Kyota Sugimoto Invents the First Practical Japanese Typewriter

In 1915 Japanese inventor Kyota Sugimoto received a Japanese patent  (No. 27877) for a Japanese typewriter. This was followed by US patent No. 1,245,633 issued on November 6, 1917.

"At that time, typewriters which could be used to write Japanese utilized characters arranged either on a cylindrical surface or on an arc-shaped surface, but either way only a few characters were available. In order to really adapt typewriters to kanji, which has a huge number of characters, Kyota Sugimoto carefully considered the nature of this writing system, including the frequency of use of characters used in public documents. The 2,400 characters chosen as a result were arranged by classification on a character carriage, and the chosen character was raised by a type bar that could move forward and backward and left and right. The character was then typed against a cylindrical paper supporter" (Wikipedia article on Kyota Sugimoto).