Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Although there were thousands of participants, most of them looked up and stared at the stage seriously. ∷4∷5∷Chinese∷文◎, Tang Huan condescended, searched step by step, and found the target.

Don Estridge was a man who laughed a lot, but at this moment, he was very serious.

For a long time, ibm has been focusing on hardware and software to provide users with a package of solutions. The pinnacle of it is naturally the mainframe system system/360. No matter what type of model, the software interface can achieve consistency. Therefore, it has the most understanding of the importance of software.

Don Estridge has a vague feeling that now Tang Huan is applying the ibm model. After establishing his own hardware platform, he is constantly exploring new areas of software applications to drive hardware sales.

Moreover, this speed is astonishing. In stark contrast to this, IBM's new products have to go through various procedures from project approval to launch, at least two to three years. If it takes three to five years, it is not surprising .

However, it has only been two full years since Tang Huan developed the spreadsheet software and rose rapidly. It is only an ibm product cycle, but he is active in the fields of spreadsheets, word processing, databases, and now the so-called desktop publishing. constantly.

The reason why the huge ibm has been able to stand tall in the industry for decades is largely due to its conservative business strategy. Naturally, it cannot be compared with Tang Huan, who is running barefoot, but this market reaction speed still makes people People are worrying.

It is normal for the product life cycle of the mainframe era to be maintained at about ten years, but the replacement of microcomputers is catching up with each other, starting from the earliest personal computer, the Altair, which came out in 1975. It's only been six years now. But the industry has begun to enter the stage of the third generation of personal computers as claimed by Tang Huan. Obviously, if you move slowly, you will not be able to grab food.

How can we break this situation where we are one step behind, step by step behind? Don Estridge couldn't help frowning his bushy eyebrows.

It is certainly possible to catch up by mobilizing IBM's internal resources, but even if you sit as the president of IBM, you may not be able to make all departments work together sincerely. A personal computer worth thousands of dollars cannot mobilize their enthusiasm at all.

It seems. Then you can only find thugs from the outside.

Thinking of this gave Don Estridge a headache.

In order to make the operating system come out smoothly, ibm has spent a lot of effort to train Microsoft. These mobs don’t have a complete concept of software engineering and quality control. It takes a lot of effort to teach and learn, and in the end they still make wedding dresses for others. People are unwilling.

Don Estridge shook his head again and again,

It aroused the surprised eyes of others.

Such an epoch-making product. Could it be that you saw something wrong so quickly?

Of course, Don Estridge's eyesight was not so sharp as to defy the sky, he was a little bit guilty. The various functions mentioned on the stage, a personal computer with small arms and legs, can you really run with them?

If this is the case, not only will IBM's mainframe business be challenged, but its minicomputer business will also feel the pressure.

Jobs and the key engineers of the project team unceremoniously occupied the best positions in the audience, because they have always maintained their respect for the graphical user interface elements such as menus, fonts, and text boxes introduced in Zheru's large-scale office software. With a high degree of attention, naturally he refused any chance to understand the technical details.

Jobs, who has become a billionaire, is definitely in the state of being young and rich now, so he is pursuing the ultimate taste in all aspects, which is specifically reflected in his shopping hobbies, ranging from small razors, medium to stereos, and large sports cars. They had to make a careful comparison of craft design, and became enthusiastic about Japanese art, and even participated in related international exchange conferences.

When Tang Huan introduced OpenType, Jobs was refreshed and scribbled on his notebook.

As for the fact that he didn't realize its true meaning, he just casually said to Bill Atkinson beside him, Guess how fast and powerful the laser printer that Don boasted about is how heavy it is?

At least 60 pounds. Bill Atkinson replied in disbelief. He was also not cold, but he was attracted by the graphical operation of pagemaker. Zheru seems to have made new progress in this technical field .

It looks so stupid, I guess it weighs 70 pounds. Jobs, who has a lot of experience in process design, ruthlessly mocked Zheru's laser printer with his own aesthetic standards.

