Chinese (Chinese character) input method has developed for nearly 30 years from 1980s to today, especially Wu Bi and Pinyin, especially in 2 1 century. Pinyin input method with a certain degree of intelligence, combined with the characteristics of easy learning, large vocabulary and thoughtful design for users, has been loved by users and made important contributions to the popularization of the Internet era. The following article (2000) Input Method, a hurdle for China people? Once upon a time, China people couldn't talk about computers without the word "China people". Counting by fingers, the figures who are still all-powerful in the IT session in China did not start from "China people": Lenovo, Giant rely on Hanka, Sitong rely on Chinese typewriter, Founder rely on Chinese printing and typesetting, Zhongxing and Sina rely on Chinese platform, and so on. In the field of Chinese, the most basic problem is the input and output of Chinese characters. Whoever can solve it well will win the battle of business. Things look so simple, you can make a lot of money by solving the input-output problem? I'm afraid such a naive conclusion was made 10 years ago. Although Wang Xuan, who is known as "contemporary Bi Sheng", bid farewell to lead and fire in our printing, and the output of Chinese characters has made a qualitative leap, it has not made the input of Chinese characters easier. With China people's money flowing into the pockets of Microsoft and Intel, China's Chinese character input has not made any money. In addition to the five-stroke font licensing fee, the natural code registration fee is charged, and I am smart enough to support four or five people. I will do some hype and get some new popularity. Who can say how much money I made? Chinese input method, a "semi-old Xu Niang" tortured by all computer users in China for many years, failed to attract public attention. It seems that he has to put on some makeup, dress up in disguise or remain anonymous, or marry someone else! Originally a noble family, it ended up in a miserable situation for more than a year. In those days, Ma Benteng was crowded with people. At that time, there were many people. Even so, some people are secretly trying: I don't believe in this evil. With my beauty and background, I can't raise a beautiful daughter There are also owners who don't worry about food and clothing, thinking that being idle is also idle. I have a cat and dog myself. I can keep it as my daughter and take it out for a walk when I am happy. What do you care? It's okay today. Let's see which semi-old Xu Niang and the national beauty are worth exploring. 1. Keyboard Input About 65,438+00 years ago, a friend's Hanka provided an input method that could continuously input Chinese pinyin strings, but this buddy didn't sell a few pieces, so he couldn't find the trace. This may be the first "sentence" input method actually used. Later, the version of 1.3 about 1993 provided a new pinyin input method, which is still considered as one of the most convenient input methods. It can display a single word in real time, that is, Chinese characters can be displayed at the same time when pinyin is input, typos can be seen immediately, and words that are not available can be remembered once. There are also some clever designs of key positions, such as space confirmation, comma period selection of duplicate codes, fuzzy sound fault tolerance and so on. , has become an essential function of all pinyin input methods today. At this time, there is intelligent ABC. In Peking University Press, which begins with 1993, the editor told the author that a very easy-to-use input method has been developed, which has functions similar to new pinyin and can also input some symbols quickly. After entering v, you can also enter unknown Chinese characters through strokes. This is the early intelligent ABC. Later, we cooperated very well with Microsoft. Almost all Chinese versions of Windows were OEM, but this software may have been basically available at that time. In fact, both intelligent ABC and new Pinyin may technically originate from the PJS project hosted by Zhang Pu, Li Huiqin and others in the late 1980s, and there may be a cooperative relationship between them. 1994, one thing played an important role in the development of input method in China. June 65438+1October 65438+August, Long Guangwei and Bond jointly established the Autoway Chinese Platform Project Team. At that time, the company was going to develop Chinese platform and word processing software under DOS and WINDOWS environment, and it had a great appetite and concentrated some powerful development forces. Due to funding problems, the target was later adjusted in June 1995. Autoway input method was specially developed, and a system that can continuously input Chinese characters in Windows environment was introduced in the second half of the year. The software was inscribed by Zhou Youguang, a famous linguist, and later publicized on radio and newspapers, which was really successful. The biggest feature of this input method is that users only input pinyin continuously, and the system automatically displays the front Chinese characters every few pinyin. After reaching a certain length, the Chinese characters will automatically enter the editor of the application software or the user will press the Enter key without manual word segmentation. However, due to the low accuracy, user interface and ease of use, it has not been widely popularized. 