Rebirth of the American Super Boss Road

When Li Hongfei said he wanted to buy a computer yesterday, Sophie and the three girls were a little excited and didn't think about it. But after calming down, the three girls were a little skeptical: computers are so expensive, and Daniel, like themselves, is an ordinary salaryman. Family, does he have that much money to buy a computer?

If it weren't for the fact that there was a computer in Li Hongfei's room, Sophie and the three girls would never believe it. However, it was precisely because of the computer that the three girls were dubious, and finally decided to come and have a look today - anyway, Catherine was going to As friends who come to class, isn’t it normal to come over and visit together?

But at this moment, looking at the computer in front of them, the three girls no longer doubted Li Hongfei's determination to engage in personal computer use and training.

"Of course I bought it, we agreed," Li Hongfei said, pointing to the other unopened corrugated box on the ground, feeling somewhat proud of it: "Also, let me correct you, it's not one, it's two, which one The station hasn’t been dismantled yet.”

Sophie and the other three looked at the ground. Sure enough, there was a large unopened corrugated cardboard box on the ground. The style, size and surface pattern of the box were exactly the same as the opened large cardboard box.

Catherine came to Li Hongfei's side and asked curiously: "Can this computer process electronic documents like your previous wang2200F computer?"

"Yes," Li Hongfei picked up a colorful box from the table and pointed it to Catherine: "As long as we run this software called ElectricPencil on the computer, we can process electronic documents like the WPS document processing system built into wang2200F. Okay, the performance of this software is not as good as the WPS word processing system built into the wang2200F computer, but it is not bad... I will familiarize myself with this software first and then teach you in two days."

In fact, Li Hongfei remembers that when he was looking up information for a novel he wrote, it seemed that there was a word processing software called WordStar that was very popular in the early days of the development of personal computers. However, this software was not found in the Tandy/RadioShack store today. In addition, I couldn't find the spreadsheet software called lotus1-2-3 in my memory. I thought that these office softwares that have left such big names in later generations are not yet on the market, so I just used these first. They can be purchased at the RadioShack store. The software makes do.

As long as it can process documents and files, Catherine nodded, her eyes fell on the other boxes in front of Li Hongfei, and asked curiously: "What software are these?"

Li Hongfei explained: "This is the CP/M computer operating system, which is equivalent to the brain and soul of the computer. Only when the operating system is running, the computer has soul and thoughts, and can help us handle various tasks; this is a table Processing software…”

"So that's it, I understand," Catherine nodded, with a rather excited expression: "Can we learn all of these things? Or can we only pay for one of them?"

Hearing Catherine's question, Sophie and Nancy also became nervous.

Through the study in the past few days, Sophie and Nancy already know that there is no universal concept of computers today. Each computer manufacturer has its own set of standards. They take it for granted that the money they paid before was the tuition for studying wang2200F. , As for this computer, they certainly hope that Li Hongfei will not charge for it, but everyone feels not optimistic.

Under the nervous gazes of Sophie, Nancy and Catherine, Li Hongfei thought for a while and said: "You are my first batch of students. I won't charge you any extra money to operate this TRS-80 computer. But in the future, Students can only learn one type for US$800. If you want to learn another computer operation, you need to pay an additional US$200."

The three girls were a little happy to hear that they could learn how to operate and use this new computer for free. They didn't care whether the newcomers would need to spend extra money, since they didn't have to spend more money anyway.

Catherine, on the other hand, asked Li Hongfei again: "Daniel, you told me yesterday that this wang2200 series computer is the computer with the most users, even the White House and state governments in various states use it, so why do you still buy this TRS-80 ?”

"This is a good question," Li Hongfei raised his thumb in appreciation, and then explained: "Because I think this TRS-80 computer will be quickly accepted by the market and users in a short period of time, and will occupy a considerable share of the market. .”

In fact, the three personal computers TRS-80, pet2001 and Apple-II will surpass the market share of the wang2200 series in a very short period of time. However, as the most popular personal computer at present, the wang2200 series has even won the favor of the White House, the Pentagon and With the endorsement of various state governments, Li Hongfei felt that if he said that the market share of TRS-80 would exceed that of the wang2200 series, he would definitely not be able to convince Sophie and the others, so he would settle for the next best thing and say that this computer would soon become the most popular one. PC on fire.

As Li Hongfei expected, Catherine was really surprised by this question: "Why? How could you make such a judgment?"

Sophie and Nancy also looked at Li Hongfei with the same doubtful eyes.

"Because the price of the TRS-80 is cheap enough," Li Hongfei explained: "In my opinion, the low enough price will make many companies, especially small and medium-sized companies, choose to use this computer. Since this computer will be used in the future If it becomes mainstream, then I will definitely teach you how to learn and use this computer."

Catherine grasped the key point keenly: "You said this computer is very cheap, so how cheap can it be?"

Li Hongfei pointed at the TRS-80 in front of him and introduced to the three of them: "Not counting the monitor, if you only need a host and a tape drive, it only costs 399 US dollars. If you choose an additional monitor, you only need to pay an additional 200 US dollars." US dollars, so a complete TRS-80 computer only costs US$599."

USD599?

The three girls, Sophie, Nancy and Catherine, were all shocked.

Before this, Li Hongfei had told them that his wang2200F computer cost US$4500 brand new, while the IBM5100 computer was more expensive, costing more than US$7800. But now, this TRS-80 computer only costs US$599? !

The huge shock and impact even made the three girls speechless for a while.

Li Hongfei continued: "If you choose a 5.25-inch floppy disk drive like me, you will need to pay an additional US$499, which means that in total, you can have a computer with good performance for only US$1098.

Compared with the personal computer products of computer giants such as DEC, Wangan Computer and IBM, the price of the TRS-80 is really too cheap. I believe that at this price, even a computer with only four or five people working in a garage can Small start-up companies can also afford it and are willing to buy one to improve their work efficiency. "