ABSTRACT

The unique square feature in each Chinese character is quite different from the serial, linear word of the alphabetic language. This is possibly the main reason that Chinese word-processing was delayed ~10 years. The first English word-processing system was developed in the 1960s, but the first Chinese coding system developed in mainland China was applied to the computer in 1978. During the past two decades, systematic research was conducted with respect to the Chinese language, the computer and the user. Various features in Chinese, such as initial, final, stroke, component and component combination, were used as elements to encode the character/word to the international standard small keyboard according to specifically designed rules.