Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 360 Computer Effects and Animation
Although Andy Grove is famous for his stubborn temper, he can only pretend that his grandson is soft in front of Tang Huan, because Intel is really wrong on this point.

"Since you have so many concerns, compared to the previous Intel 8086, Intel will continue to set up a second supplier for Intel 80286." Andy Grove promised with a smile, "I will still give you a license, Now you can rest assured. In addition, we have not slackened in increasing production capacity."

"If this is the case, the development of a personal computer using Intel 80286 will save some serious worries." Tang Huan nodded with a calm expression.

However, as the CPU architecture becomes increasingly complex, even if officially authorized, the research and development progress of third-party manufacturers will still lag behind significantly.

In the original time and space, in the era before Intel launched the Pentium microprocessor, AMD's similar counterfeit products often lag behind by about a year before they can be launched.

Therefore, in this time difference, passivity is still obvious, but we can only trust Intel's integrity.

In fact, in terms of business ethics, Intel during this period is still remarkable.For example, it sets a limit for itself, that is, not to enter the field of competition with customers.

The specific manifestation is the personal computer market. There is no shortage of processor manufacturers. They are jealous when they see customers taking their own microprocessors and assembling products that are popular in the market to make a fortune, so they eagerly enter this industry to share the pie.

After MOS Technology launched the extremely successful microprocessor MOS 6502, it was acquired by Commodore due to financial difficulties.

As a result, this company has formed a complete vertical system from CPU, memory to personal computer. Since Commodore PET, Apple's Apple II, and Tang Di's TRS-80 pushed the development of personal computer to the second stage, marketing It's getting more and more aggressive.

This year, Commodore released a new eight-bit personal computer, the Commodore 64. The hardware configuration is not bad, but the price is only 595 US dollars, and there are even cheaper personal computers on the product line. The computer is in a state of extinction.

Therefore, now Apple's Apple IIe does not directly purchase MOS 6502 from MOS Technology, but chooses a compatible CPU from the second supplier Synertek.

Another unkind CPU manufacturer is Texas Instruments. As early as the early 1970s, when the calculator market was booming, it competed with users who used its own microprocessors for this market. The price war of equipment squeezed the living space of competitors. The result was a market collapse and all participants were eliminated. At that time, Kang Maoda was one of the victims.

Texas Instruments plays the same role in the personal computer field today, and it and Commodore are fighting to the death in the low-end market under $500.

And these two companies even coincidentally set the home video game consoles in this price range as the fire targets, and most of the CPUs used in such products are their products.

It is not difficult to guess, if Intel also takes advantage of the integrated vertical integration of CPU, memory, and personal computer to join the battle group, what kind of chaos will the market be.

Tang Huan was very disdainful of the business strategy of Commodore and Texas Instruments. Relying on the advantages of industrial integration and shopping in the low-end market, apart from the seemingly considerable sales volume, how much actual profit can be said.

Moreover, limited by the current development level of the semiconductor industry, the low-end products at this time and the low-end products decades later in the original time and space can be evaluated as "enough". Fool curious but unaware consumers.

Thinking about the two CPU manufacturers that brought huge market pressure to his Xiaobawang game console, and looking at the submissive Andy Grove in front of him, Tang Huan didn't have that much resentment towards Intel.

Therefore, with the harmonious atmosphere of the meeting, Tang Huan made a clear statement, "Intel should eliminate the unavoidable bugs in the early days of the Intel 80286 as soon as possible, and we are also starting to develop personal computers using the Intel 80286 processor. As for the compiler, of course I won’t forget about it.”

Speaking of this, Tang Huan smiled playfully, "I'd like to see whether mine is faster or IBM's is faster."

"It doesn't matter which one of you is faster. Intel is the beneficiary of drought and flood." Andy Grove, who was smiling all over his face, was secretly thinking about it.

After Andy Grove left contentedly, Tang Huan called his cheap student Anders Helsberg over and gave instructions on the compiler.

After the release of Turbo PASCAL, Anders Hellsberg established himself despite his young age. Seeing that he could convince the public, Tang Huan made him the director of the programming tool software department.

The support for Intel 80286 is nothing more than the support for new instructions, especially the exception handling mechanism. You know, this is a good thing. With it, the crash of the program will be obviously controllable.

But the difficulty only ends there. After all, the architectural changes of Intel 80286 are far from earth-shaking, and Anders Helsberg happily accepted the order.

The research and development of personal computers using Intel 80286 naturally had to be undertaken by the research and development center. Tang Huan just held a meeting in the past and solved it.

The reason why it is so light is because the system of the second-generation Fangyuan computer, that is, the standard, is not empty talk.

The focus of this upgrade is mainly reflected in the research and development of the north and south bridge chips supporting the Intel 80286, and then the BIOS and operating system can follow up. Other hardware architectures such as the bus do not need to be changed for the time being. In control.

Of course, the more difficult technical difficulties are not without, the problem mainly appears in the biggest improvement of Intel 80286 - the two modes of operation it provides: real mode and protected mode.

What Intel didn't realize was how ingrained software stickiness was, and compatibility with older versions of application code was increasingly important.

