I wonder how many readers have ever experienced typing on an old-style Japanese typewriter. I tried my hand at it, just once. It was around 1973, and afterwards I was relieved that my clumsy effort was merely done out of curiosity and not necessity.

Seen mostly in large companies and government offices, the old typewriters were typically operated by a specially trained typist, usually female. "Personal printing press" would be a more apt description for these remarkably cumbersome devices than "typewriter."

"Typing," in the western sense, fails to acknowledge the expenditure of effort needed back then to get Japanese onto a sheet of paper. The typist manipulated a round white knob over a flat tray as she searched for, selected and physically extracted rectangular metal "slugs" bearing a reversed image of the hiragana, katakana or kanji character from the tray. Then she depressed a lever to slam the slug against the ribbon, print the character on the page, and replace the slug back in its original space.