Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Tang Huan first went to Zheru Company's Japanese office in Tokyo to inquire about the declaration of various patents and copyrights, then left the dejected Hu Yinmeng in Tokyo, and drove 200 kilometers with Yaskawa Hideaki to come to Arrived at the Epson headquarters in Suwa, Nagano to check the development progress of new products.

Because traditional characters have many strokes, the effect of outputting 12-dot matrix fonts through a 7-pin dot matrix printer is sometimes not perfect, so Tang Huan has an urgent need for a 9-pin dot matrix printer.

With two more firing pins on the print head, the Chinese character library can be upgraded to a 16-dot matrix, which can meet the printing accuracy requirements in a wide range.

As long as he has the foundation of a 9-pin printer, Tang Huan can accept that the development process of 16-pin and 24-pin is more stable. After all, products must follow their own cycle. If the seedlings grow too much, he will be exhausted for various after-sales problems.

Epson's dot matrix printer is relatively durable, and the service life of the firing pin can reach 200 million times. These indicators are achieved step by step by slow work and careful work.

In the original time and space, the TP-80 dot matrix printer supporting 80-column width, its 7-pin model TX-80, was introduced to the market in June 1978 as a system printer for the CommodorePET computer, and the improved 9 The needle model MX-80 will not be released until October 1980.

Now it is different, because of Tang Huan's insight, TX-80 has become an important part of the information office solution he built, almost a necessity.

The research and development of the improved model MX-80, under the guidance of Tang Huan, is progressing rapidly. Judging from this trend, it is estimated that mass production will be possible by the end of the year.

After integrating circuit boards such as the printing enhancement card into the printer to support the Chinese character library, then the MX-80 is not much different from the conventional printers in the previous life.

Tang Huan was very satisfied with the work of these Japanese, and most of the purpose of this trip was achieved.

By the way, Mr. Ying Zhao, does the person I asked you to help find any clues? Tang Huan asked.

There is indeed a planner named Shigeru Miyamoto in Nintendo. Hideaki Yaskawa nodded, But this young man looks very ordinary, Mr. Tang insisted on looking for him, why?

I have seen works designed by Shigeru Miyamoto by accident, and I feel that he is exactly the talent I need. Tang Huan replied frankly with a laugh.

During this period, in addition to the rapid economic development, Japan’s cultural output was also very strong, such as the unique Zen, tea ceremony, and derived industrial design. Many Westerners, including young IT bosses at this time, There was Jobs, who was obsessed with it.

Faced with this pursuit, the Japanese are of course proud.

Therefore, after hearing Tang Huan's reasons, Yaskawa Hideaki felt it was a matter of course, and then he enthusiastically accompanied Tang Huan to Kyoto to find Shigeru Miyamoto.

...

Compared with Tokyo, an international metropolis in Kanto, Kyoto in Kansai is a famous historical city. It has been the capital of Japan from 794 to 1868. Years of historical accumulation have made Kyoto rich in historical relics and has become one of the important cities of Japanese traditional culture.

In addition, Kyoto is also an important industrial city, with the most developed traditional industries and electronic industries, such as Tang Huanzheng's goal of poaching - Nintendo.

Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fujiro Yamauchi,

At first, it specialized in the manufacture of a type of Japanese handmade playing cards called Hanafashi, which continued until the 1960s.

It can be said that Nintendo has survived for more than half a century in an unrefined business.

In 1929, Fujiro Yamauchi retired and his son-in-law Sekiyoshi Yamauchi took over the company.

After the painstaking efforts of the two generations of the Yamauchi family, Nintendo has completed its original accumulation.

Yamauchi Jiliang also has no son to inherit the family incense, so after marrying Yamauchi Kimi, Inaba Kanosuke changed his name to Yamauchi Kanosuke in order to take over Nintendo in the future.

But after Yamauchi Hiroshi was born, Yamauchi Shikanosuke abandoned his wife and son, and eloped with others.

Yamauchi Kimi felt very humiliated, so she moved out to live with her younger sister and handed Yamauchi Hiroshi over to her father.

Yamauchi Jiliang has high expectations for Yamauchi Hiroshi, and the teaching is very strict.

In 1945, Hiroshi Yamauchi entered Waseda University to study law, met Michiko Inaba, fell in love and registered for marriage.

Shortly after Hiroshi Yamauchi's wedding, Yoshiyoshi Yamauchi suffered a stroke. Before his death, Hiroshi Yamauchi was recruited urgently, asking him to drop out of school and immediately take over as Nintendo.

In 1949, Hiroshi Yamauchi became the third president of Nintendo at the age of 22.

As soon as the young Hiroshi Yamauchi came to power, he forced many family members and old employees who had worked for more than 20 years to retire, and introduced new technologies to improve the manufacturing process of playing card products.

Six years later, Nintendo became Japan's largest playing card manufacturing company.

In 1959, Hiroshi Yamauchi took advantage of the opportunity of the Olympic Games in Tokyo to establish a cooperative relationship with Disney and began to produce playing cards with Disney cartoon images.

Relying on the promotion of TV and magazines, Nintendo sold 630,000 sets of playing cards a year, accounting for 60% of the Japanese card market, which is equivalent to the total output of Nintendo in the past 15 years.