Although Intel 80286 still supports the real mode of Intel 8086, after switching to the unique protected mode of Intel 80286, it cannot be switched back, and the protected mode itself is not fully compatible with the real mode.

In the original time and space, Intel also realized that it took this upgrade transition for granted, so it added a virtual protection mode to the Intel 80386 to solve this problem.

The BIOS of the second-generation Fangyuan computer is far more advanced than that of the IBM-PC. For example, the definition of the use of the upper part of the memory address space is not fixed in a fixed number like the latter, thus avoiding many shortcomings. In theory, The standard of the second-generation Fangyuan computer can achieve no difference between real mode and protected mode.

But in terms of implementation, for the inherent characteristics of the CPU, such as the memory addressing method, the second-generation Fangyuan computer standard is still inevitably restricted like IBM-PC, and some adjustments have to be made specific to Intel's CPU.

Fortunately, compared with the inherently deficient design of IBM-PC, it is much easier to solve these technical problems. After Tang Huan pointed out, he turned his attention to the Computer Graphics of Fangyuan Personal Workstation—the computer graphics function.

Specifically, visual effects processing, among many categories, and Computer Animation—computer animation.

Just as Tang Huan established the satellite company Autodesk to operate AutoCAD software products exclusively for CAD, he also established another satellite company Digital Domain for this purpose—the digital domain is D2.

Spielberg has finished filming "ET", and the newly established D2, together with Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, undertook the task of special effects.

An "ET Alien" is not too much work for Spielberg, so he still has time to write and shoot a horror movie "Poltergeist" for MGM—" Poltergeist".

And D2, which gradually began to get on the track, took on more special effects tasks.

In addition, James Cameron, who is actively preparing for the filming of "Terminator", has contributed a lot to the improvement of D2's business capabilities.

In addition to visual effects, computer animation is a big part of D2's business.

However, even though Tang Huan frequently turned on the golden finger of technology madmen, Fangyuan's personal workstation still lacked the performance of computer graphics, and could not achieve the level of complete computer animation like the movie "Toy Story" released in 1995 in the original time and space.

This is the objective reality. No matter how powerful Tang Huan is, he cannot escape the shackles of the basic rules of the world.

Therefore, Tang Huan’s goal for D2 is to become an effective aid to traditional animation, stop-motion animation and other animation methods, and to find breakthroughs in computer animation short films. The goal of the first phase is the high level of technical cooperation between the two-dimensional animated characters and real actors in Jay.

Currently, D2 has completed two computer animation short films, both of which are commercials for EA.

The first one is the animation of "Street Fighter", which mainly shows the splendor of Chinese Kung Fu, and the effect is self-evident.Just like in the original time and space.The amazing CG that Blizzard made for "Warcraft 3" is the same as the worldwide admiration it aroused.

Although the role of the monk cannot be fully realized in the game, the resemblance is there, and this advertising clip has greatly aroused the interest of the audience, making "Street Fighter" the most popular arcade game at the moment.

This may have something to do with the current economic situation in the United States. Since there is no improvement in sight, people subconsciously need a simple way to relieve stress, and the highly impactful "Street Fighter" has become a popular game at the right time. A good choice. In the dynamic music, you can KO your opponent and escape reality for a short time.

The popularity of "Street Fighter" can be seen from the fact that players on the Little Fighter console platform have repeatedly asked EA when they will release a version for home video game consoles.

Of course, these players are destined to be disappointed. The graphics acceleration module of the current Xiaobawang game console is not as powerful as the Xiaobawang arcade machine, and it cannot provide the hardware performance required by "Street Fighter" for the time being.

And in Tang Huan's view, even if the home video game console version of "Street Fighter" can be released now, it may not be as effective as a rescue after the industry collapses in the entire North American market.

The second advertising video of D2 is to help Xiaobawang game consoles to fight back against the low-end and cheap computers of Commodore and other companies, because of the marketing slogan of the other party "It is better to buy a game console that can only play games than to buy a game console that can only play games." A personal computer that can play games and study" is really disgusting.

This advertising video for counterattack is inspired by the Chinese allusion that "painting a tiger is not an anti-dog". For a low-end computer like Commodore, it seems that both games and learning are taken into account, but in fact it is not both. It's a marketing method to fool laymen, and it's full of ridicule.

The novel content production method of computer animation naturally once again attracted people's attention to a great extent, and EA slapped its competitors severely.

Commodore has no power to counter this, because the video effect of the 1982 version of the Xiaobawang game console has reached the level of the current general arcade machines—not including its own Xiaobawang arcade machine, of course. Compared with their low-end and cheap personal computers Next, it is indeed a lot of amateur.

However, Commodore showed aggressive marketing as always. It immediately announced that it would lower the price of the Commodore 64, which was released only this year, by $100.

Seeing this situation, Texas Instruments immediately made a tit-for-tat response and also lowered the price of products corresponding to the Commodore 64 by $100.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the market where home video game consoles and low-end and cheap personal computers coexist is a bloody battle, with victims everywhere. It depends on which company cannot withstand such an intense price war and is the first to be eliminated.

From this we can see how powerful this short advertising film in the form of computer animation triggered a chain reaction in the market.

Currently, D2 is carrying out another challenging task assigned by Tang Huan.

(End of this chapter)