从机械打字到电子输入 国人对汉字机械化处理的早期探索

From Mechanical Typing to Electronic Input The early exploration of the mechanization of Chinese characters

人类的文字书写技术可分为手写、机械打字、电子输入三个阶段。从机械打字跨越到电子输入时代,我国面临着汉字输入的巨大挑战。以技术-社会文化为研究路径,对“打字”与“输入”的概念进行区分,分析了机械中文打字机的发展及设计思维,还原其在中国所走过漫长而曲折的道路,进而提出我国机械中文打字机的设计模式并不适用于汉字;林语堂设计的明快打字机引入间接检索思维,开辟了汉字输入新方向却未能投产;并对比了整个汉字圈在文字与机器发展之间的挣扎。汉字输入是一个既有难题,机械中文打字机看似承担了汉字机械化处理一角,实则在技术语言上进行了回避,这也导致这一潜在难题在电子时代的爆发。

Human writing technology can be divided into three stages: handwriting, mechanical typing, and electronic input. Leaping from mechanical typing to electronic input, the Western world has naturally completed this transition, but our country is facing the huge challenge of Chinese input. This paper takes technology-social culture as the research path, distinguishes the concepts of “typing” and “input”, analyzes the development and design thinking of mechanical Chinese typewriters, restores the long and tortuous road it has traveled in China, and then proposes the design mode of traditional mechanical Chinese typewriters is not suitable for Chinese characters;the MingKwai Typewriter designed by Lin Yutang introduced retrieval thinking, opened up a new direction for Chinese character input but failed to be put into production;and compared struggle between text and machine development in the entire Chinese Character Culture Circle. Chinese Input is an existing problem. Mechanical Chinese typewriters seem to take on a part of the mechanized processing of Chinese characters, but in fact they evade technical language, which has also led to the explosion of this potential problem in the electronic age.