[coffeeling]

> If that's true, I don't see how hangul could have had any typewriter-based advantage over hanja. From the typewriter's perspective, there's no difference.

There are mechanical hangeul typewriters that, while more complicated than Latin or katakana typewriters, are still completely usable for normal writing. The reason hangeul fonts are hard is that a hangeul syllable occupies a standard-sized block, and in eg. careful handwriting the writer would adjust the sizes and positions of the characters to be aesthetically nice. For example, in 해 he the ㅎ andㅐ letters are both the same size. When you write 핸 hen, see how the h especially becomes smaller? In typewritten hangeul, that first consonant is always that small, so you can use only one size of initial h and so on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UenaIex_ZXY

You can see from the output in this video how the sizes of letters are very standard and somewhat disproportionate, eg. in CV type syllables the vowel lines are somewhat giant compared to the quarter-of-the-block sizeish consonants, etc.

That way you can still write by pressing alphabet buttons, with some controls as to where you want the letter to go in the block. It's a bit more complicated, but nothing compared to the nightmare that are proper Chinese character typewriters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDkR87zHdXk

[thaumasiotes]

> For example, in 해 he the ㅎ andㅐ letters are both the same size. When you write 핸 hen, see how the h especially becomes smaller? In typewritten hangeul, that first consonant is always that small, so you can use only one size of initial h and so on.

I see the opposite. As those characters render in whatever font my browser picked, the ㅎ in 해 occupies much less vertical space than the ㅐ does.

In the 핸, it still occupies less vertical space, but the difference is smaller. It's about as tall as the left-hand bar of the ㅐ instead of being significantly less tall than that.

[coffeeling]

Okay. The point is, the typewriter writes 핸-style ㅎ always. Even if it could be a bit taller, but tends to leave the vowel lines bigger.