Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 291 New products are still emerging
In fact, Atari's personal computer Atari 400/800 series was developed as the successor of the home game console Atari 2600.

Because midway operators realized the rise of personal computers, they turned temporarily and adjusted them to support more devices such as keyboards, thus breaking into this field.

The Atari 400/800 has some commendable features, such as the Atari SIO bus interface for connecting external devices, which is somewhat similar to the USB that will not appear until the future.

However, the water in the personal computer industry is very deep, and the Atari 400/800, which wanted to make a fortune, stumbled in two places.

Because the prototype of the Atari 400/800 comes from a home game console, and such products must meet the Federal Communications Commission-the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) related electromagnetic radiation regulations, so it has some additional shielding designs in the circuit, but After switching to a personal computer, it has not been adjusted, so it is not cost-competitive.

Also, the Atari 400/800 has the same problem as the Atari 2600, and has always overestimated the trend of memory prices.

The capacity of the two models was 4KB and 8KB when it was designed, but when it was released, the price of the memory was greatly reduced, so it had to adapt to the trend and increase it to 48KB. As a result, the heat generation became a serious problem.

In the original time and space, next year, Atari will launch the Atari 2600, the next generation product of the home game console Atari 5200, which is basically copied from the Atari 400/800 series of personal computers, but because it is not compatible with the Atari 2600 game and failed.

It can be seen from this that the people at Atari are really amateurs in terms of opportunism.

When Tang Huan developed the Fangyuan computer and Xiaobawang game console, he also adopted the method of homology and branching, but he did not make such a low-level mistake.

In addition, the fact that Atari 400/800 and Atari 5200 share the same origin shows that personal computers now have a good ability to run games. For example, the famous Sierra Corporation has already developed games on Apple II.

But from another aspect, it also shows how chaotic the video game console market is, and even personal computers are rushing to grab food.

The Commodore 64, the latest model of personal computer just launched by Commodore, is such a shit stick. With its cost advantage, its product price is less than 600 US dollars. The advertising catchphrase "Personal computer without delay" has fooled away many customers who originally belonged to electronic game consoles.

After listing the most likely remaining survivors of this round of market competition, the participants' work ideas were naturally much clearer.

"Although the Osborne first-generation machine is a newcomer in the personal computer market, its performance can be described as eye-catching due to its portability. Why is it not favored?" Someone expressed deep doubts about this.

"Our hardware equipment has a very low failure rate. Don't take it for granted. It is the result of the cooperation and hard work of many people in many departments."

Tang Huan sighed, "As far as I know, Osborne Computer Company has been stunned by the huge order. It only cares about how to deliver the goods as soon as possible, but it is seriously behind in quality management. When this crisis broke out It won’t be too late, enough for them to be in a hurry. Moreover, Osborne’s first-generation machine has not set a technical threshold, and followers will appear soon. With internal and external troubles, can its prospects be called optimistic?”

After discussing for a while, Tang Huan saw that everyone gradually reached a consensus on this analysis and prediction, so he continued to preach: "There is no doubt that IBM is our biggest enemy, and the current fighting positions are mainly concentrated on the software here, and that The so-called patent lawsuit. However, according to the development situation of the semiconductor industry, the cost of computer components will be further reduced next year. At that time, the second-generation Fangyuan computer after the price adjustment is bound to compete with IBM-PC in hardware. handover."

For mainstream personal computers in the market like Apple IIe, the memory configuration is generally 48KB, while the basic model of the second-generation Fangyuan computer starts from 64KB.

原本时空里，64KB的DRAM，1981年为50美元1片，而到了1982年则是5美元1片。

The reason for such a big dive is naturally due to the aggressiveness of Japanese semiconductor companies.

Tang Huan has always paid attention to Japan. He is absolutely sure that this trend will not change. Moreover, the huge memory demand brought by the emergence of Xiaobawang game console and Fangyuan computer has further stimulated the Japanese ambitions.

In other words, the semiconductor war between Japan and the United States will become more fierce because Tang Huan adds fuel to the fire.

For this excitement, Tang Huan is optimistic, the cheaper the memory, the more articles he can do on the platform of personal computer.

"Since everyone is essentially fighting for standards, we should make more efforts in this area. In addition to promoting the authorization of the ISA bus, we must also actively attract third parties to develop ISA expansion cards. You know, every time a new product appears , which means that the second-generation Fangyuan computer has an additional application field. For example, after possessing a certain factory information acquisition card, the second-generation Fangyuan computer can enter the production enterprise in a dignified manner.”

Tang Huanyang lavishly instilled his ideas into the minds of his subordinates, so that the entire IT industry cluster can maintain a steady pace of progress while correctly responding to the current new market competition.

The function and significance of this meeting are very important, so it took a long time to hold it.

……

Afterwards, Tang Huan inspected the progress of various projects the company was developing.

Although the pressure of market competition is increasing, Tang Huan still methodically follows his own steps on the roadmap of product innovation, and almost achieves a continuous release of new products.

Since COMDEX has an additional spring exhibition this year, which will be held in New York next month, Zheru, Fangyuan Computer and EA, which have always been heavyweight exhibitors, must take it seriously and present valuable products to the world.

It is worth mentioning that although the second-generation Xiaobawang game console cannot be introduced to the market temporarily due to the heat generation problem of MC68000, the optimization and improvement of the first-generation Xiaobawang game console has never stopped, and its video and audio effects have been significantly improved. enhanced.

