Pengcheng, Shenghua Electronics Factory, Song Yuanchao, who had just arrived in Pengcheng, sat in the general manager's office, and the person accompanying him was Shen Xiangsheng, the general manager.

In front of Song Yuanchao, there was a thing smaller than a cigarette case, this thing was a simple electronic device, the shell was made of very ordinary plastic, and the electronic components inside could be seen in the gaps.

On the horizontal side of the device is an LCD screen, on the left under the LCD screen are two buttons, and on the right there are four arrow keys, representing front and back, left and right.

Turning over, there is a notch in the back that can fit a No. 5 battery, and there is a small indicator light at the top of the side.

Song Yuanchao picked up this thing and played with it, don't look at this thing is simple, but it is currently the first Chinese pager in China, and it is a Chinese pager independently developed and designed by Shenghua.

After playing with it, Song Yuanchao stretched out his hand, and Shen Xiangsheng, who had already prepared on the side, hurriedly handed a new battery to Song Yuanchao, Song Yuanchao took the battery and put it into the notch behind his back, then turned over and pressed the on/off button.

pressed it, but there was no response, Shen Xiangsheng hurriedly reminded Song Yuanchao on the side that because it was a trial machine, the button materials used were just improvised, and some strength was needed. Song Yuanchao pressed it again, this time with a little more force, and the pager finally responded.

The LCD screen on the front lit up, the side indicator light also began to flash, and the machine made a BB sound when it turned on.

About a second after the LCD screen lights up, the logo of the product flashes on the screen, which is a fancy English alpha spelling, which is also the brand name of this pager.

alpha, Chinese is alpha, this brand was decided by Song Yuanchao, and it has long been registered.

After a while, the logo faded, replaced by the setting screen after the boot was completed, and Song Yuan Chaozi Shen Xiangsheng instructed him to set the machine step by step, including the year, month, date, time setting, etc., and nodded slightly after finishing these.

"The operation is okay, the screen brightness and clarity are also good, and the functions that should be there are basically done." Song Yuanchao said to Shen Xiangsheng with a little satisfaction.

】

This is not a casual remark, Song Yuanchao has used a Chinese pager, although this is a very distant thing in his memory, but the thing is quickly familiar as soon as he gets started.

In fact, pagers have appeared a long time ago, and they have a history of several decades since their birth, but they have not been in China for a long time, and it has only been a short two or three years so far. And because of one reason or another, pagers are not popular in China at present, and there are very few users.

But in foreign countries, the pager market has been very common, Western developed countries do not say, just say Xiangjiang, the pager business has been very perfect, Shenghua as early as more than a year ago acquired a pager, paging business.

But for a long time, the pagers on the market are digital displays, and there is no Chinese display. The pager project displayed in Chinese was successfully developed by the American company on the basis of Motorola paging technology at the request of Song Yuanchao, and then actually formed by Shenghua Electronics.

Speaking of this Chinese display, in fact, this technology is not a difficult thing, just through the use and change of computer technology, but such technology is actually very convenient.

Now this sample in Song Yuanchao's hand is still very simple, but this simple-looking thing is unique.

Holding it in his hand and listening to Shen Xiangsheng's series of introductions to this pager, Song Yuanchao nodded slightly noncommittally, and after a while, he asked: "How is the actual paging effect?" ”

"There is no problem with the internal test, Mr. Song, you can give it a try directly."

"Oh, I'm going to have to try it, how can I try it?" Song Yuanchao suddenly asked with a smile.

Shen Xiangsheng asked Song Yuanchao to wait for a while, then picked up the phone on the side and dialed a number, and after connecting, he explained a few words to that side and hung up the phone.

About 5 minutes later, the phone on the table rang, Shen Xiangsheng picked up the phone and listened to it before hanging up again, and then pulled the phone over and put it in front of Song Yuanchao: "Mr. Song, you can dial the 0158 internal line, it has been arranged over there, and after dialing, just pay attention to the operation of the ordinary pager...... Oh yes, the code name of this trial machine in your hand is 8601, remember to call the code first. ”

"Hehe, I understand." Song Yuanchao picked up the phone, stretched out his hand and dialed the 0158 internal line, and after connecting, a soft female voice came from the earpiece, and the other party reported: "Hello, this is the internal test paging station of Shenghua Electronics, what do you need?" ”

When Song Yuanchao heard this answer, the memory of using a pager in his previous life suddenly surged from his heart, and he couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

Back then, Song Yuanchao remembered that it seemed to be in the early nineties, 1991 or 1992? Song Yuanchao couldn't remember it for a long time, at that time he was already a regular employee of the telecommunications bureau, working as a small cadre in line affairs, and because the line service often had to work outside, the unit equipped them with pagers.

