing by *basically* typing it's romaji (of course you need a autofill dictionary since there's lots of kanji with the same readings)
It must have taken an eternity just to type out an entire essay let alone a research paper!
Wow that seems so complicated seems like typing takes a long time on that thing
nike.raisin lots of practice would help :)
Each character is about 1/2 of a word or worth about 2 to 5 letters... so not as bad as it seems.
Typing takes a long time on a qwerty when you use it first time. A very long time.
@@DanSlotea A qwerty keyboard is no doubt faster though.
@@f__kyoudegenerates because you are used to it. Ask somebody who hasn't used one before to type a one page text. It will take a few good seconds to find each character. I was 4 when I typed first, and I was using only the right index finger. When computers became cheap enough in the late 90s, everybody new to it was doing the same right index only typing, like a child. Even today, a lot of people don't use all fingers and type with indexes only.
A trained japanese could type with this machine fast enough, those characters are syllables if I am not mistaking, possibly words or part of words.
This is one of the situations where im grateful that the printer was invented
The computer and the printer. Printer can not work if there's no any PC conectivity (such as desktop & laptop)
@@thecsofans6957 Printer nowadays have the wireless feature where it connect to any device with Bluetooth, so the need to have PC is not as critical for functioning
I can remember all 26 characters and some more on my English typewriter.
Japanese Friend: Hold my Asahi!
Kudos on picking the best Japanese lager~
@@micahwhite7484 Nah Sapporo the best
@@kennantjessavi7648 lol, Sapporo was my first, and I do like it, but Asahi is my fav~ Luckily, the two Asian groceries I frequent have both :D
Couldn't imagine writing my thesis in that relic.
初めて見た！使いにくそうだけど、ユニークでカッコいいな。
I've never seen that before! It looks hard to use, but it's unique and cool.
Thanks for watching! 見てくれてありがとう！
@@TypewriterCollector your videos are so great! im a classic keyboard geek, so I'm really enjoying your videos🥰
Beautiful type writer, and the fonts are tastefully carved. Too bad there might be some problem for all strikes to miss upper portion. Would have been better if they had designed it to have a foot driven striker for freeing up both hands to maneuver for characters.
Oh man, being Chinese or Japanese is tough during that era huh. Thank you for the invention of computers!
computers don't decrease number of pictograms. no wonder japanese talk less.
They reaaaaally should have held off for like 30 years before simplifying chinese characters...
@@ivok9846 But nowadays people can use standard QWERTY keyboard and input Chinese characters easily.
@@WaynesStrangeBrain Very true.
@@ivok9846 now they can use bopomofo/pinyin/kana/romaji input
I love how they kept their beautiful writing system throughout the technical hurdles.
There is a HUGE amount of humour watching a "Grammarly Advert" before this video.
"Writing is not easy..."
Wait until you learn Chinese.
(Kanji is just Chinese; but they don't have grammarly, so it's all messed by in grammar.)
What an extraordinary machine. According to the Virtual Typewriter Museum, Toshiba made this kind of typewriter from 1940 to 1954. Thanks for posting this to TH-cam.
Someone should make a mechanical Unicode typewriter. I'm imagining a giant wheel made up of drums like this one, with a typewriter essentially "riding" the rim so the drum you select can lock in to the regular mechanism.
You would need to be able to keep adding code pages to keep up with changes to the standard, but that's a great idea ... for like an art installation or something.
@@brandonlewis2599 Interesting point... I wonder if there's some way a wheel can be constructed so that its radius can be increased. I guess it would be easier to use some sort of track / conveyor belt, so you could just extend it in length.
@@metacob That would make it pretty slow and complex, i like the idea as an art instalation though, you'd probably have to walk into the typewriter with all the structural elements to keep it from collapsing
@@metacob At a binary level, that's basically how unicode works. It starts with ASCII and adds characters on, one language at a time, essentially.
I love the way you recorded this and cut it together. Very nice shots.
Sorry i am late but this machine is AMAZING!!!! I didnt even know these existed except the large chinese one I've seen in pictures!
Alex Najera it’s really neat!
I collected typewriters years ago (as did my ex who's still a good friend) and when browsing online for antique typewriters I stumbled upon one probably about a decade older than this. The $23,000 price tag drove me to only admire it, but I'd all but kill to get one of these in my collection.
