Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 423 Three Generations of Fangyuan Computer Prototype
After listening to Spielberg's reminder, Tang Huan nodded thoughtfully.

Naturally, his subordinates will not feel that the money is too much to burn, thinking that their side has earned too much in Hollywood this year, so they consider the feelings of others; The opinions expressed from the perspectives of the three parties can more objectively reflect the subtle changes in the mentality of the outside world.

"This year's summer show with Lianmei and MGM, Paramount's accompanying run, and other companies' onlookers just show that the development of Hollywood as a whole has fallen to a low level compared to the glorious situation decades ago. to what extent."

Speaking of this, Tang Huan emphasized his tone, "But precisely because of this, the American film industry may have hit the bottom and will usher in a new opportunity for development. Las Vegas gambling tycoon Kirk Kerkorian, Coca-Cola’s Roberto Gosida, and Warner’s Steve Ross should all have seen this sign, and that’s why they made so many famous tricks.”

Tang Huan looked at Spielberg and laughed, "I have only been in Hollywood for a few years. Even if I want to monopolize, do I have the capital? The involvement of Coca-Cola Company can only be said to be a coincidence, who let me, an upstart in Silicon Valley, give me a lot of money. Of course, because of the film copyright, I do have a little idea of ​​Columbia Pictures. You know, now The business of video recorders and videotapes is not just booming."

"I can only say that you are too far-sighted in investment, and the resulting trend of latecomers and first comers has made some old forces wary." The benefits obtained from Tang Huan are far greater than any previous cooperation. Spielberg, who owns many film companies, sincerely complimented him: "Now, your title as one of the lucky ones in Hollywood has been firmly established."

"Whether it's a nouveau riche in Silicon Valley or a lucky person in Hollywood, the sour meaning here is too obvious, and it doesn't reflect recognition of my personal abilities and efforts." Tang Huan sighed, "Maybe my rise is really too fast. , most of the factors make people think it was a fluke.”

Seeing the lonely look on Tang Huan's face, Spielberg sincerely comforted him: "Many people have only seen the scenery of Silicon Valley One, but they don't understand how hard it is for you, a trapeze man, to travel frequently around the world. Maybe human beings Society is inherently this complicated, and I often encounter such distress.”

Although there was no Erguotou or peanuts, there was red wine. Tang Huan had a drink with his "confidant" Spielberg. It is estimated that this rising Hollywood director will help him in his circle once he has the opportunity. Explain one or two inside.

……

It was confirmed by Spielberg that Warner was still working tirelessly to dig holes for itself in "ET". Tang Huan suppressed his depression and waited for the good show to be released in a few months.

As for the anti-monopoly investigation of the US Department of Justice, there will naturally be a department to deal with those investigators. If he is serious, he will be called a loser.

The spare time Tang Huan used to accompany Andy Grove of Intel, and Gordon Moore, the creator of Moore’s Law——Gordon Moore, the three-generation Fangyuan personal computer Intel CPU produced by visiting the Zheru R&D Center A forked Intel 80286 prototype.

Faced with the price war jointly launched by Japanese semiconductor manufacturers against their American counterparts this year, Intel can be said to be complaining endlessly.

The price of the 64 KB DRAM chip, which should have been the main product on the market, has dropped from tens of dollars all the way, and it seems that it will go straight to single digits.

Although MOS Technology and Texas Instruments, which are affiliated to Commodity Corporation, have also been affected, they have directly entered the personal computer industry. With the advantages of this vertically integrated industry, they not only have no worries about the sales of the chips they produce, but also have spare capacity in the low-end market. In the field of high-end personal computers, they are engaged in a price war with each other, trying to kick each other out.

Intel does not have this convenience. In order to win the trust of customers, it set a rule for itself at the beginning-the company's business does not enter the field of competition with customers.

In other words, Intel, which makes semiconductor memory chips and microprocessors, cannot make computers.

As a result, now, the main business that depends on survival-semiconductor memory has been abruptly beaten by the partnership of Japanese semiconductor manufacturers. However, the microprocessor business is still in good order.

In order to compete with Motorola's quasi-32-bit microprocessor MC68000, Intel has taken great pains to upgrade its CPU product line from Intel 8086 to Intel 80286, adding features such as support for error handling, virtual memory, etc.

After Intel 80286 was officially launched on the market at the beginning of this year, Intel has been hoping that this CPU can quickly enter the main chassis of personal computers, but there have been very few responders.

Fortunately, Fangyuan Computer and IBM-PC have given a positive attitude and they will develop a new generation of personal computers based on Intel 80286.

In view of the fact that IBM-PC only used the Intel 8086, a shrunken version of Intel 8088, and the fact that the technology and market were weaker than Fangyuan Computer, Intel paid more attention to the performance of Fangyuan Computer.

The fact is also true. Tang Huan's speed is much faster than IBM's. It took about half a year to come up with a prototype of the Intel 80286, which undoubtedly gave a ray of golden sunshine to Intel, which was feeling haze above its head.

When Tang Huan, Andy Grove, and Gordon Moore walked into the meeting room, the demonstrator was running the new game "Monopoly" launched by EA for the personal computer platform on the Intel 80286 prototype, which made the two bigwigs of Intel My eyes lit up, and a thought flashed in my heart, "Is the maturity of the Intel 80286 prototype so high?"

You must know that running this type of video game that consumes a lot of hardware resources is a test of the all-round capabilities of a personal computer.

When they saw a scene in a certain round of the game where the characters entered into a simulated stock market transaction, Andy Grove and Gordon Moore looked at each other and suddenly realized that in a few months, Fangyuan Computer would be on the market. , of course new products are needed to add to the excitement.

