Chapter 15 14. Wang Xuan—Contemporary Bi Sheng Founder

Wang Xuan (1937-2006), male, Han nationality, from Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, member of Jiusan Society. He joined the work in 1958. He was a professor at Peking University and served as the vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.Famous computer application expert. Wang Xuan has been a child with excellent academic performance since he was a child. He not only has outstanding grades, but also is willing to help others and is particularly enthusiastic about class work.In junior high school, in addition to being the study committee member of the class, he was also responsible for publishing posters.Collecting manuscripts, writing manuscripts, reviewing manuscripts, transcribing, and art... Although he sacrificed a lot of time for playing, Wang Xuan thought about it carefully and never tired of it. "I feel that I am doing a very meaningful thing for the class."Wang Xuan's work and conduct have been affirmed by everyone. On the eve of graduating from junior high school in 1951, Wang Xuan, who had just turned 14, was approved to join the New Democratic Youth League.After entering high school, he became the only member of the class.

Throughout Wang Xuan's life, whenever he faced a turning point in his destiny, "country" became the primary factor he considered.Applying for Peking University and choosing Computational Mathematics is because he puts the country's needs first. In his own words, "computing technology is a key technology that our country urgently needs." When he was a third-year major, unlike most of his classmates with excellent grades, Wang Xuan did not go to mathematics and mechanics classes, but chose computational mathematics.Computational mathematics was unpopular at the time, and choosing it meant dealing with computers.But what kind of computer is, very few people have seen it.

This choice certainly seemed puzzling at the time.Wang Xuan’s explanation is: In the country’s “Twelve-Year Scientific Development Vision Plan”, atomic energy, automatic control and computing technology are listed as “future key development disciplines”. Premier Zhou Enlai especially emphasized that computing technology is “future key development disciplines”. "I think that the development of computing technology is not only an international trend, but also a national need. If a person links his work with the future and destiny of the country, it is very likely to create greater value."

I chose the precise phototypesetting of Chinese characters as my research direction because it is "a complete transformation of my country's traditional printing industry with modern technology"; I chose laser output by leaps and bounds because "to engage in applied research, we must adopt a high starting point and focus on the system. When it is mature, the future international technology development situation, otherwise, the results will be behind the times, and we can only follow the pace of foreign advanced technology”; the establishment of Founder is to compete with large foreign companies.Wang Xuan said: "I firmly believe that committing to transforming scientific research results into commodities is in line with the needs of society and the general direction of development. No matter how hard it is, it is worth it."

On July 27, 1979, on the first prototype of the precision Chinese character phototypesetting system, the first octavo newspaper film was output from the laser phototypesetting prototype.Excited and nervous, Wang Xuan caught the film that could be printed directly with both hands——the film is printed with all kinds of exquisite fonts, fonts, laces and patterns, which can be described as too beautiful to behold.This was designed and created by Wang Xuan and his colleagues in the 18 years from 1976 to 1993 after countless days and nights of hard work. On August 11, "Guangming Daily" took the lead in reporting the successful development of the main project of the laser Chinese character editing and typesetting system on the front page, which greatly encouraged this group of young people who were in a difficult scientific research situation at that time.Only afterwards did Wang Xuan realize that this report took a great risk.He later recalled: "So I firmly remember this newspaper, and always want to use facts to prove it is right."

Wang Xuan and his colleagues made persistent efforts, and in the second year, they successfully launched computer software with editing and proofreading functions that supported the above system, and used it to print the first sample booklet. Subsequently, the Huaguang laser phototypesetting system passed the national appraisal and was rated as one of China's top ten scientific and technological achievements in 1985. The fire that dispelled typefaces illuminated the way forward for the domestic publishing and printing industry, and an unstoppable revolution in printing technology quickly spread across China.At this time, Wang Xuan seemed to be able to breathe a sigh of relief, but he didn't—as early as the beginning of 1987, he had already begun to think about how to attack the Huaguang IV.

In 1989, the Huaguang Ⅳ type machine began to make great strides in domestic news, publishing and printing industries. After appreciating the aggressiveness of Chinese Chinese character laser phototypesetting products, at the end of 1989, British Mona Company and American Wang An Company, which came to China to develop and sell phototypesetting systems, were forced to give up competition and all withdraw from the Chinese market.Before leaving China, the president of the American HTS company sincerely expressed his respect for Wang Xuan and his outstanding invention: "From now on, there will be no HTS company on the earth."

On April 22, 1994, with the successful printing of "Tibet Daily" using the Founder phototypesetting system, all provincial newspapers in China bid farewell to "lead and fire" and entered the era of "light and electricity", and Founder has since Owned 99% of the mainland market.Afterwards, new achievements such as large-screen Chinese newspaper layout system, page description language-based remote version transmission technology, color Chinese laser phototypesetting system, and news editing process management system came out one after another.These achievements, which are the first in China and have reached the international advanced level, make the technology and application level of the Chinese newspaper industry at the forefront of the world, greatly promote the improvement of the productivity of the printing industry, and create a new era of Chinese character printing.

As the founder and technical director of the Chinese character laser phototypesetting system, Wang Xuan is a rare business-minded scientist who can perfectly combine innovative technology with market demand. He has been devoted to scientific research since the early 1980s Commercialization and industrialization of results.With his efforts, Founder's laser phototypesetting system has created huge economic and social benefits for the country, and successfully broke through a market-oriented road that closely integrates production, education and research. After obtaining the monopoly position in the mainland market in 1990, Wang Xuan led Founder to "attack" the Chinese publishing market in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as the Chinese publishing industry such as "Asia Daily" and "Guanghua Daily" in Malaysia, and "Sing Tao Daily" in the United States. , ready to advance to all Chinese-language worlds around the world with unstoppable advanced technology and superior products. On May 23, 1997, Founder Group and Japan's second largest magazine, Japan Co., Ltd. Rikulut Co., Ltd., held a signing ceremony for product subscription in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Export and sell high-tech application software with its own intellectual property rights and its own product brand on a larger scale."

Since then, the Huaguang and Founder electronic publishing systems developed under the leadership of Wang Xuan have occupied more than 70% of the Chinese newspaper market in Hong Kong and overseas, and have successfully penetrated into Japan, South Korea and North America. However, Wang Xuan was not satisfied with the status quo. Beginning in the spring of 1996, he began to march into a new field of scientific research—taking the development of computer animation production system as an opportunity, developing the field of digital video, and entering the radio and television industry. Wang Xuan later wrote in his illness: I have full confidence in the future of the country. In the middle of the 21st century, China will surely become a world power. I can make a little contribution to this in my lifetime, and I have no regrets.

This is Wang Xuan, this is a vivid portrayal of a great scientist's self-improvement spirit!As Wei Xin, the current chairman of Founder Group, said: "Without the laser phototypesetting technology invented by Mr. Wang Xuan, there would be no Founder; without Mr. Wang Xuan who transformed one of the most outstanding engineering technologies in China in the 20th century into productivity, China's media industry and printing industry There would be no revolution in the 1990s; without Mr. Wang Xuan's continuous technological innovation, our great nation that invented movable type printing would not be able to lead the world in printing again." What a compliment!Wang Xuan deserves such an honor!