Chapter 1073 The printing workshop also needs to be upgraded and moved south?
After the printing label was finalized, Luo Chong remembered the roller ink printing technology and Chinese character typewriter that Bai Qi had proposed a while ago, so he asked.
"By the way, the roller ink printing that uses wax paper as a printing plate and the Chinese character typewriter that you mentioned a while ago, have they been made now?"
Bai Qi immediately reported after hearing this, "Reporting to the leader, the hand-held rock roller ink printing technology has been made, but the Chinese character typewriter has not been completed yet."
"Oh? Tell me in detail?" Luo Chong suddenly became interested.
"It's like this. I was first inspired by the hollow batik technology I saw in the history of textile technology development written by the lady, so I thought of transplanting this technology to the printing industry.
"At first, I did some experiments, directly carving a hollow printing plate on paper, and then printing through the hollow printing plate, but the effect was not good. Later, I found that carving a hollow printing plate with a brush font did not work, but using a hard pen font to carve directly on wax paper had a miraculous effect, so I specially asked someone to make an iron pen to write the printing plate on wax paper.
"There is no problem with printing in this way. It is no longer necessary to pick up the characters and typeset every time a printing plate is made, like movable type printing, and it is not necessary to spend manpower, material resources and time to carve wooden printing plates. The consumption of making a wax paper printing plate only requires handwriting of the content to be copied.
"This is good, but there are also certain disadvantages, that is, the quality of the printed font depends entirely on the calligraphy of the person who writes the printing plate. For example, the test papers often used in printing schools are disposable. Once written, it's done. It doesn't matter if the printed characters are ugly.
"But for serious reading materials like books that can be handed down from generation to generation, we must pay special attention to this problem.
"There is actually a solution to this problem, which is to use the leader's suggestion to use a Chinese character typewriter to print out the wax paper printing plate, and then use a roller mimeograph to print it. Although this is still not as good as the effect of woodblock printing, as long as we continue to improve this technology and find a solution in the future, we will definitely be able to come up with a way to print high-quality books.
"The only problem now is that it is stuck on the typewriter. The typewriter we make is currently unable to stably type out fonts on wax paper. Sometimes the fonts are heavy, and sometimes they are newer. There is also the aspect of picking up words. Because the fonts are too small and they are all reversed, it is also very difficult to find them. I have personally tried to use the typewriter to pick up words, and the speed is slower than typesetting movable type printing plates. A dozen words a minute is considered fast.
"Therefore, the typewriter is still being improved and it will definitely not be put into use in a short time. "
Bai Qi explained the situation of the hand-held rock cylinder mimeograph machine and the typewriter, and also directly put forward the problem. Now he has no way to solve it, and after actually operating the typewriter, he even began to doubt whether this invention was a mistake.
Because the typewriter solution given by Luo Chong did not actually deviate from the scope of picking up movable type for typesetting. Its usage mode still relies on people to pick out movable type, and then use the clamp on the typewriter to clamp the movable type, and then knock it onto the paper behind.
These metal movable type are like metal seals. When you pick it up and print it on paper, a word will appear.
The key is that these characters are very small. The fonts printed on Luo Chong’s textbooks in his previous life were generally only three millimeters long and wide. Such small movable type is all reverse characters, which of course makes it difficult to pick up characters.
Although the Han tribe has not used such small characters, even the smallest metal movable type is four millimeters long and wide, but it is still difficult to pick up.
After listening, Luo Chong pondered for a while, and then said, "When do you have time, take me over to see if there is any solution. "
Bai Qi was immediately happy when he heard that. After all, it was Luo Chong who dug the pit for the typewriter, but he didn't care after Luo Chong brought it up. Bai Qi couldn't figure it out by himself. Now that the leader is willing to help, that is of course the best result.
"It would be great if the leader is willing to take a look. I have time at any time. Anyway, I don't need to work myself. I am just a manager."
"Okay, let's go now?" Luo Chong asked again.
