Rebirth of the Tech Madman

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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 problem, the technical aspect encountered that even the cpu used by mainstream personal computers has 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.

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In the end, the Toy Story project used 116 dual-cpu Fangyuan holder workstations, 40 4-cpu 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.

The 77-minute-long animation of Toy Story includes more than 1,500 shots and more than 114,000 frames with a size of 1536x922 pixels, and the rendering time of each frame ranges from 45 minutes to 30 hours.

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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 delicacy 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, there is no doubt that film production has ushered in a major change, and the IT industry has a deeper understanding of its own status.

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The intention of the 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 technological power contained in it.

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

The marketing budget of Toy Story is 20 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 achievements 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 30 million US dollars, and James Cameron's Prodigal In comparison, far inferior.

If you have to say a number, the box office of 80 million US dollars is enough to break even; after breaking through the box office of 100 million US dollars, it is a dry profit.

What's even more favorable is that in terms of release, 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.

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The computer animation technology used in Toy Story requires the performance of microprocessors, and Intel CEO Andy Grove can't sit still.

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 opponent's performance in the process of competing with Motorola's mc68000 family microprocessors.

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

It wasn't until the 1990s that Motorola, which was earning more and more money in the communications market, finally failed in the field of microprocessors without a fight, and was cleanly surpassed by Intel's Pentium microprocessor. Abandoning the cisc microprocessor market made it relatively easy for Intel all of a sudden.

Except for the product recall turmoil 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 latest version has added a set of simd - single instruction stream multiple data stream instruction set mmx. 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 you are interested in a higher-end application environment. After all, in the cisc camp, it is not an exaggeration to describe Intel as the only fruit left. Tang Huan joked , asked casually: This ambitious new product should be Pentium 2.

Although the microprocessor core has been upgraded to the brand new p6, we are not going to call it Pentium 2, but pentium_pro. Andy Grove explained: This is mainly due to the integration of the desktop and workstation markets. Clear delineation considerations.

Pentium_pro? Tang Huan raised his brows, waved to call for an assistant, and added the details of his cooperation with Intel on pentium_pro.

Compared with the pentium of the p5 core, the pentium_pro of the p6 core has two most significant improvements—the introduction of a risc-style decoding mechanism and the packaging into a high-speed L2 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 the pentium_pro to the pentium are absent, and the intel_80286 to the intel_8086 did not consider the support for compatible real mode, which is not generally similar.

Andy Grove justified this: The 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 not matter.

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 loss of the last time, you won't have an impressive memory! Tang Huan waved his hand impatiently, You can do whatever you want--I don't like wasting saliva.

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

These two are also old acquaintances, looking at the somewhat embarrassed Andy Grove, Jobs gloated and said, Why, 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.

When he had to decide to give up the hardware business of next, 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.

Tang Huan didn't need to provoke Jobs needlessly, so he didn't take up the topic, but just ordered his subordinates to make a cup of tea according to his eating habits.

I think 'Toy Story' is going to be a hit at the box office, Jobs continued.

At that time, you will also have a share. Tang Huan smiled slightly, However, for us, money really only represents numbers-after all, it can only fill 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, the other party is more like an insatiable land rich man, who from time to time shows the behavior of nouveau riche and extremely aggressive posture.

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.