Chinese Language Card on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
A Chinese language card or Chinese character card is a computer
A Chinese language card or Chinese character card is a computer expansion card
In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slo ...
that improves the ability of computers to process Chinese text.
Early computers were limited in processing speed and storage capacity. If a software like CC-DOS or :zh:UCDOS is being used to render Chinese characters, the Chinese font could take up to 1/3 of RAM, making it impossible to execute large programs. Moreover, Chinese rendering via software must go through the BIOS, so that the speed is as slow as dozens of characters per second.{{cite book, last=朱, first=巧明, title=中文信息处理技术教程, date=2005, isbn=9787302117612, url=https://book.douban.com/subject/1689879/, page=162
Using a Chinese Character card could improve the computer's ability to process Chinese text. The card has a Chinese font burnt on its ROM chip, so that the font no longer takes up computer RAM. It takes internal codes and directly renders the corresponding characters onto the screen, which works much faster than software-based rendering.
Manufacturers
At the beginning of the 1990s,Lenovo
Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...
(Legend Group
Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related ser ...
), Founder Group
Founder Group () is a major Chinese technology conglomerate that deals with information technology, pharmaceuticals, real estate, finance, and commodities trading. It is divided into five major industry groups, each covering a separate industr ...
, Giant Corporation, and E-TEN
E-TEN Information Systems Co., Ltd. (倚天資訊股份有限公司) was an electronics manufacturing company based in Taiwan, specializing in sophisticated handheld devices such as smartphones.
Founded in 1985 in Taipei, E-TEN initially became ...
were manufacturing Chinese Character cards.
Decline
As computer hardware improved, Chinese character cards were gradually rendered obsolete bysoftware
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
. Currently very few computers use Chinese Character cards to handle Chinese text. After Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
began supporting Chinese Language in MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
and Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, Chinese Character cards were essentially rendered obsolete.
References