Subject: Processor-assisted keyboard...

From: Duh? <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 May 1993 18:54:33 EDT

First off, let me say this: I think keyboard input is inherently improper for
Chinese. Keyboard is likely to stay in face of technological advances for
languages with one-dimensional structure and very limited number of basic
elements -- even if voice recognition becomes perfect, there're still lots of
situations where you don't want to speak out. It's the **natural** thing to do.
You can do all kinds of tricks to use keyboards for inputting Chinese. You
can make it fast, or easy to learn. But you simply can't make it intuitive,
not without some revolutionary thinking.

I can't envision the natural choice for inputting Chinese. Voice recognition
for Chinese language has a big advantage over European counterparts. Every
Chinese character is of single syllabose (sp?), making the variety in Chinese
sounds much more limited. Perhaps it'll take a big role in certain types of
situations of Chinese computing someday. But I want to talk about keyboard here.

For an input mechanism to be widely accepted, it has to be intuitive. That
means it should match the way people learned the language (let's refrain from
being futuristic here...), i.e., how they write. As all of us know, current
keyboards are designed for one-dimensional structures while Chinese characters
are inherently two-dimensional (just think how much trouble you have to go
through to accept superscripts and subscripts!). For handling such a complicated
task, it makes all the sense to have a built-in processor in the Chinese key-
board, taking care of the preliminary part of assembling the keycodes -- mappingkey-combinations to a (preferrably) superset of standard ascii code. An 8086
chip sells for $5/piece and it should suffice for this task.

One proposal:
1. It has to be a superset of the "standard" keyboard. Maybe with two modes --
one Chinese and another ascii -- toggled via a switch/key. Some technical
ingenuity is needed to make this intuitive and comfortable.
2. The basic-element part contains a carefully chosen set of basic Bi3Hua4 and
Pian1Pang2. Preferrably no more than 60, including shifted (call it Ci4?).
3. The other major part is a position-directing unit. May very well be the same
layout of the current numeric keypad. That'd be equivalent to dividing a
character into a 3x3 grid. For example, type a Pian1Pang2, press 3 on the
"position keypad" to put it on the lower-right corner.
4. Of course, simplifications are possible. There are three positions for
starting a character: left-middle, top-left, or top-center. Then it proceeds
from left to right and/or top to bottom. This is where the "on-board" processor
could be of tremendous help. Hopefully, for most of the characters one doesn't
need to use the "position keypad," as it is automatically inferred by the
processor -- the user simply types Pian1Pang2 in the same order as in standard
writing. This way, most of the characters may be finished with no more than 4-5
keystrokes. Best of all, it'd be quite intuitive as it matches the way one
writes. (Of course, training/practice is need to be familliar with the layout
-- the same for English speakers using typewriters.) Lian2Xiang3 can be added
on top of that, of course. (The difference between Fan2 and Jian3 would be
tough to handle, though. {-(  )
5. As for multiple choice from Lian2Xiang3, there could be a little LCD display
on the keyboard displaying successive choices in interval of, say, 0.5 second.
Just press spacebar when you see the right one. Currently, it's usually handled
via pressing a number. I find that very unintuitive and disrrupts the flow.
This doesn't conflict with the number-pressing mechanism, though. If you are
familliar enough to know the choice number of the character you want, just
press the number instead of waiting for it to appear on the LCD.

Anyone interested in making one? ;-)

As a side issue, it makes all the sense for a "Chinese computer" to have
special OS as well as hardware to handle the input/display of the characters.
Again, of course, all should remain compatible with the "standard" counterparts.
There is a big price in performance to be paid as now -- for most of the
current Chinese packages, all the tasks are handled at the application level.

Naturally, such a "native Chinese computer" would be more expensive. But I'd
be surprised if there is a lack of interest in Taiwan, Hongkong, and other
Chinese communities. Assuming the mailand economy keeps going well, there'd be
a humongous interest there soon. A big sales volume would help bringing down
the price.

Bo Peng

---

From: Yuan Jiang <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 May 1993 00:18:25 CDT

I believe pen-based input would be ideal for Chinese input.
Professionals may use Changjie or WuBi for speed input,
but the majority needs something that does not require
extra learning and struggling.

But the technology is not there yet for pen input.
I saw several pen input products in Taiwan last year.
They are inprecise and slow.  Maybe 2-5 years later,
it may be different.  Am I too optimistic?