I love that “keyboard” design. I wish modern machines had an option for a typing input like that
It looks like something from steampunk fantasy to be honest.
Assuming this isn't a joke, this would be fairly trivial to make as a keyboard, actually. Easier than building this typewriter, at least. I'm not sure it would be an improvement over kana input with computer interpretation, which seems to be the fastest way to type Japanese right now, but it's worth a shot :)
Something about japanese product design really resonates with me. Things are ordered and formed in a way that to me is very organic, harmonious and clean. All the elements work together to form the total aesthetic. I find it all over the place across various products and even the things that make up the products themselves. Somehow too, written and spoken japanese also follow this philosophy. I really admire that.
It's fascinating seeing a typewriter built for a completely different Language~
I am impressed at how quickly you were able to type with this, but my GOD how did anything ever get written in a timely manner?
I was simply demonstrating how it works. I have no idea what I typed :)
Finally, an interface hipsters and AZERTY users can unite behind!
i had the mis-fortune of aquiring an azerty laptop once ... dont know where it is now. i think some poor sod stole it....
@@caminoprojectUS You should write that poor SOB a heartfelt apology... His crime was petty theft, not genocide! ^_^
fgğiod hmhm
@@caminoprojectUS azerty, not like the other keyboards
@@caminoprojectUS You realize that you could have simply physically switched the keys and changed the keyboard layout to any other system of your preference, right?
I am Japanese. I'm talking using a translator. I have never seen a typewriter like this. I would like to get it someday. Also, what I learned from watching this video is that you don't understand Japanese, just as I can't understand English.
I was simply demonstrating how it works. I have no idea what I typed :)
@@TypewriterCollector That can't be good...
This takes "hunt and peck" to a whole new level. 🤣
This video answer a question I asked to myself since I started to study Japanese language ten years ago: how a Japanese typewriter looked like and was it even possible to write Japanese on typewriter before the creation of computers?
Greatings from France !
Thanks for watching!
Wow! Amazing how compact they were able to make such a thing. Looks like smooth and easy gliding to the next character, too! Marty wasn't kidding when he said that "all the best stuff is made in Japan"! Thanks for sharing this awesome part of your collection with us, it's a beautiful bit of mechanical goodness :)
Imagine being Japanese and look at a Western typewriter. "Oh, so small!" lol
How cute.
To Japanese people:
1.) Were such typewriters used frequently in Japan?
2.) Doesn't it take a lot of time to search for the character you need on the cylinder? How fast is writing on such a thing compared to writing in a western language on a typewriter with latin alphabet?
I gather it was only a device for use in a business office, by specially trained typists. I get the impression that the green columns are intended as a reference key to make finding characters easier, and there's probably some commonality in meaning or reading that would be much more obvious to a native speaker. But these were not fast machines to use.
@@Kromaatikse Thanks! And were there any typewriters for japanese that were easier to use?
@@nonamenoname2618 Not that I'm aware of. Due to the nature of the writing system, the only ways to make it easier would be to eliminate the kanji characters, restricting it to hiragana, katakana, and Roman letters. Such a typewriter would still be about three times as complex as a normal Western type.
Basically the problem of Japanese machine typing remained unsolved until electronic word processors with integrated printers appeared.
I think fully mechanical machines like this were used for something very official that has to be printed but only few copies are needed that it doesn’t make sense to use printing presses.
I've seen some pics of the WWII Japanese military letters typed in Kana only. I believe it was typed by a typewriter similar to QWERTY since there are less than 50 Kanas. But people need to be very careful in making sentences to avoid misunderstanding, especially for the military.
What a stunning piece of technology, thanks for sharing it with us!
In case anybody is wondering, it's only 1200 characters. They were used in banks mostly, during the 1940's to 1960's.
Given that most languages have only around 1000 words that are used in day-to-day communication, that's probably all that you would need. Obviously that does nothing to help in the cases of the 10's of thousands of technical words that aren't in that 1000.
@@FreeManFreeThought 1200 characters, not words.
@@FreeManFreeThought Characters are not words. The kanji characters have a meaning, yes, but they are not all words. For more technical terms you often use 3 or 4 kanji chracters.
Thanks! Was looking for this.
