Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 870 I Know What You Want

……

In fact, Pixar would have released "Toy Story" the year before last if Mr. Rich hadn't pressed down a few times.

At the beginning, the idea of ​​John Lasseter and others came from the "Little Tin Soldier", which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1988. Although it is also a partner movie, the plot and taste are different from Tang Huan's impression. Very big, so he was beaten back several times.

After solving the artistic problems, the technical aspect encountered that even the CPUs used by mainstream personal computers have to step up to the 100Mhz operating frequency level—since one of the main purposes of "Toy Story" is to show off computer technology , then it is logical to slow down and wait for the latest hardware platform and software system to be in place.

……

In the end, the "Toy Story" project used 116 dual-CPU Fangyuan Holder workstations, 4 40CPU Fangyuan Holder workstations, and 3 top-level Fangyuan servers—the total number of microprocessors exceeded 400.

As for the team size, it reached 110 people, including 27 animators, 22 technical supervisors, and 61 other artists and engineers.

In contrast, the number of people Disney needs to produce traditional animation is often at least twice as large.

It can be seen that if the project participants can really master the computer animation production tools, the work efficiency will be greatly improved.

《玩具总动员》超过77分钟长的动画里，包括了1500多个镜头，114000多尺寸为1536x922像素的帧，而每帧的渲染时间需要45分钟到30个小时不等。

……

Every audience who participated in the trial screening learned about such data, and couldn't help admiring this epic digital sensory product completely generated by computers.

When the movie starts, the first thing that is shown is the scene of the child Andy playing with his many toys.

In recent years, various computer animation short films have been seen frequently, and everyone has already had a general understanding of the effects that this technology can achieve, at least a preliminary understanding.

But the exquisiteness in the opening scene of "Toy Story" still shocked everyone.

Whenever Andy plays with a toy, the lighting, shadows and other effects are all realistic and natural-this level is definitely the first in the industry!

After enjoying the movie, regardless of the artistry, no one doubts the consensus that film production has ushered in a major change, and the IT industry has a deeper understanding of its own status.

……

The intention of Mr. Richest Man is very simple. The artistry and market value of "Toy Story" should be evaluated and operated by a professional team in Hollywood, and the IT circle only needs to feel the power of technology contained in it.

Sure enough, the IT circle was amazed by its own technological achievements, and the voice of admiration came overwhelmingly; many executives were thoughtful.

The marketing budget of "Toy Story" is 2000 million US dollars, and it is obviously receiving an excellent warm-up effect in advance.

A reporter asked Mr. Richest Man what he expected from the box office of "Toy Story"; Tang Huan only responded with a smile - as long as everyone likes it.

This relaxed state of mind is really the same.

Don't look at "Toy Story" has become a super advertising spokesperson for the development of the IT industry over the years in a blink of an eye, but its production cost is similar to that of ordinary movies today, costing more than 3000 million US dollars, and James Cameron's "Prodigal" In comparison, far inferior.

If you have to say a number, the box office of 8000 million US dollars is enough to break even; after breaking through the box office of 1 million US dollars, it is a dry profit.

What's even more favorable: In terms of distribution, "Toy Story" can catch up with the best summer season of the year, and even catch up with the peak sales season of Christmas to release VCDs and videotapes.

And don't forget, if "Toy Story" is really a big success, it can drive the surrounding area, such as authorizing Hasbro in turn, and cooperate with it.

……

The computer animation technology used in "Toy Story" and the demand for microprocessor performance made Intel CEO Andy Grove restless.

He found an opportunity and said to Tang Huan: "Tang, Intel is also actively striving for the workstation market, and has prepared a microprocessor with excellent performance for it. If it goes well, it can be released by the end of the year. Please support Fangyuan workstation product line and Zheru software operating system."

Tang Huan nodded slightly, but he could understand Andy Grove's urgency.

You know, throughout the 1980s, Intel's x86 series microprocessors have been overwhelmed by the performance of Motorola's MC68000 family microprocessors.

An obvious manifestation is that many computer manufacturers have used the MC68000 family of microprocessors in workstation products. For example, Sun Microsystems has always been fond of the MC68000 family of microprocessors before developing its own RISC microprocessor, Sparc. .

It wasn't until the 1990s that Motorola, which was earning more and more money in the communications market, finally lost without a fight in the field of microprocessors. It was cleanly surpassed by Intel's Pentium microprocessors, and RISC's appeal became stronger and stronger. Giving up the CISC microprocessor market made it relatively easy for Intel all of a sudden.

In addition to the product recall caused by the "floating-point error removal" that caused a lot of noise last year, the Pentium microprocessor, which exclusively occupies the CISC market, has indeed performed very well, bringing the performance of personal computers to a new level; especially its The P5 core of the company has added a set of SIMD - the instruction set MMX of single instruction stream multiple data streams. After upgrading to P55C, the processing ability of multimedia data has been significantly improved.

In this case, Intel has a long way to go, and it is completely reasonable to want to follow the example of Motorola and let its own microprocessor enter the high-end market of workstations.

"The performance of the Pentium microprocessor in the field of personal computers is very good, and it is worth looking forward to if it is interested in a higher-end application environment. After all, it is not an exaggeration to describe Intel as the only fruit left in the CISC camp." Tang Huan joked , asked casually: "This ambitious new product should be Pentium 2."

