About the author
Thomas S. Mullaney is an American historian and sinologist at Stanford University. His research follows the intersection of Chinese language, technology, information systems, race, and the design decisions hidden inside everyday tools.
Modern computers appear to handle Chinese effortlessly. Thomas S. Mullaney asks how that became possible when early keyboards, character codes, printers, screens, and programming systems were designed around the small inventory of the Latin alphabet.
Where to start
Start with The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age. The history of Chinese computing reveals how engineers made thousands of characters work inside machines built for alphabets.
