Daming 1805

Under the introduction of Zheng Fuguang, Zhu Jingyuan carefully observed the dot-matrix imaging fax machine.

Then I went to see another important invention - negative feedback triode signal amplifier.

In layman's terms, it is a tube power amplifier, which is called a "amplifier" in the music circle of later generations.

Of course, those who play music are retro, and what Zhu Jingyuan is doing now is pioneering.

Telephones and phonographs both had speakers before amplifiers came along.

But they are all directly driven by the sound source signal, without the process of signal amplification, so the sound cannot be made very loud.

Just like a passive speaker plugged directly into the headphone jack of a computer or mobile phone.

You can make a telephone receiver, but you can't make a loudspeaker broadcast.

At present, all places in the world that need to be shouted are still yelled by people with loud voices.

At most, a metal horn can be added to emit sound in a directional way through physical effects to increase the volume in the target direction.

With the power amplifier, it is different, and it can continue to shout with high intensity in a large area.

And it is also an important device needed to broadcast movies publicly.

"Dot Matrix" is a future-oriented technology and design, and a basic technology in information dissemination and recording, so the current performance is not very intuitive and strong.

The signal amplifier is the technology at the end of information transmission, and it is very intuitive and revolutionary when displayed.

Zhu Jingyuan stood in front of a workbench, looked at a brand-new microphone in front of him, and then looked at the two specially made large loudspeakers placed on the other side of the room.

Zheng Fuguang checked the equipment and switched on the speakers and microphones.

"Zi-"

The typical noise of the old-fashioned stereo in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life impression made Zhu Jingyuan think that this design should be fine.

After all, the power amplifier and large loudspeaker just made, it is not a problem to turn on the power amplifier or something.

The loud beeping indicates that the sound of this speaker is also loud enough.

After the noise was lowered to an acceptable level, Zhu Jingyuan also prepared his emotions, and began to read poems into the microphone:

"The wind and rain send spring back, and the snow welcomes spring.

"It's already a cliff of hundreds of feet of ice, but there are still beautiful flowers and branches.

"Pretty doesn't compete for spring, but only announces the arrival of spring.

"When the mountain flowers are in full bloom, she laughs among the bushes."

The two speakers vibrated with Zhu Jingyuan's voice, and a huge and surging sound came out.

Compared with the high-end audio of later generations, the noise and background noise of this thing are a bit loud, but it is already acceptable.

Zhu Jingyuan himself was quite satisfied, and directly ordered on the spot:

"Okay, this thing is very important, if there is no problem, mass-produce it as soon as possible.

"It can be used in government offices and dental offices in various places, as well as on newly built large warships, especially aircraft carriers.

"Arranging a group of strong men to be responsible for shouting is too wasteful of manpower."

The craftsmen headed by Zheng Fuguang immediately nodded solemnly and agreed:

"Understood...Don't worry, Your Highness..."

Craftsmen may not be able to see all of the great role and potential of the power amplifier, but they are already aware of its importance.

That will affect military affairs, administration, education, art, culture, propaganda, etc., an epoch-making super invention that does not know how many industries.

Warships and the army gather personnel, deliver public orders, broadcast announcements in yamen and dental offices, and play music in large-scale spaces.

Turning newspaper content into recordings and broadcasting them directly through loudspeakers is directly a new form of media.

In special areas, it is also possible to make targeted calls to the enemy and hostile forces, and the prepared sound can be played in a continuous loop.

Zhu Jingyuan stayed in the laboratory for a whole day, and continued to observe and inspect the two new devices.

Write down all kinds of problems that you can think of, and all kinds of possible improvements and optimization directions.

Let Zheng Fuguang sort it out and send it back to the Ministry of Industry and the factory of Daming Airlines.

When Zhu Jingyuan left, Zheng Fuguang couldn't help asking his companions:

"The poem His Highness read at that time...does anyone remember? I really feel so strange?"

A group of craftsmen all looked blank, shaking their heads to express that they had never heard of it, and then someone said:

"Is there a possibility that the words His Highness read at that time were written by His Highness himself?"

The scene suddenly fell into silence, confirming that he had never seen this poem before, and then savored it in his heart.

There are many poems written by Yongmei, but the angle of this poem is very peculiar and full of connotation.

After the Renwu Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty established a relatively standard collective school education, and the educational content also turned to natural science.

But the Chinese curriculum in the traditional mode is still very important, far more than Zhu Jingyuan's previous life.

Among the various examinations, the proportion of Chinese is basically around [-]%.

Since there is no foreign language, the proportion of other courses is similar to that of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life.

Students graduating from regular middle schools are basically able to recite poems and compose lyrics. College students are not much different from traditional literati in the past.

But being able to write poetry and writing good poetry are two completely different concepts.

Zhu Jingyuan had never shown himself capable in this area before.

Today's inadvertent performance surprised the craftsmen.

Zhu Jingyuan himself was not prepared to be a copywriter, so he just picked up the first words and read them casually.

Forgot to distinguish the age of the poems, and just finished reading after opening the mouth.

I went back to my room, had dinner with my mother and two concubines, and started working on typewriters and computers the next day.

Zhu Jingyuan knew in his heart that Chinese character typewriters were actually in demand.

As the degree of industrialization deepens and the pace of society becomes faster and faster, there are more and more jobs related to writing.

The scope of purely transactional writing is getting bigger and bigger, while the proportion of artistic and literary writing is getting smaller and smaller.

Correspondingly, the demand for flexible printing will increase.

Chinese character typewriters actually exist now, and that kind of thing is similar to the Shu typewriter that appeared in history.

It is just a simplified movable type printing machine, which needs to be manually pressed one by one.

