During the period of 1928, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China announced the first set of legal romanization pinyin scheme-National Language Rome (referred to as Guoluo for short), which was characterized by spelling letters to express Chinese tones, but it was circulated for a short time. 1958 People's Republic of China (PRC) announced the second set of legal romanization pinyin scheme, which uses 26 Latin letters and symbols to indicate tones. Why is it urgent to latinize Chinese? Due to the popularity of computers at that time, the input of Chinese characters on the keyboard was completely inferior to that of letters. Some people predicted that "computers will be the grave diggers of Chinese characters".
Fortunately, in the1980s, the informationization of Chinese entered the agenda, and the Chinese Pinyin scheme was regarded as an important Pinyin input method. However, older people should know that there was once a popular input method in China: Wubi input method. The hero of our article today is Wang Yongmin, the "father of five strokes". The birth of this input method also saved our Chinese characters.
Five-stroke font input method, also known as "Wang code five strokes", was invented by Wang Yongmin in August 1983. This Chinese character input method has a far-reaching influence and a wide range, and it is still one of the most commonly used Chinese character input methods in China, Singapore, Malaysian and other Southeast Asian countries. Compared with the pinyin input method, Wu Bi has the characteristics of low duplication rate, and can quickly input Chinese characters after proficiency. However, I have to admit that at the end of the 20th century, after the popularity of smart pinyin, the number of people using Wu Bi decreased a lot.
Come and meet Wang Yongmin. 1943 1962 was born in Nanzhao, Henan province in February, and was admitted to the Department of Radio Electronics, University of Science and Technology of China. After graduation, he returned to his hometown and worked as a clerk in a science and technology commission. Corey was still using the imagesetter at that time. When printing, workers must choose and arrange Chinese characters one by one from a huge font. They don't proofread Chinese characters when they are entered. If they are wrong, they will have to make a new version.
Wang Yongmin, who is in charge of improving the typesetting machine project, hates this complicated and troublesome keyboard and is determined to invent a simple and effective Chinese character input method. With 3000 yuan in his pocket, he traveled all over the country to look up information and learn from scratch. It took him four years to establish three principles and mathematical models of Chinese keyboard design. Until 1983, Wang Yongmin's Chinese character input method "Wang Ma Wu Bi Zi" was born, and he initiated the "Chinese character radical periodic table", which effectively solved the problem of Chinese character input in the information age.
1998, Wang Yongmin once again invented the "98 standard king code". With the simple and practical Chinese character input method, computers are popularized in China. Wang Yongmin's invention technology has obtained more than 40 patents in China, the United States, Britain and other countries. Since then, during 15, Wang Yongmin has been optimizing and popularizing the five-stroke input method. At its peak, Wubi input method covered more than 90% domestic users. He applied for 50 patents at home and abroad and more than 20 companies, including Microsoft, IBM and Casio. Purchased the right to use the patent.
Besides being an inventor, Wang Yongmin also knows poetry, calligraphy, seal cutting and music. In addition, he founded his own company and developed Hanka himself. Now Wang Yongmin is 76 years old and still serves as the chairman of his own company. Although Wu Bi is not as brilliant as it was then, its contribution to Chinese characters will go down in history.
Can you use the five-stroke input method? Can you recite the roots?