XIN TANG (New China) - Pinyin.info

9 KIN TANG: NEW CHINAThis experiment has not yet come to a conclusion. butit is already clear that digraphia is a short cut to Chineseliteracy.III. PINYIN INPUT AND AUTOMATIC CHARACTER OUTPUTON COMPUTERSIn the computer age, Pinyin faces new trials. wm Pinyinbecome unnecessary or indispensable?During the last three years, the Committee for languageReform has promoted and sponsored experimentationin the -phonetic conversion method- for dealingwith the Chinese language in computers. This refers to theinputting of Pinyin words and phrases on the keyboard byhand and the outputting of characters automatically by thecomputer. On June 14, 1984, a contest was held in Beijingon an experimental computer called -Pinyin T elebrain-. Thewinner had a record output of 116.7 characters per minuteautomatically without having to resort to any input code.Participants were given only 3 days· practice and did nothave to undergo long and special training.The phonetic conversion method has been successfullyused on Japanese word processors since 1978. Can itsucceed on Chinese word processors? This depends on thepopularization of Pinyin. In mainland China Pinyin is IIrequired course in primary schools. If one tenth of the 20million children that enter primary school every year learnPinyin well. there will be 2 million new hands for phoneticconversion every year in the future.There are already 450 or more input codes. To inputcharacters . on the computer by code is like sendingcharacter telegrams by code. This would make Chinesecomputers usable only to professional typists. China hasalready seen the age of the typewriter come and gowithout being able to take full advantage of this extremelyimportant tool for communication. She must not now lose- --- ---_._---------