Daming 1805

Chapter 248 Fax New Era

Dashi Kingdom, Quicksand City, the second laboratory, also known as the mechanical laboratory.

A rather complicated-looking machine was placed on the workbench, with several thick cables connected to it.

There were some strange sounds from inside the machine, and a piece of paper placed on a copper tray was slowly spit out.

Zheng Fuguang carefully picked up the copper plate and glanced at it, then turned to Zhu Jingyuan beside him:
"Your Highness, the reaction has been completed, the effect can only be said to be very good, the speed is also very fast, and the clarity is acceptable.

"Your algorithm is really good. In the future, the photos provided for newspapers, as well as important documents and reports, can be 'faxed' directly.

"Theoretically, faxes are completely synchronized, and the sending and receiving parties have exactly the same information, which can even be used as evidence."

Zhu Jingyuan picked up the piece of paper and looked at it. It was a black and white photo of the yamen of the Beijing Normal University.

At first glance it looks like an ordinary photo.

But if you look carefully in front of your eyes, you will find that those images are not a whole, but composed of small dots.

Different dots have different color depths, and finally merged into a photo that is quite realistic.

Dot matrix image facsimile.

Zhu Jingyuan's new invention.

After the completion of the principle exploration and actual verification by the Jingshi Ministry of Industry, the completion of the prototype and the success of the experiment, the information was sent to the mechanical laboratory of the Great Food Kingdom.

The mechanical laboratory made the same machine, and then connected with the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Great Ming Dynasty, and received this photo fax test.

The world already has fax technology, but it is cumbersome and expensive to use.

Imaging technology is similar to the chemical mode of developing photos in a camera, and what is transmitted and printed is all the content of the entire picture.

Unless it is particularly important information, it will only be used when the image must be transmitted.

For example, the photos of Zhu Jingyuan's first appearance in Cape Xiyang were sent back to the newspapers in Western countries by traditional fax.

Although Zhu Jingyuan was puzzled as to why his photos could be regarded as extremely important information, they really did that.

For other ordinary information, basically text telegrams are sent to explain the problem in words.

The "dot matrix" design provided by Zhu Jingyuan appeared in the 20s in history.

After dividing the image and text into a dot matrix, the actual amount of data that needs to be transmitted is reduced.

The most important thing is that it can turn complex images and texts with human intelligence information into simple and regular mechanical data.

Converting mechanical data into electrical signals can be sent directly to the other end of the world through cables, and then similar equipment can be used to reproduce the original form.

Dot-matrix technology is the basis for the real popularization of fax equipment and the basis for various automated printers in future generations.

Even the underlying technology for all subsequent text-to-image devices.

The dot-matrix design runs through the entire fax age and the entire information age.

From now on, in the era that Zhu Jingyuan can think about, it is impossible for this design to become obsolete.

All the information I saw in my previous life, as long as it was printed or displayed on the screen, was basically processed through dot matrix.

The most hooligan patent that Zhu Jingyuan knew in his previous life was "displaying text and images on a liquid crystal screen through a dot matrix".

Zhu Jingyuan looked at the photo in his hand and nodded slightly:
"The image problem is solved in this way, and the processing and transmission of text can be extended from this.

"According to a standard, commonly used Chinese characters are latticed.

"Text is much simpler than images, and the correct text can be expressed with very few points.

"The cost of texting and faxing should be further reduced in the future.

"Use electrical signals to transmit text dot matrix data to the other end, and print the text directly at the other end.

"That way you don't have to write it by hand... no... uh..."

After Zhu Jingyuan's words came to this point, he had already discovered the problem.

The telegrams that Zhu Jingyuan often saw were all handwritten by the telegraph operator, not the printed content.

Zhu Jingyuan subconsciously felt that this was written by the telegraph operator while translating the code after receiving it.

So Zhu Jingyuan subconsciously thought that with the text dot-matrix fax and the cost of text faxing reduced, it would be possible to avoid manual translation by telegraph operators.

Connect the fax signal directly to the typing machine, and let the machine print out the content directly according to the signal.

However, the use of code plus translation is first and foremost for encryption.

Then, even if a mechanical computer can be made to directly decrypt, there is no machine that can directly print Chinese characters in this era.

Finally, even if there is a machine that prints Chinese characters or other characters, it is not dot matrix.

The traditional mechanical typewriter is essentially an instant movable type printing machine.

In essence, they use single-character seals to print.

The standardization of Chinese character dot matrix is ​​actually an advanced demand that will not appear until the computer age, even after the appearance of laser phototypesetting, or when the display is made.

Prior to this, it was not necessary to engage in the standard dot matrix of Chinese characters just to type out text.

In addition, this linkage plan or the idea itself, this kind of planning that is taken for granted by later generations, in the current era, every link is whimsical, and at the same time, there are serious problems.

Not to mention the system difficulty of linking these devices, the automatic typewriter alone has huge difficulties.

Typewriters were not popular in Ming Dynasty, not only because literati in Ming Dynasty preferred to write, but also because Chinese character typewriters were too difficult to manufacture.

