Shu Zhendong Chinese Typewriter

The "Shu Zhendong Chinese Typewriter" was the first mass-produced Chinese typewriter, developed by Shu Zhendong in 1926 following the work of Zhou Houkun in the mid-1910s. Unlike most other typewriters around the world that used keyboards, the Chinese typewriter instead employed a grid of Chinese characters called a "tray bed" composed of around 2,500 metal slugs, which were similar to movable type. The typist would move the tray bed with their left hand while piloting a mechanical arm over top the tray bed with their right. Once positioned over a desired character, the type lever would be pressed which caused the machine to lift the Chinese character slug and swing it upward to strike the paper, before dropping back and returning the slug to its original location.

This technology had significant influence in shaping the work force and education system. Public and private typing institutes were developed in Shanghai, Beijin, Tianjin, Chongqing, and other metropolitan areas to train a new clerical labor force demanded by positions in government, education, and the private sector. In response to the unprecedented workload for typists, which peaked during the Maoist period, workers sought new ways to organize the Chinese characters on their tray beds so that words commonly used together were placed in close proximity, instead of the default organization based on the Chinese dictionaries of the time. This "predictive text" technique would later become the basis of Chinese computing systems in the 1970s.