This got me curious about Japanese typing history in general. Like how widespread these were? When were they adopted and in what context? How was the transition to computers? and so many more questions. I would greatly appriciate any book recomendations about the subject.
I only have a rudimentary knowledge of the history but it seems like the first JP typewriters are from the 1910s-1920s with a sheet of characters instead of a wheel. I don't know for sure how common they were by WWII, but by the mid-century they were standard in offices. Typewriter users seem to have been more specialized than in the West. By the '70s or early 80s electronic typewriters came out, using systems more like modern keyboards, including the use of Latin letters to phonetically type out words which then get transferred to characters. In the 80s computers came out of course, but early systems didn't support kanji which led to the MSX architecture which could handle kanji being adopted as a de facto standard.
@@bureidokaiza2829 Also interestingly enough, Japan was one of the first countries to use email for early mobile phone messaging, as opposed to SMS. Reason being the SMS protocol at the time, couldn't handle multi-byte ASCII characters required for Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, whereas email already could. In that respect, Japanese mobile communication was ahead of the world, when they were still relying on SMS.
By the mid 2000's however, SMS was updated to handle complex ASCII sets, so using email from that point on in Japan was kind of redundant but it is still widely used in Japan, along with standard SMS.
Whoa, this is actually so unique. No english influence completely built for asian languages. Would live to see how it works
It has the Latin alphabet tough, so it too is corrupted by western influence
During that time Japan build all types of devices for Japanese market by themselves localising it according to Japanese needs by themselves they just kept Latin alphabet as it would be necessary for business or government transactions.
@@jholotanbest2688 I think they did so because they needed to communicate but most of it is purely asian. This is a unique design.
I never once in my life considered that there were such a thing as a Japanese typewriter. My narrow mind has just been blown wide open.
And here silly me thought they used fewer kanji 🤣😂🤣 It would take me a year to write one page with one of these it sure is hard having many letters.
This is a work of art, it's absolutely beautiful.!
文字の種類が多いからこうなったんですかね…
面白いタイプライターです。 見てくれてありがとう！
Yes
学校とかに昔ありました。
和文タイプライター(Japanese Typewriter）に搭載される文字数は約2000です。文字の配列は共通化されていますが、それでもその中から文字をファインダーで選択して打ち込む作業は容易ではありません。故に、和文タイプライターは商工会が定める専用の資格がありました。当時の日本において、女性が職を得るには最適な技能職の一つであったため、多くの女性が和文タイプライターの資格を得て社会に進出していきました。
日本語の文字数の多さと規則の複雑さから、タイプライターの電子化（Japanese word processor device)の普及は1980年代まで待たなければなりません。
A Japanese typewriter has about 2000 characters. Although the arrangement of the characters is standardized, it is still not easy to select and type the characters from among them using a finder. For this reason, Japanese typewriters had special qualifications set by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Since it was one of the best technical jobs for women in Japan at that time, many women became certified as Japanese typewriters and entered the society.
Due to the large number of characters in Japanese and the complexity of the rules, electronic typewriters (Japanese word processor devices) did not become popular until the 1980s.
Translated with DeepL
If they gave this to Violet Evergarden, the show would be 100 episodes long!
lmao.. and let her forget about gilbert
What a unique piece of history. Japanese language and script is an art.
I never knew this existed. 大きなありがとう！！！
This is just the japanese one ,imagine the chinese one
“Yep, 25 whole characters per minute. Beat that, Jennifer”
Yeah, but in this case each character may stand for a whole word, so in fact this is not slow at all !
The Chinese writer Lin yutang once built a typewriter himself, the machine makes typing 90;000 Chinese characters possible, using a unique combinatory system. The inventor of the machine went bankrupt for building it, an American company named Carl E. Krum was commissioned to build the prototype, only finding out that no one was willing to finance the mass production of it because of the high manufacture cost. The prototype was lost when the author moved from one house to another. If only could rebuild the machine, it would be great to see an analog machine for type Chinese, the design was truly ingenious.
I know this is not really related to this video, but I would really appreciate some advice form you guys.
I've a 1915 Hammond Multiplex. It looks all glossy and nice, I've oiled the machine, gave it a fresh ribbon and all parts seem to be moving freely and smoothly. However, it's not making any imprint... The hammer in the back doesn't seem to be hitting the back of the impression strip hard enough and I don't know how to fix it. Any advice?