Since there is a Central Processing Unit that performs general functions in the microprocessor—the concept of the central processing unit is the CPU, then there will naturally be their own proprietary concepts in the audio and video fields: Audio Processing Unit—the sound processor is the APU And Graphics Processing Unit - the graphics processor is the GPU.

It's just that people don't pay attention to it because of the problem of vision.

The reason why Tang Huan maintains the continuous enhancement of the first-generation Xiaobawang game console is mainly to take advantage of its demand, stimulate the research and development of APU and GPU, and test the actual results of its conversion into products, until finally expanding to the personal computer platform.

Such a layout height is naturally beyond the reach of Atari, Nintendo, Sega and others, and they can only watch EA crazily attracting money without knowing what to do, and feel jealous.

As for the second-generation Fangyuan computer, a special ultra-high-end new model was launched. Its motherboard is equipped with two MC68000 microprocessors, and a special chip is used for communication and collaboration in the middle. The operating system it uses is FreeDOS. Need to load an additional driver in order to play the power of dual CPU.

Obviously, this kind of personal computer with multi-processor architecture will be the highest-end model in the entire product line of the second-generation Fangyuan Computer, and it also means that the desktop publishing system has a more powerful hardware platform.

However, even if it is equipped with two CPUs, the execution performance of the entire second-generation Fangyuan computer will not be doubled, and it can only reach about 150%.

It seems that there is a distance from the cognition of "1+1=2", but this achievement has been hard-won, and it can be called a perfect technical attempt.

Zheru's new product is more professional, it is a set of new programming language development tools - C++, its research and development motivation comes from meeting the needs of developing large-scale software,
Compared with the C language, C++ supports object-oriented programming, invented and implemented by Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup of Bell Labs.

In fact, Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ has not yet been finalized, and even the name is still called C with Classes.

But Tang Huan can't wait any longer. Workstations and servers equipped with Yipeng/Holder processors are being developed intensively, and prototypes will basically be produced within this year. Large-scale software development such as graphics processing urgently needs a more powerful processor. programming environment.

Ever since, Tang Huan could only step in and speed up the progress of C++.

In fact, in terms of execution efficiency, the gap between C++ and C generally hovers between ±5%. The characteristic of C++ is that it supports the "inheritance" brought by object-oriented Software that is easier to maintain in design and implementation.

In addition to asking about the new products displayed at COMDEX, Tang Huan also focused on the project of telecom switches.

The long-awaited technicians, after obtaining the Yipeng/holder processor with RISC architecture, quickly launched the official sample of the telecom switch and placed it in the R&D center building for testing.

In addition, they found two hotels that were willing to be guinea pigs to try out the device.

Tang Huan personally experienced some new functions, such as the caller ID that he was accustomed to in time and space.

In fact, the biggest difference between this telecommunication switch and other traditional telecommunication switches is that in addition to transmitting voice, it also supports data transmission thoroughly.

In other words, the speed of data communication through the public telephone network with a modem will be significantly improved.

Of course, the premise is that the line passes through this kind of telecommunications switch.

Tang Huan, who was very satisfied, praised the entire project team and said bluntly: "Your product will be the next gold-absorbing monster."

……

In fact, although the IT industry is extremely risky, Tang Huan, as an expert, can always make the most favorable layout for himself. Therefore, Zheru and other affiliated companies in the center of the storm are more at ease than outsiders guess. much.

After Tang Huan let these Silicon Valley elites understand his intentions, he began to deal with the affairs of the Shennong Foundation.

The first phase of Baozang Hospital was completed and put into use.

To this end, Tang Huan held another dinner party and invited various dignitaries and celebrities to celebrate.

According to the usual practice, Baozang Hospital also needs to implement information-based office. Zheru has developed medical record management and other systems for it, which can be regarded as expanding a new application field.

The Wang family of Baodao had already opened the famous Chang Gung Hospital earlier, so Baozang Hospital received professional staff from there from the beginning of its preparation, and with the abundant financial support from the Shennong Foundation, its formality far exceeded that of the hospital. Tang Huan's expectations attracted many elites in the American medical field.

In Tang Huan's view, Baozang Hospital is mainly for the Shennong Foundation to spend more money, so he used "professional work to be responsible for professional people" as an excuse, did not express any opinions, and was just looking around Visited again.

However, the acupuncture department of Baozang Hospital is an exception. Tang Huan made it clear that under the framework of relevant California laws, clinical research on traditional Chinese medicine should be encouraged.

In addition, the HIV laboratory has since then had its own exclusive building, and the research results such as rapid diagnosis have also received great attention from the US government.

It is not difficult to see that Tang Huan has been busy in this field, all of which are throwing money out, so he has always been curious and looking forward to Viagra, a project that should attract money like crazy.

How is the Viagra project going?Men all over the world are looking forward to you.

Unfortunately, even if the ingredient of sildenafil is known, the necessary and rigorous clinical research process cannot be overcome.

In other words, Viagra still has a long way to go if it wants to enter the market.

……

During this period, James Cameron, who hadn't seen him for many days, came to visit.

Tang Huan couldn't help being very curious seeing the other party's depressed look.

Since he bought United Artists, Tang Huan naturally wanted to recruit James Cameron, who was still unknown, under his command, and the other party readily agreed.

But the problem is that until now, James Cameron has not had the qualifications to direct a movie. No matter how much Tang Huan appreciates him, Hollywood rules still need to be followed.

James Cameron also understood this, so after getting a director opportunity, he went to the crew to report.

(End of this chapter)