The earliest pager is digitally displayed, Motorola classic, everyone is also called "BB machine", smaller than the Chinese pager in their hands now, about the size of half a cigarette box, there is an LCD screen above, and there is a clip on the back that can be clipped directly on the waistband of the pants. By the way, there is also a hole on the side where you can hang a chain, which can be connected to the trouser pocket to avoid falling.

This digital display pager Song Yuanchao used for several years, and in 1996, the bureau issued him a Chinese pager, also Motorola's, and then used it until about 2002, and then because of the mobile phone equipped and more convenient to use, this was eliminated.

At that time, the use of pagers was very frequent, and the number of paging received or dialed out every day became almost a part of life.

And now, these memories suddenly emerged in his mind, and then all the fragments of life and work in the depths of his memory emerged, which made Song Yuanchao full of emotion.

"Hello sir, this is the ...... of Shenghua Electronics' internal test paging station."

Suddenly, the earpiece once again remembered the other party's repeated reminder, which pulled Song Yuanchao's thoughts back to reality.

After settling down, Song Yuanchao smiled self-deprecatingly, and said to the other end of the phone: "Hello, help call the owner of 8601." ”

"Okay, 8601 owner, right? What would you like to say? A female voice answered from the earpiece, accompanied by the sound of crackling keyboard tapping.

Song Yuanchao originally planned to say a word casually, but when the words came to his mouth, he suddenly changed the content he had thought of before, and he changed his words and said to the other side of the phone: "Message: Dajili eats chicken tonight!" My surname is Song, Baomu Song. ”

I don't know if the content of Song Yuanchao's message surprised the other party, but the female voice on the other side of the earpiece didn't answer immediately, but paused. But soon she reacted, and still asked in a soft voice: "The message is: Da Ji Dali eats chicken tonight, repeat again, Da Ji Dali eats chicken tonight?" Mr. Song left a message. ”

"Yes, OK!"

"Okay, thank you for using Shenghua Electronics' internal test paging station, goodbye ......."

Then the other party hung up the phone, Song Yuanchao put down the phone and laughed, picked up the cigarette case on the side and took out the cigarette point, just took a puff, the Chinese pager in front of him ticked, and the side indicator light also flashed in the ringing reminder.

Reached for the Chinese pager, pressed the button, and the display on it lit up.

The lit up display screen showed two lines of Chinese, the content on which was Song Yuanchao's message just now, and the message clearly displayed: "Daji, eat chicken tonight, (empty space), Mr. Song."

"Not bad!" Song Yuanchao nodded with satisfaction, and a bright smile appeared on Shen Xiangsheng's face on the side.

The way of the test just now is very simple, that is, the paging test is carried out through the analog base station inside Shenghua Electronics, call the paging station (caller), and then operate the content to send information on the device through the paging station, and then transmit the information to the analog base station through the equipment, and the base station sends a signal to the paging target, so that the pager receives the information and displays it.

It needs to be mentioned here that the main key to Chinese paging lies in two points, one is that the pager terminal is the pager itself needs to be supported by Chinese display, without this function is completely unattainable.

Another point is that the equipment operation and information transmission of the paging center are not too big a problem from a technical point of view, but the key lies in the mode of rapid input in Chinese.

Since the birth of electronic computer equipment, computer language has been used, and the early electronic computers require very professional operations whether they input information or display results, especially the transmission of command character information, and those dense professional languages like heavenly books are not something that ordinary people can understand.

Later, in order to facilitate the use, technicians developed an operation interface, so that the information input and display of the computer can be converted to normal text through the display screen, but these text conversions are mainly in English or other countries.

Due to the particularity of Chinese, there is a congenital weakness in this regard, and the use of computers in Chinese lags behind. And there is a difference between Chinese and English, that is, the convenience and speed of input, compared with simple English letter input, Chinese input conversion is very complicated, slow and difficult to operate, has always been a big problem.

If a few years ago, when this problem was not solved, even if Shenghua made a pager that could display Chinese, it would be difficult to use it in practice. But now it is different, with the invention of a very efficient Chinese input method by Professor Wang Yongming in China in August 1983, which makes Chinese input as efficient as English, the market application of Chinese pagers has become possible.

This input method is the famous five-stroke input method, also known as the king code five-stroke input method.

As long as the user memorizes the root and masters this input method, the Chinese can be entered extremely fast through the keyboard, and the speed of efficient user input is no less than English and digital input, so that the last obstacle that hinders the practical use of Chinese pager is completely gone.