It has to be said that although Jobs did not fully guess correctly, it is not far away. The real weight is 75 pounds, about 34 kilograms. It occupies a separate table on the stage, which is an obvious manifestation of the limitations of the current technical level.

Bill Atkinson watched John Warnock operate the pagemaker, import documents, input images through the scanner, use the text box to adjust the position, size, font and other attributes, and what you see is what you get output pictures and texts through the laser printer After reading the copy, like most people, they couldn't help but be dumbfounded.

Obviously, this is the simplest desktop publishing process, and people in various fields see different meanings from it.

Among them, the relevant people in the media were the first to wake up and immediately applauded first. They have a hunch that the way they work in the industry may be completely changed by this desktop publishing system.

Bill Atkinson turned his head and said to Jobs: Zheru obviously has the ability to develop a graphical user interface operating system. They should take some action.

Probably not. Tang insisted that the current level of personal computer hardware is not strong enough to support such a system. Jobs shrugged, Don't forget, although the company exchanged the shares of Zheru, I am still Zheru. Ru’s individual shareholders can see some internal documents.”

Seeing Jobs swearing, Bill Atkinson basically dispelled his doubts. I belonged to the category of geniuses that Jobs recognized. Naturally, you will get a reliable answer.

But at the same time. Bill Atkinson also began to think in his heart that recently, it was rumored within Apple that the three founders had an exchange of interests with Tang. During the cooperation between Apple and Zheru, they had been compromising with each other. This statement seemed to be true. .

After John Warnock finished his task and left the stage, Tang Huan introduced another co-founder in the original time and space, who also came from the same background——Charles Gershke to the stage. And demonstrate the second new software.

In the original time and space, it was released in 1987. Like the pagemaker of aldus company, it originally ran on the Apple platform.

But now, both of them have come out ahead of schedule, and they are running happily in the high-end second-generation Fangyuan computer that also uses microprocessors.

is a vector-based graphics creation program that can be used for font development and editing.

Its biggest feature is the use of the Bezier curve, with the help of this tool, users can draw various lines as they like. And intuitive and reliable.

Of course, Bézier curves belong to the category of professional mathematics. Like all mathematics topics, it is boring and difficult to understand.

Therefore, Charles Geschke just briefly mentioned this concept, and then moved on to the functions that ordinary users are more concerned about.

Bill Atkinson in the audience, his eyes were straight at the time. While he was developing a graphical user interface operating system, he was also compiling a graphics package called .

Comparing it with Yi now, it is simply the word that Jobs always talked about—garbage.

Jobs noticed the abnormality of his generals, so he pushed him, What's there to be dazed about, although Don's software looks amazing now, but he can only make his products reach this level, and we develop Yes, all programs running on this platform can achieve this effect.

Bill Atkinson was fooled by Jobs casually, and finally healed, and then whispered: Perhaps, we can obtain the authorization of this kind of technology from Zheru to speed up the research and development progress of the project.

Seeing Jobs' disapproving expression, Bill Atkinson quickly added, In this way, it may be launched before the Lisa project.

At the beginning, when Jobs left the project halfway, he took the initiative to retreat when he saw that the situation was not good, but the Lisa project was swept out.

This is a thorn in the heart of him who is young and energetic. Now he is stimulated by Bill Atkinson, and he immediately changes his original intention and nods in agreement with the other party's use of doctrine.

Seeing this scene, Bill Atkinson finally breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't that he was spineless, but it was because the research and development stage from 0 to 1 was too painful. Now that he encountered a technology that could be used for reference, he naturally wanted to He rushed forward and hugged his thigh.

The support for the . , Everyone whispered their admiration for this magic.

When Tang Huan came to the stage again, he held the cover of Celine Dion's first album in his hand, and sighed repeatedly, The little singing girl left the stage so soon, I still plan to talk to her Let's take a photo together.

After pretending to think about it, Tang Huan snapped his fingers, Yes, I can use the second-generation Fangyuan computer to make up for my regret.

Tang Huan found a photo of himself, showed it to the public, and then input it, together with the album cover, into the second-generation Fangyuan computer through the scanner.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to use a third new piece of software - instead of providing vector graphics, it's used to work with bitmaps.

