Let me see if I can clarify the keyboard question. First of all, Chinese uses the exact same keyboard as an American would. It has alpha numeric keys (A-Z, 0-9), as well as all the other symbols (, *, & etc). Now, to type in Chinese, you need the proper software. Or in WinXP's case, is integrated. All you have to do is to change to Chinese input mode rather than English input mode. The only Chinese input mode I know is Pin Yin, which is how Chinese characters are spelt out to westerners in the alpha bit. I mean everyone knows there are characters that represent YAO MING for example, but for westerners ease of pronouning Chinese, we "spell out" the words like how they sound. Anyway, when I turn on the Pin Yin method, and type Yao Ming, I won't get that, instead I get ›L–¾.
Chinese use exactly the same keyboards as every one does here in the US. The only difference is they have to install a specific Chinese word processing program for their computers in order to get Chinese symbols. For doing this, the easiest is to use Pin Yin to write in Chinese. Pin Yin is a system which uses Roman letters to represent Chinese characters (symbols). Take Yao Ming, the corresponding word "Yao" in Chinese is "›L". If one wants to get "›L" on his computer screen, he first types "Yao" just like you do with your keyboard, and then with the help of the Chinese word program, a little bar with a bunch of Chinese characters which may all phonetically pronounce the same as "Yao" pops up. The correct one "›L" must among them. Just choose it by either click the character or type its given number (i.e, if "›L" is listed no.5 among them, punch "5" ) and then you're done. But from what I've understood so far, people in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong have a much easier life in terms of doing their writings with computer. They use a Chinese version of Microsoft Windows so that they don't bother to have a Chinese word program equipped with the computer. .