For the time being, not many people use it, and the official documents of Ming Dynasty are still mainly copied.

Of course, Zhu Jingyuan didn't want to design this kind of typewriter.

Zhu Jingyuan stayed in the laboratory for most of the day, returned to his room in the afternoon, and began to write his own design plan.

Logically, Chinese character typewriters are quite different from alphabetic typewriters, but they can be used for reference in some places.

Tessie's alphabetic typewriter was originally unable to switch between upper and lower case.

There are two sets of letter keys on a large typewriter, one set for uppercase letters and one set for lowercase letters.

Only one type of alphabet can be typed on a small, light device.

Later someone invented the switching device, and the caps lock device, which uses the same letter key to type two letters.

In fact, a pattern of two letters is made on a metal sheet with staggered positions.

All the keys of a Chinese character typewriter may have to be switch keys.

You can no longer hit paper with a hammer to print.

The number of hammers arranged side by side is limited, and it is destined not to be able to type at least a few thousand Chinese characters.

The structure of the Chinese character typewriter must be three-dimensional.

A three-dimensional mechanical database must be able to accommodate at least thousands of commonly used Chinese characters.

At the same time, a set of reasonable search schemes are compiled and linked with the keys.

The required Chinese characters can be screened out by driving the mechanical database through keys, or by auxiliary electric drive.

Turn the paper over and press it on the screened typeface.

And so on and on.

There are two key points in making this thing.

One is a mechanical Chinese character database that accommodates nearly thousands of standard Chinese characters in total.

This design can refer to the design of Lin Yutang.

Historically, Lin Yutang painstakingly designed a rather dexterous Chinese character typewriter.

However, due to various reasons such as social environment, cost and manufacturing difficulty, it did not become popular in the end.

However, the design idea was inherited by the Americans, and a similar design was adopted when the early computers output Chinese characters.

The mechanical font can be made into a three-layer drum structure.

A large hexagonal drum, on each side is a hexagonal middle drum, and on each middle drum are six small drums.

Each small cylinder has eight sides, and each side has a row of about 32 Chinese characters.

However, the operation method will probably need to be changed, because Lin Yutang's machine has too many buttons, 64 structural buttons, plus eight numeric buttons for character selection, a total of 72.

Zhu Jingyuan's current design must take into account the rationality of the general layout of computer keyboards in the subsequent era of electronic computers.

It is better to reduce the number of basic buttons by half, to about 32, and add number keys to no more than forty.

It is no longer necessary to stick to three keys to produce a character, but can be relaxed to the standard of four keys to produce a character.

Press the first key, corresponding to the rotation of the large drum, find the specified middle drum.

Press the second key to rotate the corresponding middle drum and find the specified small drum.

Press the third key to move the paper tray to align with the position of the characters on the small roller.

Press the fourth key, rotate the small roller, and press the final word.

Such a combination can accommodate more than 9000 Chinese characters.

If it is not enough in actual use, the number of faces of the large drum and the middle drum can also be increased to eight.

Then there are more than 6000 Chinese characters.

The second key point is the method of arranging and screening the words to be used.

To some extent, this problem is to use a mechanical structure to make an "input method" program.

In order to reduce the code repetition rate, this input method can only use font codes, and the best reference solution is the Wubi input method.

The Wubi input method is called Wubi. In fact, each character can be typed up to four times on the keyboard.

In fact, the most important reason is that Zhu Jingyuan still has a little impression of the Wubi that he has learned specially, and knows how to make up the roots of the characters.

Just basically have not understood other font code input methods.

Zhu Jingyuan probably still remembers the design logic of the Wubi input method.

Although he doesn't remember all the roots and rules, Zhu Jingyuan doesn't need to reconstruct them himself.

I have the most powerful helper in the world.

I only need to roughly describe the logic and direction, so that the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry can complete the equipment production.

Let the masters of the Ministry of Rites sort out and standardize Chinese characters, do a good job in the arrangement and screening order of the font library, and sort out the root table.

But even this design logic cannot be written in a day or two.

The key is to design an electric drive structure for this typewriter.

Let the typewriter can be made into manual typing, and can also be made into automatic typing through input signals.

This is again a complex piece of mechanical engineering.

The entire device may be more complicated than a mechanical clock.

The early failure rate and yield rate of this thing will definitely be on the verge of getting out of control, and the early production cost will definitely be very high.

Lin Yutang's typewriter in history cost a total of 12 US dollars to manufacture.

This is the wages of American workers for 30 to 51 years during the interwar period, and they can buy two p[-] Mustang fighter jets.

The result was a glitch in front of potential investment firms during its first public display.

It took more than an hour to fix it on site, and as a result, no one invested in it, and in the end there was no chance of going on sale at all.

Although Lin Yutang may have calculated the cost of tossing the typewriter for 30 years, the cost still looks very high.

Zhu Jingyuan basically skipped the groping process, and can directly try to make finished products, and the total cost will definitely be greatly reduced.

But early costs could still skyrocket to the level of a single car.

But Zhu Jingyuan didn't care.

The biggest difference between Zhu Jingyuan and Lin Yutang is not that he is a time traveler, but that he is rich and powerful.

The richest prince of Ming Dynasty, the second richest in the world, can push this thing to maturity with his own money.

In fact, in the year after Lin Yutang's demonstration failed, IBM came up with a more simplified and rougher Chinese character typewriter that required memorizing all Chinese character codes forcibly, but with a lower failure rate and barely usable Chinese character typewriter.

IBM specially found a team to promote it all over the United States.

Lin Yutang's typewriter, which he had spent decades working out, was more sophisticated but broke down frequently. Under such circumstances, it was impossible to get investment.

But this situation will not happen to Zhu Jingyuan.