Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 439

John Couch has been paying attention to the expressions of Tang Huan and others. He found that Tang Huan remained calm, but Charles Simeone and others showed disdain, and even discussed without any scruples, "Lisa Computer The operating efficiency of the built-in program is so unsatisfactory, so it is even more pessimistic to develop programs on its platform.”

Hearing these harsh words, John Couch certainly felt uncomfortable, but the other party had a target in mind, and he had something to ask for, so he had to endure it.

However, John Couch could also see that these subordinates brought by Tang Huan must be engaged in the development of the graphical user interface system.

Although the Lisa computer has obvious deficiencies, most people are amazed when they see the graphical user interface function of the Lisa computer for the first time, unlike Charles Simeone, who point and point in every possible way.

"The price of this system is not low. The memory capacity alone has reached 1MB." Tang Huan asked casually.

"The price has already been determined, $9995." John Couch replied with a bit of bitterness. He also felt that the price of the Lisa computer was not very friendly.

Charles Simeone said bluntly: "The graphical user interface of the Lisa computer is not indispensable to the enterprise market. The Lisa is pretty much a blank slate in this regard, and individual users may be more interested in the Lisa's graphical user interface, but its price of nearly $10000 is enough to put many people off. For that money , users might as well buy a Fangyuan laptop, which is really portable and functional.”

Tang Huan waved his hand, stopped Charles Simeone and others from talking loudly, and said to the embarrassed John Couch: "In all fairness, Lisa Computer, as a pioneer in the field of graphical user interface, has done a very good job, but some The place is indeed not well considered, such as flexibility."

Pointing to the monitor screen, Tang Huan continued: "You should expect problems with the operating efficiency of the graphical user interface operating system. Therefore, a possible solution should be to provide a coexisting DOS environment as a contradiction. buffer."

"Is this what Zheru did?" John Couch, who listened humbly, couldn't help asking curiously.

Tang Huan smiled noncommittally, "Also, the hardware architecture of the Lisa computer is not modular enough, so it is not easy to reduce the cost."

The two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives of the Lisa computer are combined with the 12-inch monitor, spliced ​​on the right side, and the main box is placed on the top. It looks really compact, but the structure is not as good as Fangyuan computer, IBM-PC monitor and The way hosts are completely separated is flexible.

Tang Huan pointed to the two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives of the Lisa computer, and shook his head disapprovingly, "Apple still insists on producing this product by itself, why bother? It's not that there are no good external suppliers to choose from. I've heard that your floppy drives are having a lot of trouble now."

Apple's line of floppy disk drives, called Apple FileWare, once played an important role in Apple computers' success in the market.

It must be admitted that the Apple II is indeed excellent, but it is not the only one. It has a large number of competitors of similar products in the market, and the initial situation is quite difficult.

Under the urging of Markkula, Woz designed an exclusive floppy disk drive for Apple II—Disk II. With its excellent characteristics, it was a great success and greatly boosted the sales of Apple II.

In this way, the tradition of designing and manufacturing floppy disk drives by itself has been continued by Apple.

The floppy disk drive designed by the Apple III project team is called Disk III; the floppy disk drive designed by the Lisa project team is called Twiggy-Twiggy, which has the same name as Twiggy, a supermodel who was thin and beautiful in the 1960s.As the name suggests, the characteristics of this floppy disk drive can be imagined.

The problem with Apple's floppy disk drive lies in its stability. Even if you support a larger capacity, it means nothing once the file data is lost.

Everything depends on the situation. The current floppy disk drive, Apple does not have to hold it in its own hands. Finding a supplier with mature and reliable technology, or further introducing technology for production, is better than self-development, and Apple is not bad. For this little money, a one-time investment is much more cost-effective than this kind of piecemeal prodigal.

John Couch, who was dizzy and dizzy, collected himself, and asked Tang Huan hopefully, "Will Zheru still develop commercial software for Lisa computers?"

"Of course no problem." Tang Huan nodded affirmatively, "But you have to understand that the software development of the graphical user interface is much more difficult, especially the interface information of the Lisa computer, we need to master it from scratch, and the development time It will take at least half a year."

"I'm mentally prepared for this, as long as Tang agrees to cooperate." John Couch, who is almost superstitious about Zheru's software development capabilities, can be regarded as hugging his thigh.

Now that Tang Huan has finalized the partnership, Charles Simonyi and others naturally want to learn more about the internal architecture of the Lisa computer.

Lisa computer has two main user interface modes——Lisa Office System and Workshop. The former provides users with a complete graphical user interface environment, while the latter is a program development environment based on text boxes, similar to Windows in the original time and space. The command line window in the system.

Lisa Office System also has a name called "7/7", derived from the seven applications it contains: LisaWrite, LisaCalc, LisaDraw, LisaGraph, LisaProject, LisaList and LisaTerminal.

It is not difficult to see from the software functions of these word processing, calculators, drawings, etc., that the Lisa project team once ambitiously planned to catch all applications in one go, but now they have realized that the market demand is not as simple as they thought.

After leaving Apple, Charles Simeone frowned and said: "I've seen it. The application programming interface of the Lisa computer is not as systematic as our operating system. It's not friendly at all. I'm afraid the development time will not be easy. control."

"It doesn't matter, just treat it as a fellow researcher and learn from experience and lessons. My real purpose is to take a fancy to the people in the Lisa project team."

Tang Huan smiled lightly, "It is said that Jobs' MAC will be launched in half a year, even if there is a delay, it will not exceed a year. Therefore, John Couch hastily added weight to Lisa, It can't resist the power of Jobs' stumbling block. At that time, the Lisa project team will definitely fall down and scatter."