Kevin Steward you can adjust the hammer pressure just slightly. Send me a short video to my email - davidherrerafilms at gmail
@@TypewriterCollector Thank you for the quick response! I'll film and send the video as soon as I get to the house where the machine's at, likely tomorrow morning.
@@TypewriterCollector I've managed to fix it! Adjusting hammer pressure did the trick! Thank you so much again for your help!
The guy doing the typing is a real pro. I bet it would take a long time just to be able to type at handwriting speed on one of these.
I was simply demonstrating how it works. I have no idea what I typed :)
Ha ha ha! He was just choosing random things and pressing the key. Using this machine for real would be slow even for an expert, none of whom are still alive today, I'm sure.
It’s crazy to think that they could conduct 5-6 years of a world war with only this, while the allies could type exponentially faster on convential Latin Typewriters.
For the most part, they would hand-write documents for military use; it's almost as fast and many more people knew how. Typewriting was only for neatness. Radio communications was often using a variant of Morse code called Wabun, which essentially encodes kana characters rather than kanji, and the encryption systems the Japanese used were also based on a romanisation of kana.
typewriter difficulty level :
ASIAN
Ｔｈｅ ｑｕｉｃｋ ｂｒｏｗｎ ｆｏｘ ｊｕｍｐｓ ｏｖｅｒ ｔｈｅ ｌａｚｙ ｄｏｇ． 0:15
How hard was it to turn the drum? Did you have to exert a bit of force to get it spinning? Did it keep a bit of momentum as you stopped?
It turns smoothly and has free range from every side
Thanks to Google recommendations, sad there are no drawings or physical disassembly. 🤔although I reviewed it more carefully and everything became clear)
I'm amazed that it can type LOTS of kanji with that massive drum!!!
こんなタイプライターあるんだ めっちゃ使いにくそう笑
@@TypewriterCollector Np!
This is amazing. Any sense of when this typewriter was made?
1940
jesus that looks like a hassle
Imagine making one of those back in time... This is some kind of achievement for sure. For both user and developer
no wonder Japanese embassy in DC was too late to decrypt the message from Japan about the declaration of war before Pearl Harbor.
I recall seeing a picture of an early Chinese typewriter that was the size of a dining table. However, I'm told that the delay in technology actually benefitted the Chinese in the end. The simplified Chinese keyboard developed for word processors and computers is apparently easier to use - for bi-lingual Chinese - than the Western Qwerty keyboard original designed to stop mechanical typewriters from sticking.
The Japanese: So our full phonetics only has like 10 sounds. How many characters should we use to write?
Also the Japanese: Yes
The kanji system came first though, this kind of problem always has historical reasons behind it, kinda like pronunciation for English words
If only the Japanese people invented spaces between words, then they could have 100% switched to Hiragana.
@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire But reading kanji is much faster than reading hiragana. Writing too, in cursive.
@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire "IfonlytheJapanesepeopleinventedspacesbetweenwords,thentheycouldhave100%switchedtoHiragana"... You can read this, can't you?
@@collectioneur Yes, because I spent years studying English and English literature in University, but when it comes to scriptio continua in a foreign language, it's hard to tell things apart if you're not fluent. And I would know, because English isn't my native language. From experience, Japanese is a generally simple language to learn (conversationally) with the necessity of kanji to break words apart, but I'm saying that kanji could have theoretically been abolished, making it easier to read as a result. But at least there's always furigana.
Hey, folks! This is just insane. We should like every single video on such a rare channel.
Hey, this channel did my day! I am in love with these machines!
Thanks for the love!
That’s going to be a NIGHTMARE for left-handers!
haha!
Put a handle on the other side and it's all the same for them.
@@takatamiyagawa5688 you'd need to swap the knows I've, as well.
And change the arrangement of characters
@@MrCuddy2977 Why a change to character layout? I don't see left-handed variants of the qwerty layout.
@@takatamiyagawa5688 True: but I’m assuming the mechanics of this keyboard would be different from a QWERTY keyboard.
And, speaking as a lefty, myself? I feel the QWERTY one ALSO needs work: certainly in where the enter key is …
Wish had taken some time explaining the mechanism. I'm intrigued how the typewriter brings the right character in front of the ribbon.
