On December 18, 2018, at the conference to celebrate the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, Wang Yongmin, who was over 70 years old, specially wore a purple suit and appeared in the Great Hall of the People. On this day, on the recommendation of Beijing Municipality, Wang Yongmin was awarded the Reform Pioneer Medal and awarded the title of "Inventor of the 'Wang Code Five Strokes' Font that Promotes the Informatization of Chinese Characters".
Seeing Wang Yongmin, many people's memories of learning the five-stroke font more than 20 years ago will soon be awakened, and many people still remember those tips - "Wang Bian Qingtou and May Day, Tushi Ergan Ten Inch Rain ..."
40 years ago, it was Wang Yongmin who achieved the "jump to the top" of Chinese character input technology with persistent research, and began to promote it to the whole country and the world from Beijing. The fusion of Chinese characters and technology has finally allowed Chinese to step over the digital divide of the information age.
Technology star Wang Yongmin
Chairman of Beijing Wangma Innovation Network Technology Co., Ltd
Invented the "Wang Code Five Pen Font" Chinese character input method, and pioneered the "Chinese Character Root Periodic Table", which effectively solved the problem of Chinese character input entering the information age. In 1998, he invented the "98 Specification King Code".
1800 days and nights with 120,000 cards
Around the 1980s, as computers were introduced to China, a question that plagued the whole country arose— how to enter Chinese characters? Since the 26 Latin letters are easier to type, the square word is threatened and challenged like never before. Even at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, an AFP reporter wrote: "Of the 7,000 journalists around the world who covered the Olympic Games, only Chinese wrote their reports by hand!" ”
Solving the "card neck" problem, which is an era behind developed countries, is imminent. In 1978, Wang Yongmin, who worked at the Nanyang Science and Technology Commission in Henan, asked for help to find a way out for the Chinese character input computer.
Before Wang Yongmin, some people tried different keyboard types to enter Chinese characters, there are thousands of Chinese characters to form a keyboard the size of a table, there are main and auxiliary keyboards that require alternating left and right hands, and medium-sized keyboards that use 256 key blocks to spell out Chinese characters, but they cannot be promoted because of their high cost and blind typing.
Wang Yongmin studied at the University of Science and Technology of China for 6 years, when the University of Science and Technology of China was still in Yuquan Road in Beijing, Yan Keats's general physics, Hua Luogeng's mathematics, Qian Xuesen's mechanics and other master classes, leaving a deep scientific imprint on Wang Yongmin - "There is no precedent for emerging disciplines, we must start from basic scientific research, and it is possible to succeed in a unique way." ”
Wang Yongmin embarked on the arduous process of entering Chinese characters into a computer. He manually decomposed 12,000 Chinese characters into 120,000 cards one by one, and the cards were stacked up to a height of more than ten meters. By decomposing, he combed out 600 root words. But 600 roots require 600 keys. Wang Yongmin began to merge and delete them one by one. For every word root reduction, Wang Yongmin had to recode and check the more than 7,000 Chinese characters of the national standard. And for each key that is compressed, the previously arranged combination of roots needs to be pushed down and restarted.
Chinese character input is an interdisciplinary discipline involving linguistics, computer science, ergonomics, psychology, probability theory and other disciplines. The combination of root characters on the keyboard needs to conform to the three principles of "compatibility", "regularity" and "coordination", "for example, the principle of 'coordination', when entering Chinese characters, the load of each finger of the left and right hands, we have to go through rigorous experiments, the burden of the 'capable' index finger is heavier, and the burden of the 'incompetent' little finger is much lighter. In this way, we can ensure that we are not tired when typing, and the faster we type. ”
138 keys, 90 keys, 75 keys, 62 keys... With the government's 3,000 yuan of funds, he can only nibble on baked cakes every day to survive, and Wang Yongmin has been working for 4 years.