1996, the input method produced a "dark horse", which happened to be called Beijing Dark Horse Company. Its "dark horse input method" can only be used under DOS. Now the author still has the genuine copies he bought at that time, which are several floppy disks. If used under Windows, the input method provides a DOS interface. Users input the pinyin string of a sentence, press Enter, convert it into Chinese characters, save it in a text file, and then copy it to other application software. Now it seems that this software is difficult to use, but with the experience, materials and accumulated funds of this manufacturer in Chinese proofreading, it has been developed step by step, and 200 1 is still being improved and upgraded. Whether it is "self-communication" or "dark horse", it is said that it is the first example of Chinese character whole sentence input (also called sentence input), but in fact, in addition to the functions mentioned by the author earlier, it can be traced back to Harbin Institute of Technology in the late 1980 s. At that time, Wang Xiaolong, a doctoral student in the school, studied Chinese word segmentation, applied for the 863 project and wrote a paper on Minimum Word Segmentation and its Solution. Later, Wang Xiaolong developed InSun input method, which is an input system based on whole sentences. In the early 1990s, I only made some demonstrations and exhibitions. It is said that I occasionally sold them to some Japanese companies for some special typewriters, but nothing happened for many years. In the mid-1990s, it was sold to Microsoft for 654.38 million+. Of course, the price is quite good. Ever since, from the Chinese version of Windows 95, there has been the "Microsoft Pinyin Input Method" that everyone saw. Although there were many critics, Microsoft took a similar approach, and obtained the smart ABC, which was sent to users in China "for free". However, this "freedom" is formal. In essence, its price has been calculated in the Windows operating system, and ultimately it will be counted on the users. As a result, both input method developers and manufacturers have suffered. Even the pinyin input method provided by Microsoft is not easy to use. Someone once joked that the input method is like wiping your nose with a cold. It stands to reason that if your nose is a little small, you should wipe it off quickly, and don't wait to fall into your mouth. But Microsoft Pinyin doesn't let you type for a long time and then go back and revise it. Due to low intelligence, mistakes are puzzling. If you knock on the manuscript, you are lucky to find the wrong one. If you want to type, you will find mistakes. It is impossible to display Chinese characters synchronously with the typed pinyin (Microsoft Pinyin is one word behind, Autopass is a few words behind, and dark horse Pinyin needs final confirmation before Chinese characters appear), and the inconvenience of high error conversion and modification of Pinyin to select Chinese characters greatly restricts its use. People continue to use new pinyin or intelligent ABC, but they have the defects of not supporting GBK Chinese characters and not upgrading new functions for a long time. Coupled with the immaturity of sentence input method, China's input method almost failed. This silence was broken in 1998, thanks to the appearance of hedonic software. Due to the popularity of the Internet, the power of the network is growing, and new personal forces are emerging. There are some new input methods, such as Pinyin Star, Universal Code (Universal Wu Bi) and Intelligent Wu Bi. Pinyin star was invented by Tan Yajun. It is a single word, word, phrase and sentence input system, including full spelling, double spelling and tan code. Perhaps the author realized the advantages and disadvantages of traditional word input method and sentence input method, so he designed a completely "real-time display" method. No matter how much pinyin is input, every letter is pressed, Chinese characters will be displayed at the same time, and users will immediately find out whether there is any error in pinyin. Moreover, because it supports automatic word segmentation and whole sentence input, users don't have to worry about whether to input a word or a sentence, and the system can handle it. Without words, the system can learn and save automatically, which seems to have both the convenience of word input method and the intelligence of whole sentence input method. In addition, it is worth mentioning that you can also input words or whole sentences by using the Tan code of double spelling, radicals or strokes, which can further speed up typing, which is probably not available in other input methods. The input method can be installed with only one floppy disk, the program is compact and stable, there are few running errors, and the intelligence of the whole sentence reaches the practical level. Therefore, the software was launched on 1997 ~ 1998, which received a strong response, and some functions were imitated by future input methods, such as "real-time display", inputting various symbols similar to Pinyin, and intelligently recognizing digital punctuation marks. Chinese star websites have also been promoted and downloaded for a long time, bundling WPS2000 of Jinshan Company. "Bird" commented at the end of 1999 that "Pinyin Star 2000 is obviously superior to Microsoft Pinyin Input Method (Version 2.0) in function, and it is definitely a dazzling star." Among them, there is no lack of praise, but