In college, Honghong Tinn built her own computers, using parts from electronic stores at her local shopping mall. While pursuing a PhD, she decided to research other Taiwanese "tinkerers," uncovering how in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s they gained the skills and laid the groundwork for global tech giants like Acer, Asus, Quanta, and TSMC.
On November 4, 2025, Tinn, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, was on stage at CHM Live to share insights from her book Island Tinkerers: Innovation and Transformation in the Making of Taiwan’s Computing Industry. CHM Curator Hansen Hsu moderated the discussion.
Tinn first provided a helpful summary of Taiwanese history. After World War II and the Communist takeover of China, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai Shek moved to Taiwan with 1.2 million followers. One thousand were alumni of National Chiao-Tung University, an engineering school dubbed the “MIT of the Orient.” They worked together to lobby the government to reopen the university in Taiwan, arguing that electrical engineering was critical for both the economy and the military during the Cold War. They succeeded, and the university opened in 1958, enabling a new generation of engineers.
A United Nations technical aid program allowed the National Chiao-Tung University to install the first two mainframe computers in Taiwan. They are IBM 650 and 1620 computers. Technicians, visiting professors, and other computer users had the opportunity to tinker with the mainframe computers. Soon, students in Taiwan began to build minicomputers and calculators from scratch. Many of the parts were not available, said Tinn, and they had to source recycled items, work with factories to custom make some components, or else import expensive parts. Future business leaders, like Barry Lam, the founder of Quanta Computer, was one of those students.
Honghong Tinn describes how tinkering inspired Barry Lam’s career.
Taiwan became an important components manufacturing center in the mid-1960s, when the government encouraged multinational corporations to set up factories with tax breaks and inexpensive labor. American, European, and Japanese companies like Wang Laboratories, Philips, General Instrument, and Philco-Ford signed on. Women factory workers soldered IC chips, assembled transistor radios, black and white TVs, and wove copper wire into magnetic core memory units, sometimes under a microscope.
Honghong Tinn explores the experience of women factory workers in Taiwan.
In 1972, just $200 US dollars could enable a tinkerer to buy a microprocessor and build a calculator, creating many entrepreneurial opportunities, and by 1978, 20% of calculators in the global market were made by Taiwanese companies. Those companies often transitioned to building computers in the 1980s. Entrepreneurs could choose to build one-of-a-kind computers and find customers, create an Apple or IBM compatible computer, or make a counterfeit knockoff.
Companies that built compatible machines for the export market had to make sure they weren't running afoul of copyright infringement or risk being labeled as a counterfeiter. Apple, in particular aggressively pushed back against compatible computers with lawsuits claiming unfair foreign trade practices, working with US Customs and Congress to bolster their position. Tinn related how Taiwanese products and entrepreneurs were often stereotyped as counterfeiters.
Honghong Tinn unpacks counterfeiting and stereotypes.
Tinn used CHM oral histories to explore computer company Multitech (later renamed Acer), whose founder, Stan Shih, worked with engineers to ensure that his compatible computers did not copy Apple. As a franchisee for US companies like Texas Instruments, Zilog, and Intel, it was important that he was not seen as a counterfeiter. In fact, his computers had a unique feature to display Chinese characters, missing from US computers.
Unlike Apple, IBM allowed compatible computers until 1987, when they began to charge royalties for patents and licensing. Each company, including Compaq and Acer, negotiated their own rates. In the 1980s, those two companies, one American and the other Taiwanese, were the first to produce IBM PC compatible computers using Intel’s new 32-bit 386 chip amid a global competition. Doing so was a great technical accomplishment, and the companies also demonstrated their strong manufacturing capabilities and even marketing skills.
By around 2011, Taiwan had 90% of the global market share for laptops. Desktop market share was also growing, and if components made in Taiwan were counted, the numbers would be much higher. When a huge earthquake rocked Taiwan in 1999, CNN interviewed Steve Jobs, who noted that the whole industry gets components from Taiwan and implied that it could cause significant supply chain delays for people building computers.
Tinn believes that tinkering activities prepared Taiwanese entrepreneurs and skilled labor that could advance computing technologies. For example, in addition to engineers, companies developed strong quality control and equipment maintenance roles and processes. In fact, an entire ecosystem of universities, factories, startups, and hobbyists were all interested in engaging with hardware and tinkering with technology.
This entrepreneurial ecosystem was evident in the case of global giant TSMC, founded by Morris Chang, who combined governmental and non-governmental support to create a company dedicated to fabricating chips for designers in a “foundry” model.
Honghong Tinn explores the origins of TSMC.
Founded in 1987, TSMC grew along with ASML, a Dutch spinoff of Philips that supplied lithograph machines for TSMC's integrated circuit, or IC, wafer manufacturing. By 1995–96, 60% of TSMC’s revenue came from IC design houses, and Nvidia began to work with TSMC around 1998. And, in 2014, the company reached a turning point when Apple became a client and they began making chips for iPhones. Looking back on his long career, Morris Chang was most proud of his contribution in advancing the evolution of smartphones.
Gone were the days where Taiwanese tinkerers were seen as counterfeiters.
Taiwan Rising | CHM Live, November 4, 2025