"Sure, then leader, follow me. "Bai Qi agreed, then turned around and walked out with Luo Chong.
The Han tribe needed to print very few things. Before, apart from textbooks, there were basically no other books, so the printing department was not large. It had always been located on the top floor of the school teaching building in Hanyang City, occupying three classrooms. It was only recently that a few folk books were published, and the work of the printing department became busy.
Luo Chong followed Bai Qi to the classroom where the printing department was located, and under his guidance, he saw the hand-held rock cylinder mimeograph machine and typewriter that had just been made.
Bai Qi enthusiastically demonstrated to Luo Chong how to write on the printing plate with an iron pen, and then rolled the written wax paper printing plate on the roller of the cylinder mimeograph machine, and finally on this mimeograph machine. Some pre-mixed ink was added to the machine, and then the printing paper was filled up. Then the handle connected to the roller was shaken, and the paper printed with words was sent out one by one.
Luo Chong observed carefully. There was an ink cartridge installed on one side of the roller. Every time the roller rotated a circle, the brush at the ink outlet under the ink cartridge would automatically brush the roller once, so that the ink on the roller would never dry. In this way, every time the roller was shaken, a copy of the required things could be printed out.
After Bai Qi finished the demonstration, Luo Chong tried it several times by himself, and then nodded with satisfaction and praised, "This thing is good. The printing efficiency has increased exponentially compared to before. It is absolutely of great significance and beneficial to the future propaganda work of our tribe."
After praising, Luo Chong asked again, "Has this thing started production? Can it be popularized in schools everywhere?"
Bai Qi frowned and replied, "To the chief, not yet, because of the problem I mentioned before, this kind of roller mimeograph machine is best used with a typewriter, but our typewriter technology is not mature yet, so I didn't have anyone make it in batches. "
Oh, then let me see the typewriter. I'll see how you guys did it first, and then I'll think of ways to improve it." Luo Chong nodded, and didn't make it difficult for him. He directly asked Bai Qi to move the typewriter over.
Bai Qi turned around and moved it. In fact, the thing was on an empty table in the office, just a few steps away.
This is because the printing department is relatively small. Bai Qi does not even have an independent office. He just puts a desk in the classroom for typesetting and review. He works with others every day. The only thing that is better than others is that he has a cabinet of his own.
When Bai Qi brought the typewriter, he introduced it to Luo Chong in detail again.
In fact, from the appearance alone, this thing is no different from the old antique typewriter that Luo Chong had seen in his previous life. They are all wooden boxes, which are filled with various small metal movable type in order.
The upper part is also made of two horizontal and vertical tracks according to what Luo Chong said, so that the typing mechanism in the upper part can be freely selected on the movable type below.
After a brief introduction, Luo Chong started to operate under Bai Qi's guidance. However, when using it, Luo Chong also found some problems, such as how hard to hit when typing. Too much force will easily tear the paper, and too little force will make the handwriting unclear. This is easy to solve. Just add a buffer spring on the hitting device.
The second problem is that the font is too small and all the characters are reversed, so it looks dazzling and it is very difficult to pick up the characters. Luo Chong also proposed a solution to this problem, which is to install a magnifying glass on the handle, so that the magnifying glass can move with the handle and quickly find the correct movable type.
The last problem, which is also the most serious problem, is the problem of slow typing speed. The key to this problem is that there is a problem with the retrieval method of movable type.
Luo Chong looked at their sorting method and found that they still used radical strokes to sort the movable type. This caused a problem, because no matter how familiar the typist is with Chinese characters, when he wants to find the word accurately among thousands of movable type, he has to write the word in his head first, recall what the radical is and how many strokes are next to the radical.
In this way, the speed of picking up characters will inevitably be greatly reduced. This has nothing to do with whether you are familiar with it or not. It is completely a subconscious behavior of the human brain. Chinese characters are ideographic characters. Unlike those phonetic characters composed of letters, as long as you can read the pronunciation, you can write it out. You don’t have to worry about how to write this word. For example, English has a total of more than 20 letters. There are only a few letters. Who can’t write letters?