it certainly shows that combining the convenience of word input with the intelligence of pinyin whole sentence input is one of the directions of input method. Pinyin Star adopts plug-in technology, which is similar to Chinese platforms such as Chinese Star or Richwin, so both Chinese and Western languages can be used under Windows. This is a good idea, but it also brings many problems. In Chinese Windows environment, because it is not the standard IME format of Windows, garbled code may appear if it is not installed correctly. This problem also has a negative impact on the input method of Pinyin Star plug-in, the latest Pinyin Star 2002 Build 1. Because the previous version of Pinyin Star did not provide the operation mode of displaying Pinyin and Chinese characters in two lines at the same time, when Pinyin input errors need to be modified, although the Chinese characters can be changed back to Pinyin by square brackets [or] and the cursor can be moved at the same time (without the left and right direction keys), the finger movement range is relatively small, which was originally a good design, but it is different from the traditional operation mode, so the user does not know it, and it makes people feel inconvenient to modify Pinyin. Therefore, after the Millennium version 2.0, Pinyin Star is completely retro in the operation interface. Like the new Pinyin of Chinese Star, the upper and lower lines are provided to display all input Pinyin letters and automatically converted Chinese strings. (Note: This is an old imperial calendar. At present, Pinyin Star has been completely designed according to IME, which has the same mechanism as Microsoft Pinyin and Google Pinyin. Using plug-in technology to design input method certainly has unique advantages, such as overcoming the punctuation of standard IME (such as intelligent ABC), which can't be used in western Windows and can't follow the cursor in western application software. Another development direction of input method is the diversification of functions. The representative of this aspect is the "universal password", which is now the "universal five strokes". Universal Code is a text input method which combines Pinyin, Wu Bi, English and strokes. It can be used with many functions without switching, such as inputting the word "Apple", typing its pinyin "Apple", using Wu Bi code and using English Apple. Therefore, it is easy for users who are used to traditional input methods to use universal codes.

Edit this five-stroke input method

In the early version, Pinyin was the main design method of the universal code, so it can create words in real time, which is similar to the new Pinyin, but the function of Pinyin is not powerful, far less than Pinyin Star and New Pinyin. Therefore, it is suggested that Deng Shiqiang, the author of General Code, give priority to five strokes, advocate "general five strokes" and give consideration to various input methods. The system is well developed and won the title of "Top Ten Software". The biggest disadvantage of this input method is that there are too many menu choices, the menu interface design is messy, and users are at a loss; The lack of gibberish and pinyin words and phrases under Chinese Windows is also a factor limiting the further popularization of this input method. Intelligent Wu Bi is another model, which fully absorbs the essence of Wu Bi and develops it. Wangma Company may never have dreamed that so many people are making suggestions for themselves. Clever Wu Bi has done a lot of articles about Wu Bi, including Wu Bi's coding tips, suggesting whether there is a word in the thesaurus. Many Chinese characters that have been input before can be input quickly with a string of short codes from Wu Bi, and the lexicon is large (because it is encoded by Wu Bi, the lexicon is large and there are many codes), which is also the reason why many users like it. However, there are also some problems in the quality design of the software itself, such as unsightly interface, messy menu and random design of operation keys, which fully embodies the limitations of personal enjoyment of the software. At 1999, there are several other pinyin input methods: pinyin addition, free pinyin input method and koala input method. Pinyin addition is actually the representative work of Liao Hengyi who participated in the new Pinyin design of Chinese Star. It has compact structure, stable program and reasonable key position design. In addition, some newly added functions, such as inputting unknown Chinese characters with strokes like intelligent ABC without switching to input western languages, and quickly inputting all kinds of simplified spelling symbols, made this input method popular with text importers, and sold it with Pinyin Star, Intelligent Wu Bi and General Wu Bi in the Great Wall Chinese Hurricane. But the shortcomings of pinyin addition are obvious. Thesaurus is too small. If you enter two or more words in succession, you must constantly select the words and confirm them with spaces. The biggest feature of free pinyin input method is that the source code is open (the operation mode and function are not too new), so many input method lovers have compiled their own input methods for reference. When koala input method was first introduced, it was introduced on BBS in Tsinghua. The operation mode almost completely imitates the new pinyin of Chinese star, but overcomes the defect that the font of the new pinyin is very small in some systems, which is