"Although the microprocessor core has been upgraded to the new P6, we do not intend to call it Pentium 2, but Pentium_Pro." Andy Grove explained: "This is mainly due to the separation of the desktop and workstation markets. Clearly demarcated considerations.”

"Pentium_Pro?" Tang Huan raised his brows, waved for his assistant, and added the details of his cooperation with Intel on Pentium_Pro.

Compared with the Pentium with P6 core, Pentium_Pro with P5 core has two most significant improvements—introducing a RISC-style decoding mechanism and encapsulating a high-speed L[-] cache.

But there is a noteworthy problem, that is, the higher-level Pentium_Pro does not support the MMX function of the lower-level Pentium.

If you draw a roadmap for the x86 family of microprocessors, you will find that the 57 MMX instructions of Pentium_Pro to Pentium are absent, and the lack of consideration for compatible real mode support for Intel_80286 to Intel_8086 is not generally similar.

Andy Grove justified this: "Pentium_Pro is aimed at the workstation market. It should not have a strong demand for multimedia processing like the personal computer market. Whether the MMX instruction set exists or not should be irrelevant."

Frowning, Tang Huan said in displeasure, "Why don't you learn good things, but follow IBM's self-righteous and rigid way of forcibly dividing the market? Why do Intel microprocessors occupy a considerable share of the current personal computer market? Not by technology, but by compatibility! If you are so smart on Pentium_Pro, then I will put the prediction here first, and failure is waiting for you."

Andy Grove was sweating profusely from the training, so he could only answer weakly: "But Pentium_Pro is now finalized..."

"If you don't suffer the last loss, you won't be able to remember it deeply!" Tang Huan waved his hand impatiently, "You can do whatever you want - I still hate wasting spit."

……

Andy Grove, who had run away, just ran into Jobs head-on after he left.

The two of them were old acquaintances. Looking at the somewhat embarrassed Andy Grove, Jobs gloated: "What, did you get scolded?"

Andy Grove snorted resentfully, left after saying "good luck", and walked away.

Seeing this, Jobs hesitated a little, then raised his leg and walked in.

After realizing that it was Jobs, Tang Huan calmed down and said, "How about it, the computer animation effect shown in Pixar's "Toy Story" is exciting, right?"

"Of course!" When Jobs was really convinced, he never knew what it was to be embarrassed. "In terms of hardware, NeXT really can't support such a large-scale intensive calculation."

In the process of having to decide to give up NeXT's hardware business, Jobs was inevitably tangled and embarrassed. For example, the NeXT computer factory decorated with artistic atmosphere was puzzled by Canon, one of the investors. sold the matter.

There was no need for Tang Huan to prod Jobs needlessly, so he did not take up the topic. He just ordered his subordinates to make a cup of tea according to Jobs's eating habits.

"I think Toy Story will be a box office hit," Jobs continued.

"When the time comes, you will also have a share." Tang Huan smiled slightly, "However, for us, money really just represents a number - after all, it can only fill up life at most, but it cannot enrich life."

"Steve, I think we have a lot in common when it comes to money."

"The real significance of "Toy Story" does not lie in the box office, but it brings a new way to film production, and at the same time, it leads the computer business we have been engaged in for many years to a new level."

"Indeed." Jobs nodded approvingly.

I have to say that Jobs, who has a good relationship with Larry Ellison and Tang Huan, has obviously different feelings in the process of getting along with them respectively.

When getting along with Larry Ellison, he is more like a greedy rich man, showing the behavior of a nouveau riche and a very aggressive attitude from time to time.

Although at this stage, Jobs can't compare with Larry Ellison's net worth, he still maintains a psychological advantage over the other party, and he also subconsciously succumbs to Jobs' personal charm, and wants to learn from this "mentor" Learn something different from yourself.

Looking back at the process of getting along with Tang Huan, Jobs did not have this psychological advantage, and was also subtly influenced.

Jobs has a characteristic, that is, when he recognizes a person, he often shows an attitude of humility to learn. For example, Michael Markkula, who had not turned against each other ten years ago, was regarded as a mentor like a father by him.

The success of the richest man is undisputed, coupled with some kind of "like-mindedness" that appears from time to time, so Jobs actually regarded Tang Huan as a "mentor" even though he didn't say it.

Of course, this kind of "mentor" is nothing rare. Jobs has many "mentors". In Zen, there is not a long-term soul teacher—— Hirofumi Otokawa.

To put it bluntly, this is a way of doing things in pursuit of success.

In any case, with this tacit relationship, the communication between Jobs and Tang Huan was much smoother than that of other people, and compared to ten years ago.

After chatting a few words about the common language on the concept of wealth, Jobs turned to the main topic of this trip, "Don, in the current prosperity of the industry, the decline of Apple Computer is particularly glaring!"

Tang Huan sighed, and said leisurely: "You are the founder of Apple Computer, so you naturally have an inseparable feeling; in fact, I also have a special feeling for it-it is precisely because of the early relationship with Apple. The cooperation made me quickly step into the ranks of billionaires."

Jobs had a look of sympathetic concern on his face, "It's no secret that Apple CEO Michael Spindler recently sought to sell Apple to IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems—has he contacted you? ?”

"Steve, I know what you want." Tang Huan shrugged with a smile, "But unfortunately, they haven't contacted me about this matter."

(End of this chapter)