In 1962, Nintendo's company stock was successfully listed.

However, Hiroshi Yamauchi immediately discovered that even if this industry became the world's number one, it would be nothing more than that, so he began to seek company transformation.

From 1963 to 1968, Nintendo established a taxi company and a chain of love hotels, and produced toys, rice, vacuum cleaners and several other items, but this diversification was not smooth.

In 1969, Nintendo established the game department, and Yokoi Junhei began to emerge. He quickly produced an auxiliary arm toy, the Super Monster Hand, and it quickly became a hot seller at Christmas that year. 1.4 million sets, becoming the biggest highlight of Nintendo in the late 1960s.

After the initial victory, under the auspices of Junhei Yokoi, Nintendo launched the Ray Gun.

The so-called light gun is a receiving device in the shape of a gun. The game image in front has a special signal, and the signal received by the light gun means a hit.

In 1973, Nintendo expanded the concept of the light gun and developed it into a laser body shooting system. It uses solar cells as sensors, so it can be used during the day and becomes a large entertainment facility in a bowling alley.

At that time, just as the Japanese bowling fever subsided, a large number of venues were idled.

Hiroshi Yamauchi seized this opportunity, rented a large number of venues after mortgaging the property, and launched a laser shooting range. The people flocking here quickly made Nintendo reap the rewards.

But the good times didn't last long, and just when Hiroshi Yamauchi was investing heavily in debt, hoping to fight another peak, the oil crisis broke out.

Almost overnight, people lost interest in laser shooting ranges, the flow of venues subsided, and overseas orders were cancelled. Nintendo was hit hard.

In 1974, Nintendo used the same light gun concept to improve the shooting system, making the laser gun game Wild Gunner exported to the United States and Europe.

At this stage, Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that with some technological breakthroughs, the cost and performance of electronic products were sufficient to be used in the entertainment industry.

In 1975, some companies, such as Atari, where Jobs once worked, achieved initial success in video game consoles.

Since Japan has fully popularized color televisions, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who has been paying attention to new trends in the United States, realized that video game consoles would be Nintendo's most promising business.

Hiroshi Yamauchi learned that Magnavox, a subsidiary of Philips, already had a similar product, so he signed an agreement with it to obtain a license to produce and sell the company's game system in Japan. The other party of this cooperation is Mitsubishi Electric, which is responsible for manufacturing game consoles.

After the original Magnavox Odyssey came out, Nintendo and Mitsubishi carried out more in-depth cooperation. They jointly developed ColorTVGame6, which is C**6, and C**15, which has 15 built-in games including tennis games. market, the cumulative sales exceeded one million units.

In 1977, Nintendo's business changed, and its products transformed into electronic entertainment, integrating semiconductors and microchips.

In the same year, 50-year-old Hiroshi Yamauchi disregarded his mother's objections and announced a name change from Hiroshi Yamauchi to Hiroshi Yamauchi.

At the beginning, his grandfather Yamauchi Sekiyoshi named him Yamauchi Hiroshi in the hope that he could inherit the ancestral property of making flower cards and other gambling equipment.

Today, Hiroshi Yamauchi has undergone great changes in his thinking, and he has a strong desire for self-breakthrough in his heart.

In this way, Nintendo finally entered the field of video games and gradually transformed into a video game product production company, which basically echoed its ancestor product-entertainment flower cards.

...

Listening to Hideaki Yaskawa's detailed introduction of Nintendo and Hiroshi Yamauchi, Tang Huan just smiled and nodded.

Of course he knows Hiroshi Yamauchi. This person is known in the industry for his sharp words, tough actions, and stubborn personality. He is a traditional Japanese power leader. game business.

In 1979, that is, this year, Nintendo began to design the concept of the portable device Game\u0026Watch from Junhei Yokoi, and opened a subsidiary in New York.

According to the development of the original historical track, in 1980, Nintendo began to produce arcade games.

Then, with the help of Gunpei Yokoi, Shigeru Miyamoto developed Donkey Kong, which was a huge success, selling 65,000 copies and becoming the most popular game of the year.

In 1982, Nintendo launched the sequel to Donkey Kong-Donkey Kong Jr., which is also a set of arcade games. While it wasn't as good as Donkey Kong, it was still a bestseller, selling around 35,000 copies.

In the same year, Nintendo established the American branch in Redmond, Washington and merged the New York branch.

At the same time, Nintendo aimed at the cassette video game platform, drawing on the success of other companies such as Atari.

In July 1983, Nintendo launched the first-generation video game platform - the FC game console, that is, the red and white machine.

But obviously, the FC game console has been cut off by Tang Huan's Xiaobawang game console.

Naturally, Tang Huan never tired of poaching Japanese companies.

Moreover, for him, a consumer electronic terminal product such as a game console is just an extension of technological applications. No matter how squeezed Nintendo or another famous manufacturer, Sega, it will not affect the reference coordinate system of this time and space.

Furthermore, Nintendo's own style is very tough. In comparison, its own behavior of poaching is considered a friendly behavior.

Seeing Yaskawa Hideaki spit out lotus flowers and chatter endlessly, a thought suddenly flashed in Tang Huan's mind, this person should be regarded as a leader.