Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Speaking of his experience in the field of microprocessors, Bill Mensch is definitely a veteran figure. The career of designing cpu can be traced back to the period when Motorola was developed to compete with the intel8080 in the 1970s.

Because it is also taking the route of a high-end microprocessor with a price of hundreds of dollars, the R&D team plans to study a low-cost and energy-saving product, but Motorola's management refused.

In this way, after the success, the R&D team split, and some people switched to the company; Bill Mensch was one of them to continue their technological dreams.

; It was formed by some people in Texas Instruments. It was originally based on the opportunity of Texas Instruments' second supplier, which is somewhat similar to the relationship between amd and intel.

As a result, the team of Bill Mensch really sturdy and successfully launched; 6502, priced at only 25 US dollars, can be described as slammed the old club Motorola's face.

Coincidentally, Intel’s cpu R&D team was also awkward. Federico Feikin was dissatisfied with Andy Grove’s management philosophy. He left Intel and came up with the 8-bit CPU performance king z80 in the commercial market, only in terms of price. No; 6502 is more advantageous, and the two have reached a tie.

These two CPUs just caught up with the key node of the second phase of the development of personal computers, which replaced Intel's intel8080 and Motorola's respectively, and thus became the most popular microprocessors on the market.

Has been acquired by Tang Huan; at that time, z80 was chosen as the cpu of Dondi Computer trs80.

As for 6502, it is even more straightforward, because poor management caused an economic crisis, and it was directly acquired by Kang Maoda, a pet dedicated cpu.

Woz took a fancy; the 6502's high quality and low price, so this microprocessor also caught the Apple Express.

These three companies led the development of personal computers to a new stage, and 6502 and z80 contributed.

; After the turmoil, the 6502 R&D team once again disbanded. Bill Mensch founded weste and continued to develop compatible 6502 optimized microprocessors.

Because Kang Mao Da passed; produced; 6502, and manufactured personal computers by itself, squeezing competitors in price and cost in accordance with this vertically integrated industry advantage. Therefore, the 6502 manufacturers try to purchase from the channels of the second supplier. For example, Apple Atari bought it from Syek; 6502 compatible cpu.

Tang Huan is also a big user of 6502. Of course, he will not go to the dumb loss of Kang Maoda. In addition to finding a more affordable second supplier in Japan, he is also looking for a target here in the United States.

Designed by Bill Mensch, not only eliminated some bugs in 6502. It also further improved performance and reduced power consumption, which won Tang Huan's favor.

The use of this kind of low-power microprocessor is not limited to personal computer electronic game consoles, but also a wider range of embedded systems.

After working together for a period of time, Tang Huan decisively took the small company weste and commissioned Bill Mensch to develop a compatible 6502 16-bit CPU, the result of which he suggested to Apple.

At present, it is also in the sample stage, and there are still some defects waiting to be eliminated.

Apple convened various technical forces to visit. In essence, it is to coordinate and solve these problems.

Apple's cpu is 16-bit, and the memory capacity is 256kb.

Due to the use of the Fangyuan computer’s standard isa bus, Apple can directly use the expansion card functions on the Fangyuan computer platform, such as cdr drives, Sony 35-inch floppy drives, Epson printers, Seagate hard disks, sound cards, modems, and other external devices. opportunity.

Invisible, Apple's research and development progress will accelerate a lot.

When the discussion was over, when everyone started eating, Woz talked to Tang Huan about the music festival enthusiastically, "Tang, you really got the job of connecting with the musicians from the Soviet Union. That's it. Our music festival will definitely be more interesting."

For this music festival, Tang Huan and Watts jointly invested 15 million U.S. dollars, which is definitely worth a lot of money, and it can be said to be for their own personal hobbies. Deduced the prodigal to a new level.

But having said that, how could the event prepared by the two billionaires be shabby?

In the beginning, Woz just had the purpose of playing, but Tang Huan felt that with the energy of the two. It is entirely possible to make this event a permanent and iconic cultural feast in the San Francisco area every year.

This goal impressed Woz at the time. After all, if people are rich, they must have a name. This is a manifestation of the value of life.

There is no doubt that this kind of activity will be very popular no matter where it is. Not only will the funds be paid, but it can also increase local attention and stimulate economic development. It can be said that everyone is happy. San Francisco officials have no hesitation in cooperating, and the media even more. It is an enthusiastic hype, and it will officially begin next month.

Since the goal is to become an annual cultural event, it is very worthwhile to invest a part of the funds for the first session and do some basic work.

Woz invested money mainly for personal interest and fame, while Tang Huan had more goals.

First of all, Tang Huan will use the gimmick of combining technology and art to demonstrate the capabilities of Fangyuan Computer in audio processing. By then, the driven electronic musical instrument will be a highlight of the eye.

Secondly. In the name of DreamWorks, Tang Huan invited some people from the Asian Chinese music circle to attend this event, which was considered exchange and learning. Of course, Tang Huan had to pay for this funding.

Seeing Tang Huan and Woz talking about it vigorously. Gates, who entered the line earlier but respected the last seat, couldn't help feeling a little bit sour.