Among the royal courts and large enterprises in Western countries, mechanical typewriters have been basically popularized in the past ten years.

Alphabet scripts are used in most countries of the West and Europe, usually with only twenty or thirty letters in total.

Each letter is made on a metal strip, and a metal strip is connected to a button.

Just like the keys of a piano, press a key, and the corresponding metal bar is lifted.

The head of the metal strip, when the ribbon is smashed on the white paper, the pattern of a letter can be printed like a stamp.

Twenty or thirty letters, twenty or thirty keys, and twenty or thirty metal bars can solve the typewriter problem.

The structural principle of typewriters for alphabetic characters is so simple, mature typewriters can even be made "portable".

Chinese characters are ideographic characters, and each single character is actually equivalent to a word composed of multiple letters from Thai and Western countries.

There are thousands of commonly used Chinese characters, and tens of thousands of standard Chinese characters. If you include all kinds of variant characters, no one knows how many there are.

Just like the number of words in Thai and Western countries is also very large, and it is still growing.

Even if these Chinese characters are used to filter commonly used characters, they cannot be written on a typewriter as easily as Thai and Western letters.

In the history of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, Chinese characters could not be easily made into typewriters. This was once a reason for some people to call for abandoning Chinese characters and switching to Latin alphabet and phonetic writing.

This incident made European and American cultural people ridicule at that time, and drew various cartoons to ridicule.

This may have made the masters of some eras feel inferior.

But the Ming people in this world don't seem to care about this matter.

The unique Chinese characters can better reflect the uniqueness of the Ming culture.

Rich in meaning and usage, calligraphy that can be used as art is highly respected by Thai and Western intellectuals.

Even if someone occasionally criticizes the inconvenience of Chinese characters on mechanical printing, there is no need for Ming people to defend and align themselves.

Taixi's intellectuals who like Daming culture can get rid of such people.

"If you think it's bad, it must be because you don't know how to appreciate it."

According to Zhu Jingyuan's experience, a relatively handy Chinese character typewriter can actually be made.

Before the advent of laser phototypesetting technology and after the advent of electronic computers, it was necessary to create a structure for printing Chinese characters in order to use computer control to directly print Chinese characters.

This structure was also purely mechanical in the early days, and he himself was a mechanic Chinese character typewriter.

It was just after World War II, something that was created in the late 40s.

Make this structure independently and design a set of coding rules similar to the input method to type.

Connect with mechanical computer and fax machine signal, it should be able to print out the fax analyzed by computer.

But considering the complexity of the entire system and the difficulty of realizing these functions with a purely mechanical structure...

Zhu Jingyuan feels that the whole system may not be able to run smoothly after ten or eight years of tossing.

So Zhu Jingyuan himself stopped when he said this.

Zheng Fuguang and the craftsmen here were also obviously stunned for a moment, as if trying hard to digest Zhu Jingyuan's idea.

"Your Highness, your idea is really unconstrained, and it will be very convenient if it is realized.

"However, the difficulty of realization... now seems to be undoubtedly very high.

"This requires the use of automatic computer decryption, the linkage of fax machines and typewriters, and the need for controlled automatic typewriters...

"This kind of project, we craftsmen probably can't solve it.

"My subordinate's suggestion is to let the Ministry of Rites take the lead, cooperate with the Ministry of Industry, and organize special departments to do it slowly."

Zhu Jingyuan also nodded slightly:

"Well, I'll come back and write a relatively simple plan. Let the Ministry of Rites cooperate with the Ministry of Industry to make a Chinese character typewriter and mechanical computer that are flexible enough."

Zheng Fuguang and the other craftsmen had weird expressions, but they also began to look forward to it.

If someone else, even a relatively advanced craftsman, suddenly came to a brand new field, and it was obviously extremely difficult field, and said that he wanted to make a mature and simple design, most of them would laugh it off.

But his own boss, His Royal Highness Prince Dashi, cannot be said to be a genius, but can only be said to be a genius of the heaven-defying level.

There is basically nothing that he wanted to do in the past that he couldn't do.

Although not without failure, the assault rifle, for example, was not accepted by the troops.

But that was actually limited by the production process, and the things designed and produced did not meet His Highness's standards.

The submachine gun, invented at the same time as the assault rifle, has proven to be a very useful weapon.

Even under the pressure of high bullet supply, the Dudu Mansion has already started large-scale orders.

In the east and south of Mozhou, and in the rainforest of Nanyinzhou, they are very useful in relatively close combat.

In the accepted Thai-Western colonies, in the camps where the aborigines live, it is also an absolute weapon in indoor combat.

When encountering an enemy in a small space, when the grown-up rifle cannot be turned around, the enemy has already been shot dead with a submachine gun.

Now His Highness wants to make faxes, mechanical computers, and electronically controlled Chinese character typewriters, no one will doubt that he can't do it.

Just curious, what kind of appearance he can make, what level he can reach, and whether he can use it quickly.

(End of this chapter)