In the mid-winter of 1982, Wang Yongmin came to Baoding North China Terminal Factory in Hebei Province with an optimized 36-button scheme for hands-on testing. That year's winter was particularly cold, from the porridge served from the snack bar to the other side of the road had all frozen into ice ballast, but Wang Yongmin's heart was like a fire. More than 40 days later, after writing programs and debugging again and again, when Wang Yongmin used his keyboard to type Chinese characters into the computer through his own code, tears poured out.
However, within two days of the success of the experiment, Wang Yongmin made a decision that made everyone think he was "crazy" - "give up the 36 key, I have to do the 25 key." In the eyes of peers, the 36-key scheme is already the first in The world in China. But Wang Yongmin is on the bar - he found in the experiment that the 36-key scheme occupies the number key because the root of the word occupies the number key, and the number needs to be switched when entering, which is some troublesome and difficult to achieve high-speed blind typing.
In the cold winter, he locked himself in a small hotel for seven days and seven nights without going out much. After repeated experimentation, he finally invented a method called "last stroke font recognition code", successfully upgraded the 36-key scheme to a 25-key scheme, completed the "top jump" of Chinese character input technology in the world, and realized the dream of blindly typing Chinese characters without moving a screw on the original keyboard. This is the later popular five-stroke font input method.
In 5 years, more than 1800 days and nights, the fire in his heart finally broke through the dark night and lit up the Chinese character input this piece of heaven.
The first technology company was opened in Zhongguancun
Recalling the first demonstration of the wubi font at The United Nations Headquarters in 1984, Wang Yongmin is still very excited: when Chinese characters jump out of the computer screen at a rate of 120 words per minute, the people present are stunned. A U.N. official subconsciously flipped the keyboard over to check if there was any "catnip" in it.
Central media such as Guangming Daily and Xinhua News Agency have reported on the invention, saying that "its significance is no less than that of movable type printing", and Wang Yongmin has the title of "Contemporary Bi Sheng".
In an era when the speed of technology dissemination was far less than today, Wang Yongmin decided to promote the Five-Stroke Input Method in Beijing, where universities and ministries gathered.
At that time, some ministries installed five-stroke fonts on office computers, but a large number of personnel needed training. Wang Yongmin, the inventor, did not think about it, did voluntary training, and lived in Room 7 of the basement of the Central United Front Work Department at No. 135 Fuyou Street for two years. "Whoever invites me to go, I will go if I have food to eat, I will go without food, I will go for three days and five days, and the cost will be borne by myself!" In the summer, I have a set of clothes, wear them during the day and wash them at night, and continue to wear them the next morning after drying. He ate steamed buns with pickles and ran through more than 100 large and small units such as the central ministries and commissions. Due to long-term malnutrition, Wang Yongmin's liver disease recurred, and he carried a written will with him to promote it.
Fortunately, in the past two years, the five-stroke font input method has been accepted and popularized by the central organs, and the State Science and Technology Commission and the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense have also issued documents to promote the five-stroke font input method. Chinese typists at the United Nations use the five-stroke glyph input method.
Persistence finally allowed Wang Yongmin to keep the clouds open and see the moon.
In 1987, dec dec, the world's second-largest computer company at the time, sent experts to negotiate with him, and finally spent more than $200,000 to buy Wang Yongmin's patent. In the spring of that year, Wang Yongmin moved from the basement to the Yuanwanglou Hotel, and the "Wang Code Five Pens" also created a precedent for China's patented computer technology to enter the international market and earn "foreign money".
In 1988, the predecessor of the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone, the Beijing New Technology Industry Development Pilot Zone, was approved for establishment. "Finally found the organization, private technology companies from the past not valued, or even recognized to gradually be recognized." Wang Yongmin recalled. That year, Wang Yongmin's wang ma company store department in Zhongguancun was already a city.
Four years later, hundreds of technology companies had already gathered on Baiyi Road, gradually forming a "Zhongguancun Electronic Street", and Wang Yongmin and his Wang Code company also moved into the eight-storey test area building on Baiyi Road. Sitong, Kehai and Wang Ma, who were also working in this building, became the earliest and most famous technology companies in China at that time. At its peak, Wang Yongmin's WangMa Computer Corporation founded in Zhongguancun had more than 20 branches, two overseas companies, hundreds of agents, and thousands of training outlets across the country.