So if you want to improve the speed of picking up characters, you must change the radical search method and use pinyin to sort Chinese characters. In this way, you can retrieve the ideographic Chinese characters in the form of phonetic characters. Thinking of this, Luo Chong spoke directly.
"This typewriter is still well made. The line break key and space key on it are good. The other problems are not impossible to improve. For example, the problem of tapping force can be solved by adding a buffer spring. In this way, no matter how much force is used, the spring can remove the excess force.
"Another problem is that the font is too small and it is difficult to find with the eyes. You can add a magnifying glass on the handle to facilitate searching.
"Finally, regarding the problem you mentioned about slow typing speed, I think the speed can be improved by modifying the order of Chinese characters and replacing the search method.
"I remember that I taught you spelling before, how many of you can master the use of pinyin now?"
Luo Chong first talked about the solutions to other problems, and then looked at Bai Qi and asked.
Bai Qi scratched his head embarrassedly when he heard it, and he said honestly, "Chief, I have learned pinyin and can use it, but I am used to the search method of radicals, and I am not used to using pinyin suddenly. "
Luo Chong also nodded, but he didn't mean to blame. This is a matter of personal habit, and there is no right or wrong, just like modern computer typing in the past life, some people are used to using Wubi input method, and some people are used to using Pinyin input. Then people who use Wubi can say that using Pinyin is wrong? This is not right.
Typing is typing, as long as you can get used to it and type out the words in a relative way, then there is no problem.
"Sort it by pinyin, and try it first to see if it works. Anyway, if I have to use it, then I will definitely be more accustomed to pinyin, and I think it should be faster to find words by pronunciation. "
Luo Chong explained the concepts of ideographic characters and phonetic characters to Bai Qi. Using the radical search method is equivalent to writing the word once, while using pinyin search is not so troublesome. You only need to read the sentence to be input, remember the pronunciation and the corresponding word, and then search by pinyin. In the shortest time, you can narrow the search scope to those homophones, and finally search with the naked eye through a magnifying glass, which should be much faster.
Bai Qi frowned and thought for a while. He seemed to think that what Luo Chong said made some sense, so he did not insist anymore. He wrote down the several improvement plans mentioned by Luo Chong and prepared to let the craftsmen revise them.
This modification would not be a one- or two-day job, and Luo Chong did not plan to stay here any longer. But when he got up and walked out, he suddenly remembered something, so he turned around and said.
"Oh, I forgot to say just now that the order of this metal movable type should not only be changed to the pinyin search method, but also some movable type should be added. However, they should not be called characters, but punctuation marks, such as commas, question marks, periods, quotation marks, etc., and then a punctuation area should be specially made on the character plate."
Bai Qi looked up when he heard this, and then suddenly froze and immediately said, "Okay, leader, I remember it."
Luo Chong nodded and left with satisfaction.
In fact, in order to promote universal education, Luo Chong specifically proposed to add punctuation marks. Those ancient books were very deceptive. Without punctuation marks, even the punctuation points had to be guessed by later generations. If there was a slight mistake, they would have to guess wrong. Therefore, if there were no punctuation marks, how could universal education be achieved?
Luo Chong returned to his home, while Bai Qi on the other side began to write and draw on paper. He first drew a table on the paper to simulate the pinyin arrangement order.
In fact, pinyin sorting retrieval and the pinyin typing commonly used by people in Luo Chong's previous life are very similar. There is still a difference, because it is not sorted according to the 26 letters, but the initials and finals of Pinyin.
Put the initials and finals on the horizontal and vertical axes respectively, and then put the corresponding Chinese characters on the intersection of these horizontal and vertical axes, and then arrange these homophones in the order of Pinyin letters. In this way, as long as you are familiar with this Pinyin search method, it will definitely be much faster than radical search.
Luo Chong was not idle after returning home. He just finished visiting the printing workshop and began to plan to move the printing department to the south and expand it in the south.
(End of this chapter)
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