"Lisa is a product that Apple has invested huge resources in research and development. How could Jobs avenge his personal revenge without looking at the big picture?" Charles Simeone was a little suspicious.

"Of course not on the surface, but if you give it a kick secretly, the Lisa computer is enough. I, like John Couch, also felt Jobs' hostility towards the Lisa computer. Just wait and see." Tang Huan smiled sarcastically.

……

Not long after Tang Huan arranged the Lisa Computer business, he was invited by Trip Hawkins to EA for a meeting.

The results of the 1981-1982 financial report have basically come out, and the situation is so complicated that we must carefully discuss how to deal with it.

Zheru's ERP system, of course, will be vigorously applied by the company. EA's business all over the world is aggregated to the US headquarters through floppy disks, modems, telephone networks, and communication satellites. Not only annual reports, quarterly reports and other reports are also faster than peers.

EA's annual operating income is close to 41 billion US dollars, an increase of more than 40.00% over the previous year, and the scheduled goal has been completed.

Arranged in order of contribution, the businesses are home video game consoles, arcade machines, PC games, and others.

The ranking is the same as last year, but we know that the growth rate of the home video game console business, which has been booming in North America, has slowed down significantly. This is the result of the early education function of the game console and the positive stimulation of the global promotion in the second half of this year.

"In addition to the feedback from the grassroots, there is also news from the industry that the home video game market seems to be unsold." Trip Hawkins said with a complicated expression, "Some people have analyzed that the impact of the cheap PCs from Commodore and Texas Instruments is too great. Yes, some people think maybe the market is saturated."

Although EA is well prepared to face the industry's Great Depression, Tang Huan has long predicted that the home video game market in North America will inevitably collapse after brutal expansion, and Trip Hawkins is not willing to really Appeared, he was really reluctant to part with such a good market.

Tang Huan carefully read every item of data on the report, and after confirming that only the home video game business in North America had declined, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"No matter how big the cake is, there will be a day when you finish eating it. You just want to open some." Tang Huan put down the report and rubbed the space between his brows.

"Last year, we rushed to release financial reports ahead of other peers. Will we do the same this year?" Tripp Hawkins asked after a wry smile.

"Try to delay as much as possible. It's best to wait for Warner and Mattel to make their debut before we appear." Tang Huan pondered for a while, "I believe that other companies in the industry must have a harder time. Since the market is not good, then Choose the bigger one from the dwarves, and compare who will fall the least."

"That must be interesting." Trip Hawkins laughed knowingly, "Investors see that the second-ranked Atari and the third-ranked Mattel are no longer good, so they will naturally pay attention to the first-ranked Let’s be a little more relaxed, and maybe there will be a pleasant surprise because there is no pessimism as imagined.”

"I hope it's a pleasant surprise." Tang Huan nodded, then changed the subject and asked, "Atari is developing the video game "ET Alien". What's the situation now?"

"I don't know. Atari is strictly guarding it and no relevant news has come out." Tripp Hawkins was a little uneasy when asked, "Is this going to be a variable?"

"Then it depends on Atari's current technical strength." Tang Huan spread his hands, no matter how good the trick is, it depends on God's cooperation.

……

Publishing financial reports is a mandatory task for listed companies, and no one can rely on it.

Tang Huanzheng was thinking that the global game center would inevitably move to Japan, so Mattel was the first to announce its financial report, in which the growth rate of the home video game console business was very unsatisfactory.

Mattel, which ranks third in the industry, is far behind Atari, which ranks second, not to mention the comparison with EA, which ranks first.

Therefore, although Mattel's performance disappointed investors, the impact was very limited.

When Warner announced its financial report, the situation was different. Among them, Atari's annual operating income was just over 13 billion US dollars, an increase of more than 40.00% compared to the previous year.

This result stunned the hornet's nest. You know, last year Atari predicted 60.00% or even higher.

The words are still in my ears, Atari has not completed the task, so Warner's stock price fell immediately.

Seeing that there were already people passing by in front of them, EA unhurriedly produced its financial report, which was also a growth rate of more than 40.00%, which disappointed investors, but at any rate it was in line with its own prediction, not like Ya Dali talked big like that.

Just as Wall Street was discussing how the top three players in the home video game console industry were sluggish, an earthquake suddenly struck Atari, and CEO Recasa was investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission because, on the eve of Warner’s financial report, Recasa sold 5000 shares of Warner stock, suspected of insider trading.

Now that he was targeted by the Supreme Emperor of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Recasa had to take the blame and resign, losing the position of CEO of Atari.

Hearing this news, Tang Huan was greatly surprised. How could Recasana, a senior manager with decades of experience in the workplace, make such a low-level mistake.Could it be that Atari has been too unbearable to make him lose confidence?

To say that Atari's biggest failure this year is the Atari 5200 it launched. In the case of incompatibility with the Atari 2600, the game development progress of this platform is extremely backward, and there is no support for the new hardware platform at all. Game of Thrones was suddenly compared to another game console released at the same time, ColecoVision.

But this is not enough to make a veteran in the workplace so obsessed. Tang Huan was greatly puzzled and had more doubts in his heart.

Recasa's unexpected sacking caused confusion at the Warner headquarters in New York, and they hurriedly searched for a new Atari CEO, but it was not so easy to find a suitable candidate all of a sudden.

As a result, the leaderless Atari once again dragged down Warner's stock price, and I don't know what it looks like when Steve Ross is furious.

(End of this chapter)