These irrelevant thoughts quickly passed by, and Andy Grove and Gordon Moore were immediately attracted by the powerful performance of the Intel 80286 prototype.

Due to the variety of PC hardware standards at the present stage, the realization methods of display functions are also correspondingly varied.

The Apple II designed by Woz really shines in terms of display functions, but there are still many shortcomings. In addition, the traces of his personal skills are too obvious, which limits the possibility of it becoming a standard.

The display standard adopted by IBM-PC at the beginning is called Monochrome Display Adapter—monochrome display adapter is MDA. Columns doubled.

However, MDA has an obvious shortcoming, that is, it does not have the ability to draw, and it is suddenly compared by its peers.

For example, Hercules Graphics Card, a monochrome graphics card developed by Hercules Corporation of the United States—HGC, supports a resolution of 720x348 and can display clear text and graphics.

HGC not only provides the function of displaying graphics with higher resolution at a relatively cheap price, but also opens up the underlying interface, allowing users to fully utilize the functions of the hardware with greater flexibility, which is very beneficial to game development.

但成也萧何败也萧何，这种底层方式掌握起来非常有难度，尤其是720x348的分辨率，过于特殊了，和行业常见的640x480、640x350、640x200标准差异较大。

In order to enable its own IBM-PC to have drawing capabilities, Big Blue quickly launched the Color Graphics Adapter - the Color Graphics Adapter is CGA.

As the name suggests, CGA is the first graphics card to support color on the IBM-PC.

其标准为，提供两种标准文字显示模式：40行×25列×16色和80行×25列×16色；以及两种常用的图形显示模式：320行×200列×4色和640行×200列×2色。

Of course, game programmers can also use special techniques to simulate and display more colors on the CGA.

It has to be said that Big Blue's conservative style has also been fully demonstrated in product design. It thinks that the CGA launched in line with the current situation has not actually kept up with the changes in the personal computer market.

Tang Huan’s display implementation for Fangyuan Computer is called Video Graphics Standard—Video Graphics Standard is VGS.

The first-generation Fangyuan computer uses VGS version 1.0, which supports a maximum resolution of 640×350, and can display 4 colors in this mode.

至于文字模式，同样有两种，分别为80行×25列×16色，以及40行×25列×16色。

The second-generation Fangyuan computer uses VGS version 1.5, supports a maximum resolution of 640×480, and can display 8 colors in this mode.

In terms of text mode, VGS version 1.5 is the same as version 1.0, with 80 rows x 25 columns x 16 colors and 40 rows x 25 columns x 16 colors, but there is an enhancement, that is, it also supports 4 A background color.

In addition, VGS has a complete set of assembly language function interfaces for more precise control by programmers.

Compatible machine manufacturers of Fangyuan Computer will make various trade-offs on the public standards of Fangyuan Computer, but they will basically not shrink on VGS.

This makes the display function of Fangyuan Computer significantly better than its competitors, plus it has a set of system call interfaces, which in turn attracts more and more developers to develop games on this platform.

The three generations of Fangyuan computers use the VGS version 2.0, and the highest supported resolution is also 640×480, but in this mode it can display as many as 16 colors.

文字模式方面，除了分别为80行×25列×16色，以及40行×25列×16色外，文字的背景色提高到了8种。

It is worth noting that the 2.0 version of VGS can display 320 colors in the 200×256 mode.

Of course, the entire VGS standard is backward compatible, and VGS 2.0 supports drawing the resolutions of VGS 1.0 and VGS 1.5 in an analog way.

It can be said that the VGS 2.0 graphics card used by the third generation Fangyuan Computer has begun to have the shadow of the original personal computer graphics card in time and space, such as the heat output rising sharply.

Because it uses 1 KB of video memory produced by the FAB256 semiconductor factory in France, and a display core that runs at 25 MHz.

Tang Huan estimates that when the standards of the third generation Fangyuan Computer are opened to compatible manufacturers, the display part of VGS 2.0 is likely to be reduced to VGS 1.5.

In addition to using the VGS 80286 standard graphics card, this Intel 2.0 prototype has a CPU operating frequency of 12.5 MHz, a memory of 1 MB, and a hard disk of 20 MB. There is no doubt that the performance of mainstream personal computers has been pushed to a new level.

Comparing the running effect of the game "Monopoly" with the Intel 8086 second-generation Fangyuan computer of the same Intel microprocessor series as a reference, we can see the obvious gap.

Next, the demonstration content is to run two programs at the same time - the electronic form CGrid and the word processing WordEasy.

This is clearly a demonstration of the Intel 80286's multitasking support feature, which is implemented by the latest version of the operating system FreeDOS.

Among the current personal computer products, only the high-end model of Fangyuan Computer supports multitasking, and that part of the products uses the Motorola microprocessor MC68000.

From this point of view alone, Intel and Motorola's CPU competed for judgment, which made Intel, which has always claimed to represent the advanced technology of the semiconductor industry, worry about it for a long time.

Well now, after the Intel 80286 was launched, the two sides were evenly tied.

In fact, this multi-tasking is also limited. After all, the hardware resources of personal computers at this stage are not abundant.

At the operating system level, FreeDOS theoretically allows a maximum number of concurrently running processes of 8.

Due to the constraints of the operating system's own reservations, physical memory, virtual memory and other factors, users can only run 2 to 4 programs at the same time. This requires a fast enough CPU to withstand the torment of switching states back and forth.

(End of this chapter)