Korean language and computers

The writing system of the Korean language is a syllabic alphabet of character parts (jamo) organized into character blocks representing syllables. The character parts cannot be written from left to right on the computer, as in many Western languages. Every possible syllable in Korean would have to be rendered as syllabic blocks by a font, or each character part would have to be encoded separately. Unicode has both options; the character parts ㅎ (h) and ㅏ (a), and the combined syllable 하 (ha), are encoded.

In RFC 1557, a method known as ISO-2022-KR for seven-bit encoding of Korean characters in email was described. Where eight bits are allowed, EUC-KR encoding is preferred. These two encodings combine US-ASCII (ISO 646) with the South Korean standard KS X 1001:1992 (previously named KS C 5601:1987). Another character set, KPS 9566 (similar to KS X 1001), is used in North Korea.

The international Unicode standard contains special characters for the Korean language in the Hangul phonetic system. Unicode supports two methods. The method used by Microsoft Windows is to have each of the 11,172 syllable combinations as code and a preformed font character. The other method encodes letters (jamos) and lets the software combine them correctly. The Windows method requires more font memory but allows better shapes, since it is complicated to create stylistically correct combinations (preferable for documents).

Another possibility is stacking a sequence of medial(s) (jungseong) and a sequence of final(s) (jongseong) or a Middle Korean pitch mark (if needed) on top of the sequence of initial(s) (choseong) if the font has medial and final jamo with zero-width spacing inserted to the left of the cursor or caret, thus appearing in the right place below (or to the right of) the initial. If a syllable has a horizontal medial (ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅜ, ㅠ or ㅡ), the initial will probably appear further left in a complete syllable than in preformed syllables due to the space that must be reserved for a vertical medial, making aesthetically poor what may be the only way to display Middle Korean hangul text without resorting to images, romanization, replacement of obsolete jamo or non-standard encodings. However, most current fonts do not support this.

The Unicode standard also has attempted to create a unified CJK character set which can represent Chinese (Hanzi) and the Japanese (Kanji) and Korean (Hanja) derivatives of this script through Han unification, which does not discriminate by language or region in rendering Chinese characters if the typographic traditions have not resulted in major differences in what a character looks like. Han unification has been criticized.

While the first Korean typewriter (한글 타자기, Hangeul tajagi) is unclear, the first moa-sseugi style (모아쓰기, the form of Hangul where consonants and vowels come together to form a syllabic block; The standard form of Hangul used today) typewriter is thought to be first invented by Korean-American gyopo Lee Won-Ik (이원익) in 1914, where he modified a Smith Premier 10 typewriter's type into Hangul. Alongside Lee Won-ik's, Horace Grant Underwood's 1913 US-patented Hangul type, the Underwood, and another Korean-American Kim Jun-Sung's Hangul type are also brought up when discussing the first Moa-Sugi type.

In 1929, the first Dubeolsik typewriter was made by Song Ki-Ju, a student studying abroad in the US, gaining attention from the Donga ilbo; however, it no longer exists. In 1934 he showcased another type, which was a modification of the Underwood portable. Song's 1934 typewriter is stored in the Hangul museum as the oldest existing Korean typewriter. The invention led to the development of other typewriters in 1945 by Kim Joon Sung and 1950 by Kong Byung Woo.

In 1949, eye doctor Kong Byung-Woo made the first practical Hangul type able to write both in Moa-Sugi and horizontally.