Although the performance of the current scanner is not flattering, but fortunately Tang Huan and Celine Dion's appearance passed the test, after a pass of ps. It's not so horrible.

Tang Huan printed out the processed images. And distribute it to everyone in the audience to witness the power of this software.

In the original time and space. The advent of pagemaker was in 1990, later than pagemaker and pagemaker, but the initial version also only supports Apple's platform.

And it has been updated from the original one. As for the specific hardware specification changes, the operating frequency of the microprocessor has been increased from 7.8mhz to 8mhz, the memory capacity has been increased from 128kb to the standard configuration of 1mb, and the supported expansion is 4mb.

In 1987, Thomas Knoll was a doctoral student at the University of Michigan. In my spare time, I wrote a program called on Apple's website. Its function is to display grayscale images on black and white bitmap monitors.

Thomas Knoll's elder brother, John Knoll, who worked for George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic Special Effects Company, saw and suggested that his brother turn it into a program for processing digital images.

So in 1988, the brothers spent six months working together on the project.

Originally, Thomas Knoll wanted to rename the software , but never thought that this name had already been used.

Later that same year, Thomas Knoll, on the suggestion of a visitor to an exhibition. Rename the software to .

At this point, you already have the ability to adjust levels, color balance, saturation, and more.

in terms of business operations. The Knoll brothers started out as a short-term partnership with a scanner company that would process the images scanned by the scanner.

During this time, John Knoll traveled to Silicon Valley to demonstrate to Apple's engineers, as well as art director Russell Brown, and both were successful.

Finally, in September 1988, I decided to give up the similar software of another company letraset that I was considering, and bought it.

Since then, it has also caught up with the upsurge of desktop publishing, and has gradually come to the fore and grown into an industry standard.

The high-end model of the second-generation Fangyuan computer is also sufficient to support smooth operation, so at the annual developer conference in San Francisco, there was a spectacular phenomenon of three bursts of software.

Appreciating the admiring expressions of the participants, Tang Huan smiled with satisfaction, raised his hands and waved back, Ladies and gentlemen, just as you have seen, the second-generation Fangyuan computer that provides a graphical user interface, what you see is what you see The resulting software—pagemaker,, output devices—supported laser printers, font technology—opentype, and all aspects of desktop publishing are already in place, and a new industrial revolution is about to begin.”

After thunderous applause, Tang Huan solemnly announced, And the opentype standard will be released to the public immediately, so as to lay a good foundation for the development of the entire desktop publishing industry.

This kind of industry leader's tone of giving up to me did not cause dissatisfaction, but it ushered in even warmer applause.

...

After leaving the stage, Tang Huan met with acquaintances in and out of the industry one by one in the temporary reception room at the back.

Robert Bartley joked: Our Wall Street Journal has just been captured by your wolf-like salesmen, and we have begun to fully use the second-generation Fangyuan computer for office work. But judging from today's situation, the boss's pocketbook has to be re-entered. opened.

It's not that exaggerated. It takes time to distribute the products. Tang Huan was modest.

By the way, how much is that laser printer? Robert Batley inquired curiously.

$8,999. Seeing Robert Bartley's mouth grow wide in surprise, Tang Huan shook his head helplessly, Dude, you can't take everything that is related to a personal computer as cheap. Xerox products cost $17,000. Well. This laser printer is equivalent to installing a computer. It has a lot of cpu and memory. It specializes in processing command files, and then controls the physical parts of the printer to print according to the above instructions. Now the price is as cheap as possible.

I said why it's so expensive. Robert Bartley nodded knowingly.

Tang Huan suppressed a smile, and flicked away Reagan's economic think tank, and then came back and said to John Warnock and Charles Geschke who had been waiting by the side: It's time to set up an independent operation for the desktop publishing system. company.

Hearing this, the two couldn't help but feel refreshed, only to hear Tang Huan continue to say, The name of the company is named after a river named in Los Altos, Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley. The two of you Served as the president and respectively.” (To be continued..)