well received by netizens. From the beginning, the author of koala stated in the software description that he would sell it. Later, it was really sold to Ziguang Company, and it was improved into Ziguang Pinyin Input Method in 2000. The biggest feature of this input method is that it is completely loyal to the operation mode of new pinyin and provides a large vocabulary. In subsequent versions, such as 2.2 and 2.3, intelligent word combination is added, that is, users can input pinyin strings within 9 words continuously, and the system can automatically convert them into Chinese characters with or without this word. The system gives word string combination according to word frequency and high frequency prediction, which enhances the fluency of operation. In addition, it is worth mentioning that Ziguang Pinyin input method is good at absorbing the advantages of other input methods, such as real-time display of Pinyin stars, intelligent recognition of symbols, and custom character strings. If you don't switch to adding Pinyin, you can type the western language directly with the Enter key, which will eventually become the user's favorite input method. However, the purple pinyin input method has some obvious shortcomings. Because of the defects in program design, it is not as stable as Pinyin Star and Pinyin. Many versions of the input method engine often make mistakes, and the user's thesaurus is too large to use. It has been improved in version 2.3, but the screen will flash when switching applications. In some western language software, such as Dreamweaver, the input fields will appear in and out, and in some applications, the problem of garbled codes will occur, which will affect the normal use of the software. In 2000, the old brand Xintiandi was spun off to form China Star Company, which mainly promoted a whole sentence input method called intelligent crazy spelling. In essence, it is similar to the sentence input of Microsoft Pinyin, Dark Horse Pinyin, and Pinyin Star, except that this company is well publicized. As soon as the intelligent crazy spelling I was launched, it began to carry out overwhelming advertising, claiming to launch the whole sentence input method for the first time, and released the upgraded intelligent crazy spelling II on 200 1. Intelligent crazy spelling is tantamount to a shot in the arm for the field of input method. Although China Star still didn't make much money, China began to pay attention to China Star, the former software overlord of China IT. At this time, in 2000, China was in the same internet frenzy as the rest of the world, and Stone Li Fang, the former competitor of China Star, had already completed the initial financing and was ready to be listed on NASDAQ, becoming the first Chinese portal in China. Smart spell interface is good. You can customize a variety of colors and fonts, and the size can be stretched at will like a Windows window. Compared with Microsoft Pinyin, the modification of Pinyin and the selection of duplicate codes have been improved, and the correctness of the conversion from Pinyin to Chinese characters is also good. Especially after learning a lot of ancient poems and proverbs of famous people in China, Intelligent Crazy was called the most intelligent for a time, but its self-study habit was not as good as Pinyin Star and Pinyin Plus. The habit of autonomous learning is mainly manifested in two aspects: one is to input a pinyin string independently, which can be modified if it is inaccurate at first, and then input the same pinyin or simplified spelling next time, which should get the required results, which is handy for the traditional text input method; On the other hand, it is difficult to learn the corresponding words from the sentences being input, and all the systems are not satisfactory at present. The obvious disadvantage of intelligent madness is that it is too big. In order to increase the conversion accuracy of 1% ~ 2%, the disk overhead is increased by several hundred megabytes. An input method is more bloated than an operating system, and this trick may only be thought of by anxious people. There is also a software called natural code, which is an old-fashioned input method with many subtle differences in functional design. The combination of phonetic coding with double spelling and radical or stroke provides a fast method for inputting Chinese characters. The large thesaurus is its characteristic, which was all the rage in the DOS era, and the program design is also very unique. Just entering the Windows era, the development is slow, and the menu design is not considered, which is quite chaotic. It has the same problems as the previous universal five strokes and intelligent five strokes, and it is difficult to launch nt version, which makes many old users reluctantly give up what they want and throw themselves into the embrace of new input methods. In 2000, the natural code was also influenced by the whole sentence input, and the whole sentence input function was introduced, which was slow in conversion speed, low in accuracy and difficult to modify, but it was too difficult to use and impractical. In the new version of 200 1, the whole sentence input has been greatly improved, and the way of using Chinese radical codes without switching to choose duplicate codes is ingenious. If it is further improved, the complexity and fuzziness of operation will be reduced and will be carried forward.

Edit the voice input and pen input in this paragraph.