After watching the video several times, I think it works like this: Each row on the selector drum corresponds to a row of type blocks inside the drum. When you rotate the drum, you also are selecting which row of type blocks will be raised, and when you move the drum from side to side, you determine which type block will be in the striking position. Then, when you push down the impression lever, the row of type blocks rises and the hammer strikes the type block that is at the impression position, pressing it against the ribbon and making a mark on the paper. The hammer always strikes at the same position, so the same rotational and side-to-side motion that positions the desired character under the selection pointer also positions the desired type block under the hammer.The closest equivalent I can think of is the “flying-chain” printers used by 1960s computers, where the type slugs moved continuously and the hammer would fire when the desired character was in front of it.
By the way, I was impressed by the beautifully clear impressions made by the machine, and its industrial design is very clean and modern-looking. But seeing it at work reminded me of the scene in the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora” where the American decoding officer was bragging that his group could read Imperial Navy signals faster than the Japanese could do it themselves...
@@jlwilliams you are correct. I also want to add that each row can be easily removed to customize the characters.
First thing on my list of "things I will never ever, with 100% certainty, be able to correctly use in my life"
I'm fastinated about japanese writing, characters allow for a more complex expresion and a faster reading, but that complexity makes it a nightmare to write, yet it's so beautiful
Its amazing how japan has never been like "okay guys we need to figure out a better system here"
Seems like this typewriter would have been the catalyst for a change in the writing system if anything.
I mean, the Japanese writing system has been extremely, _extremely_ simplified in the last two centuries alone.
Have to remember that Japanese isn't even that bad about 2000 or so symbol where as Chinese is closer to 5,000 to 6,000
i wish they'd just accept romanji and be done with it. don't change anything, just... learn romanji and slowly transition to it as the main method over a century or whatever. that way i'd be able to read and understand their stuff. i'm never going to learn the runes.
@@GraveUypo Lazy people shouldn't learn Japanese.
They did. That's why Kana was created.
🤯 I think even locals would have a hard time finding the characters on that thing, But even at your speed, it would take an entire day to type out a 10 page document, forget a whole scroll or book. Japanese calligraphers would be far faster at hand writing a document. Reading them is a whole different story. 😵
When you reach the hieroglyphics stage and say, "Good enough."
That's a neat thing. Completely and utterly complex but neat.
"English is the hardest language to learn if you're not a native speaker."
"I have a video to show you..."
Never have I heard anyone say that, I would go out to say its actually one of the easiest languages to learn...
@@sealdraws1984 *go on to say. And it would've been more proper to use a period instead of a comma.
@@TheJDgaff I'm not a native speaker so I sometimes fall short on things like punctuation (not that Im very good at text articulation in other languages)... But as someone who speaks other languages, I can tell you that english is relatively easy. especially if you compare it to russian or german etc.
This has to be a crazy mechanism. Id like to see the innerworkings
Thank you for making the Japanese typewriter into a beautiful video. It is very retro and cool.
Toshiba is also the company that made the world's first Japanese word processor. As a result, we can create Japanese sentences while typing. This feat must have been made possible by the company's efforts in creating the typewriter.
和文タイプライタをきれいな動画にしていただき有難うございます。とてもレトロでかっこいいです。
東芝は、世界初の日本語ワードプロセッサを作った企業でもあります。このおかげで、タイプしながら日本語の文章が作れるようになりました。この偉業も、タイプライターを作った企業努力があってのことでしょう。
Was this common in Japan before the age of computers?
Why didn't you put the year of this typewriter in the description? Would be interesting, wouldn't it?
Interesting mechanism. Rotary/linear selector.Lift mechanism lifts the line of type. Simple hammer lever strikes. Ribbon lift probably similar to a regular typewriter, or linked to the line lifter. Normal escapement. I used to be a typewriter mechanic on IBM golfball machines. Fun.
OMG.. to memorize that many keys. Very impressive.
Boss: "Where were we?"
Secretary: "Dear..."
I think that using a typewriter is better because the Chinese syllables are used directly instead of using Latin letters as pinyin.
日本語のタイプライターを初めてみましたｗ レバーを回して計算する機械式計算機とか今では使われなくなった面白い機械がありましたね。