It's uncomfortable to be a kid, so Gates found an excuse to leave the dining table and go out to breathe. I didn't want to meet Jobs who seemed to come here on purpose. The other party asked intentionally, "Apple's business, have you already won?"

"Yes." Even Gates, who has a temperament like Jobs, nodded cautiously.

"It seems that getting such a trivial business makes you very satisfied, and it seems to be a little bit happy." Jobs moved unceremoniously.

"This business shouldn't be small." Gates, who was ridiculed to feel a little inexplicable, explained patiently: "According to Apple's design goals, it will introduce Apple series of personal computers. Successfully introduced from the 8-bit CPU era. In the 16-bit CPU era, becoming the successor of Apple, sales are very optimistic."

"Then I ask you, when will Apple be available?" Jobs snorted, not paying attention to Gates' explanation at all.

"As planned, next year." Gates answered honestly.

"Next year? The Lisa computer will come out next year, and mine will also be on stage." Steve Jobs muttered disdainfully, "I don't know what Mike and they think. Apple is a product that is about to be eliminated. Why do we need to devote resources to repairing and repairing the land? It’s better to transfer it to the project team."

Gates, who was astute, finally understood what was going on. Jobs, who was the president of Apple, turned out to be unwelcome to his next generation of Apple. This is too weird.

"Because it should be that the product faces different consumer groups." Gates, who didn't want to cause trouble, vaguely agreed.

"Duplicate investment, waste of resources." After Jobs finished the evaluation without hesitation, he stared at Gates and said: "What's the point of developing for Apple? Go, I will show you to open your eyes."

Upon hearing this. Gates, who had already reached the level of instinct for stealing the teacher, couldn't help but moved in his heart and quickly followed in the footsteps of Jobs, and tentatively asked, "Where are we going?"

"When you get there, you'll know." Jobs looked up and sold it for a while.

"Just pretend, besides the project, what else do you have worth showing me? I really thought that only you were a smart person." Gates couldn't help but slander.

…

As Gates guessed, Jobs led him into the tightly guarded project team.

"Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and be ready to witness the miracle I'm showing." Jobs mysteriously ordered.

Gates endured the extreme discomfort in his heart, did it again, and then followed the direction of Jobs's fingers and looked at the computer monitor.

The color of the screen is black on a white background, which is very close to what a book looks like in reality, but it seems a little dazzling.

The above is a document with a slider at the edge. Drag this thing with the mouse, and the lines of text will move smoothly in the vertical direction. The refresh speed is very fast, and the naked eye can hardly feel the flicker and pause.

This display method is quite different from the technical methods commonly used nowadays. When there are a lot of documents to be processed, the latter is displayed on a split screen. To switch the content of each page, you need to press the page key once.

It is undeniable that the display method is closer to the natural form in real life, which is absolutely a pioneering work.

"This is just one of many features." Seeing the surprise on Gates' face, Jobs smiled with satisfaction, "This is an epoch-making product, what do you think?"

Gates hesitated for a moment, but he nodded and agreed with Jobs's statement;

In fact, Gates stole a teacher from Tang Huan, and he really opened up a lot of horizons. Concepts such as graphical user interfaces have long been known to him.

At this stage, many graphical interface elements have been added to the various software of Philosophy. Its commercial promotion slogan in the market is "Menu Driven".

As the name implies, users don't need to memorize too many obscure commands, and then send them to the cpu for execution by typing on the keyboard. Instead, they complete daily work through the cooperation of the mouse, the menu, and the parameters.

Compared with the all-in-one command-driven computer operation before, menu-driven requires a lot of image and labor-saving. It is very popular with users and has become a major feature on the Fangyuan computer platform.

But this is not really a graphical user interface. The "Xerox Star" released last year is the real example.

On the Fangyuan personal computer platform, the operating system itself does not provide a graphical user interface mechanism from the inside to the outside. The friendly interface that the user sees is completed by each program separately, and a shell is provided to help the command execution. File Explorer is the most famous one.

Of course, these programs will use a public function library provided.

As for the more advanced product Fangyuan Personal Server, the operating system it uses is Vientiane, but it provides some interface programs that are closer to the "Xerox Star" graphical user interface effect.

Gates has reason to believe that UU reading www.uukānshu.com philosopher must also be studying the graphical user interface, but because of the current hardware performance, this has been conservative.

As Charles Simeone made no secret of his vigilance, Gates' master-steal plan was repeatedly blocked, and naturally he was unable to detect further information.

What is in front of him can be said to be a vivid demonstration to Gates, guiding him to the development direction of a clear graphical user interface.

In the field of innovation, at the stage from 0 to 1, Gates' performance is often lackluster; but from 1 to the following things are his expertise.

Thinking about whether he should also do a graphical user interface project, Gates suddenly heard Jobs say: "Are you willing to develop software on such a great personal computer platform?"

"Of course it's a must." Gates smiled and nodded.

"Well, I'll give you such an opportunity." Jobs condescendingly, "I ask Microsoft to develop software such as spreadsheets and word processing databases." To be continued.

...()