After years of keyboard input, it was suddenly attacked violently around 1998. Among them, it is nothing more than saying that the five strokes are too troublesome and need to recite the roots, the pinyin is too simple but there are too many duplicate codes, and the typing is slow. Statistics of romantic figures depend on the current situation-pronunciation and pen input. Major manufacturers, including IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Zhongzi, Ziguang and other companies, have launched their own speaker-independent voice input systems or handwritten Chinese character input systems, which are aggressive in marketing and media promotion for a time, but I think these two input methods are ok, but they are not correct Chinese character input methods. How much share have these two ways occupied in recent years? Chinese character speech input originated from speech recognition technology usually adopts Markov information model for statistical processing and rules-based method for ambiguity discrimination. For example, when we usually speak and say a word, others may not understand it because of repeated code, but when we say a word, the possibility of others understanding it increases. If we say a word, others will understand. This is because words in discourse are interrelated. This paper makes a quantitative statistical analysis of this related factor and obtains the statistical quantitative relationship between commonly used words. According to this quantitative relationship, computers usually have to recognize recorded speech, and sometimes it is necessary to adopt certain language rules and supplementary statistical methods to improve the intelligence level of machines. It is a beautiful and difficult thing to make the machine "understand" what people say. The research on it can promote the development of many technologies, and its achievements can be applied to many aspects, such as the voice control of musical instruments and of course the input of Chinese characters. In the middle and late 1990s, IBM finally launched the speaker-independent continuous speech recognition system ViaVoice, which is a leader in the field of speech recognition at present. In recent years, a group of researchers engaged in Chinese character speech recognition have joined foreign companies one after another. Taking advantage of the abundant funds of foreign companies, they have established a huge Chinese database (also called corpus) by using the knowledge or research results they have learned in domestic research institutes or universities, and launched a Mandarin Chinese phonetic input system, which has achieved high-speed input of more than 150 words per minute. China has a similar system. In order to prove the advancement and practicability of the voice input system, many keyboard voice competitions were held. 1998 in the first half of the year 10 In the first game in the city, the fastest input speed of the player who uses voice input is higher than that of the player who uses keyboard input, which fully verifies the truth that "the mouth is faster than the hand". For a time, voice input is promising. However, voice input has some weaknesses that are difficult to overcome at present. First of all, quiet input environment and accurate and loud pronunciation are required. Because of the context of this system, one error will lead to a series of errors. If you have an accent, the result will be even worse. If the professional entry clerk adopts this method, the spacious computer room will become a small soundproof space, and people will be exhausted if they read aloud for hours. Non-professionals use computer input mainly in the way of "thinking", that is, while thinking, they write directly on the computer, while voice input requires accurate and smooth voice, which does not leave enough time for thinking. Secondly, it needs to learn the pronunciation of users, so that users can use it normally, which invisibly increases the complexity and inconvenience of use. Because the language environment is very different, no matter how big the corpus is, it is impossible to exhaust it. The ability of automatic learning and acquiring new knowledge needs to be strengthened, and there is still a long way to go before the truly practical system. Besides voice input, another hot spot is pen input. One year before ViaVoice was launched, this model has already started to be popular, but it doesn't mean how hot the market is, but the manufacturer is doing a lively publicity. In fact, after 1997, the basic and practical handwritten Chinese character input system has been achieved. The pattern recognition method based on semantic syntax is adopted, and the recognition rate of online handwritten Chinese characters is solved to some extent from four levels: stroke segment, stroke, radical and whole word. Among them, the "Hanwang 99" of China Consulting Corporation and the "Bi Hui" of Motorola Corporation performed outstandingly. However, slow input speed, inconvenient use and long-term eye operation are insurmountable obstacles to handwriting input. Because the writing board and the screen are separated, the typist's eyes are fixed on the writing board when writing, and the words are easy to deviate-in the Windows environment, the "pen" can easily lose the handle of the writing window, even if it is written in full screen. Staring at the screen while writing, the typist's eyes are particularly tired and he can't input a lot of Chinese characters. So handwriting input will only be popular among certain people. If you are unfamiliar with computers, you only need to input a small number of Chinese characters. Or someone who needs an autograph. At the same time, hand-held PDA computer can also use pen input, because the machine is small and keyboard input is inconvenient. At that time, manufacturers advertised that "every machine has a pen", and "pen" will become the same standard configuration as keyboard and mouse, which has been heated up for some time, just like last year's "network economy", and there was a thick bubble. In recent years, pen input has hardly been seen in computers, especially in the most widely used PC, but it has become popular in palm computers with single function and small size such as "Business Connect". Looking at Chinese character input, pinyin input is still difficult to reach its peak, and five-stroke input can still get some benefits in the back-root competition; It seems that Kan Kan, who inputs voice into a microphone, and the "magic pen and fairy finger" who "doodles and draws birds" on a piece of wood have few new achievements. Can China people climb the threshold of import? = = = = = = = = = = = In addition to the input methods mentioned in the above article, since 2006, new input methods have been born one after another, including Google Pinyin input method, Sogou Pinyin input method (sogou Pinyin) and QQ Pinyin input method, plus the previous Microsoft Pinyin, Ziguang (now Ziguang Huayu) Pinyin and Pinyin Plus. As well as various five-stroke input methods, shape codes and phonetic codes, constitute the Chinese (Chinese character) input method era in the Internet era, which has added more convenience to our lives. Thanks to the inventors and developers of these input methods.