Chapter 45 12. Chinese electronic character code machine

During my travels this summer, I was very pleased to receive the news that Itekcor-poration in Boston had invented a Chinese electronic character code machine.This machine is called (Chicoder (that is, the meaning of Chineseencoder), which means an electronic machine that can use a typewriter to type Chinese characters and punch out punched tapes with electronic numbers, as well as Chinese characters. We It is known that the perforated paper tape is the basis of ordinary computers and other types of telecommunication communication. All the holes are based on binary code signals (binary codesignals), which tell the electronic machine to work, or calculate, or transmit, or print. The applications are endless and can be used. Reached an astonishing speed. This experiment, hosted by the U.S. Air Force, aimed at inventing a translation machine that translates from Chinese to English. However, with this Chinese electronic code machine, it has many uses in printing, typing, telex, etc. According to the The company reports: "All input and output (input, output) work can be done with this unit. For example, the computer uses the perforated paper tape input, the computer uses the typing method or the paper tape output, discharges Chinese and Japanese, and uses The ready-made telecommunication tools telex and print out characters are all the work of the correct equipment of this Chinese character code machine."

To put it simply, any computer or translation machine has two important parts, called the input machine and the output machine.The input is a typewriter who tells the computer the information that needs to be known; the output machine is a computer that calculates and prints out the calculated results for you to see.In the translation machine, you type the Chinese you want to translate into the input machine and ask him to translate it.The translated English is typed by the machine for you to read.Both input and output are an electronic typewriter.The translation part is a Chinese-English dictionary, so this machine translation is also called lookupsystem, just like looking up a dictionary.The beauty is that today's science is advanced, and the speed of electrons is used, which makes you unbelievable.For example, in a Russian-English translation machine, there is a "Russian-English Dictionary" (of course, all electronic signals), with 300,000 to 400,000 entries, which are only magnetically recorded on a 9-inch-diameter phonograph, and the occupied positions are, It's just a circle about a moment wide around the phonograph.Electronics really used lightning-fast means to find that word.If you make a mistake, go too far forward or too far back, you will automatically come back and find the word.So this part is called storageandretrievalsystem, which is the storage and retrieval system. It is a bit like the memory of the human body and mind. It is not known where it is recorded in the nerves with magnetism. Of.We usually talk about "machine memory". In fact, what kind of memory does the machine have, that is, as long as the electronic signals in it match, it can be detected by a few percent in a second.There is another layer of trouble for machine translation, which is to type words into sentences, which all depend on grammatical rules.I look at the Russian and English translation machines, and when a paragraph of three or five lines is typed out, I have to stop for about 30 seconds.When it stops still, the machine has already translated each word, but it is "digesting" there, analyzing the grammatical relationship in Russian, and then arranging sentences according to English grammar.Line up the sentences and type out a paragraph.The result of typing is about 80-90% of the text is fluent, and 10-20% must be manually modified to become completely fluent English.

Two years ago, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) conducted an experiment first.The selection is only a 2,000-word article in Chinese.Because the grammar of the Chinese language has not been clarified, and the Chinese words are still undecided, so the Chinese-English translation machine still has a few years to work.The report at that time is detailed in "Scientific American".Later, a group of people from this company withdrew and were hired by Amity Corporation, where the work was still funded and hosted by the U.S. Air Force.Because Chinese typewriters are required for both input and output, typewriters also need a keyboard for typing, which can also be called a button board.So use the "clear typewriter" I invented, which was designated by the U.S. Air Force through various research institutes.The knob plate is illustrated in the illustration in the summer 1963 issue of Scientific American.This bright typewriter does not care about the order of the strokes, but only about the height, so the article and this Amity report said that "people who do not understand Chinese can also learn to type twenty or thirty characters per minute in a short period of time."This is the common conclusion drawn by various experts in the United States.I want to explain in another article about the search method for quick typing.

Another point that can be described is the amazing progress of photography.We know that American reconnaissance planes now take pictures from 20,000 to 30,000 feet in the sky, and they can take pictures of things as small as a football on the ground.Mingkuai typewriter classifies each character according to the shape of the first stroke and the last stroke, and the characters with the same first stroke (such as 䮀乚) and the last stroke (such as 乚小) are reflected on the small window in front of the typewriter.This electronic code machine shrinks down 10,500 Chinese characters, occupying only two square inches, but through the function of the electronics, it can be compared without a single centimetre, enlarged, and reflected on the window clearly.Therefore, the instruction manual of this machine says that it can hold 30,000 Chinese characters without any problems.Of course, it is not difficult to add one or two inches to the area of ​​a two-inch square.

It can be said that since 1916, I have thought about the issue of Chinese typewriters and Chinese characters for 50 years, and I have lost my fortune.The typewriter was completed in 1948, and in 1951, it was purchased by the Mer-genthaler Linotype Company of the United States.This is the first Chinese typewriter with a button plate.Although the machine is good, the cost is too high, and the price must be high, so Megenthaler will never dare to manufacture it.This time, by accident, the invention of the translation machine was used to create an electronic typewriter, which can be said to have fulfilled this long-cherished wish.Of course, the conversion of the electronic character code machine to teletypewriters and Chinese typesetting machines has become a solved problem.In my opinion, the Chinese photocomposition will have the greatest impact on our lives in the future.Perforated paper tape can print five characters per second, that is, three hundred characters per minute.We think of the high-speed printers used by Western newspapers, which use perforated paper tapes to print out, and print out 20 or 30 lines at the same time, and recall our old typesetting methods, which is really moving.

In recent years, the daily newspapers in New York have frequently had strikes.The reason is that these high-speed printing machines are faster than manual workers, and workers have a job problem.It was such a mess.There is a newspaper that is almost closing.People's machine printing has advanced to such an extent that we never dreamed of it, and we are emotional and emotional.