A never-ending "professional inventor"
Today, there are still 40 million people in the country using the Wubi input method, but with the development of technology, more and more people use the Pinyin input method.
This did not affect Wang Yongmin's enthusiasm for continuing to invent and innovate and explore new ways to promote the input of Chinese characters, and he was still the persistent "inventor" of that year.
After the launch of The Five Pens of Wang Code, Wang Yongmin also invented the digital king code and the hardware product Wang Code Mouse, which combined the mouse and the number key into one, so that people working at the counter and other positions could type with one hand, making Chinese character typing even simpler than English typing. He also entered the mobile phone input method market when the mobile Internet came, inventing a reading voice translator and a business card manager. In the second half of this year, a new invention about Wubi will be launched, he will use the form of animation to guide users to play the keys of each word, without the need to memorize the root and disassemble Chinese characters, you can learn the Wubi glyph input method, making the "shape code" easier to popularize. Wang Yongmin said, "Today's young people, forgetting to write and typos seem to be the norm, and I think we should do something for the inheritance of Chinese character culture." ”
He still insisted on setting up Wang Ma Company in Zhongguancun, where he first started the company. In his eyes, Zhongguancun is a vibrant place, a distribution center for the collision and exchange of various fresh technologies, and the current WangMa Company must continue to draw on pioneer nutrients no matter what.
Wang Yongmin, who is 76 years old this year, is full of vitality, calling himself a "happy little old man" and often making people around him laugh.
"A scholar, half a farmer." Wang Yongmin semi-self-deprecatingly expressed his interest. He confessed that he was not a successful entrepreneur or businessman, but a "professional inventor." Go to the hospital to see a doctor for infusion, he pondered the health hazards of bubbles in the infusion bottle, and invented a solution to the problem of contact between the injection and the air; Beijing has a dry climate, and the effect of the humidifier purchased is not ideal, so he uses plexiglass, motors, etc. to start a "household rainforest" at home...
Wang Yongmin also has a wish to publish 10 books, one of which is a popular science book "20 Cases of Wang Yongmin's Invention and Creation", so that readers can understand "why a farmer-born person loves inventions so much, and how my inventions and patents are figured out in daily life." ”
dialogue
Don't be distracted by failures
Q: In the 5 years of research and development, have you ever thought of giving up?
Wang Yongmin: Never. Because I know it's a completely unknown territory, vast expanses of land that no one has dug, there's always something. I always thought that even if I couldn't complete the construction of the entire building, I could do the preliminary work for others.
Q: What are the most critical factors in achieving epoch-making inventions and innovations?
Wang Yongmin: First of all, this invention is a product of the times, and I have encountered both opportunities and the care and support of good leaders. We must investigate and study, and we must find out what level at home and abroad must be thoroughly explored, and we must not blow blindly; we must start with basic theories; we must make breakthroughs and innovations, and we must be indomitable. Only by continuous innovation can we reach the peak of brilliance. There is naturally no shortage of blows and failures along the way, and if you distract yourself from dealing with it all day, it will affect your own research.
Q: How do you feel about being selected as a pioneer in reform?
Wang Yongmin: It is a great honor to have met a good era and achieved a little achievement. In the wave of technology, every industry is being redefined. Now I deeply feel that I have fallen behind in many places, from ideas and methods to mastering new technologies, so I must continue to learn.
It is very good for a person to struggle and make contributions in a narrow field through indomitable efforts. Researchers must not only affirm their own research and innovative spirit, but also know their own smallness. In the great cause of building cultural self-confidence and reviving Chinese character culture, the wubi font is only a small part of it, but to promote the popularization and application of this invention and make it beneficial to cultural inheritance, I will continue to work hard and continue to shine.
Source: Beijing Daily
Reporter: Sun Qiru
Process Editor: Ding Ye