Countercurrent 1982

Chapter 1116 Flash
In later generations, when many people regarded VR (virtual reality) as a future technology, Duan Yun was surprised to find that at the CES conference in 1986, the VIVED prototype launched by NASA was very similar to the Oculus Rift. The VIVED prototype has two 2.7-inch monochrome LCD screens for displaying information, supports surround sound effects, and has the ability to support voice commands and perform operations. The price was $2000 at the time.This set of equipment is relatively high-end even now, so in Duan Yun's view, this equipment has surpassed an era!
But in general, this product launched by NASA is still a conceptual technology product, and has not been commercially produced and sold on a large scale, and the entire booth only has a few very simple software, which is far from the rear-view VR game. effect, so although people feel novelty, but no one thinks that this technology has any commercial value.

For Duan Yun, this technology is too advanced, and even in later generations, VR technology is not a very successful product, and the sales volume is far from being comparable to products such as repeaters and video recorders.

After half a circle around the entire exhibition hall, Duan Yun finally stopped in front of Toshiba's booth in Japan.

"Manager Duan, isn't your factory mainly producing tape recorders? Toshiba's tape recorder production technology is absolutely top-notch in the world. If we can import production lines from their factory, I'm sure the tape recorders produced will be very popular..." At this time Translator Xiao Wu said to Duan Yun.

The translator who accompanied Duan Yun to the exhibition this time was named Wu Hui, and he was also one of the first batch of students sent by the government to study abroad in the United States. He is currently studying in a university in California, and during the internship period, he was in Wang Shi’s Hong Kong. The office works part-time as a translator.

In addition to the scholarship mechanism of American universities is different from other countries studying abroad, the policies of part-time internships and future employment are also very different from those of other countries studying abroad.All universities in the United States strongly recommend that students find relevant internships that match their majors during their studies, which is an opportunity that is difficult for universities in other countries to study.

Therefore, relying on his good English proficiency and his status as an international student, Wu Hui specially served as an interpreter for some domestic leaders and merchants who went abroad for inspection, and this was his first time in Las Vegas.

Wu Hui has a quick mind and is familiar with the customs and customs of the United States. He also learned that Duan Yun is a very well-known big boss of a private enterprise in China. In addition, he spends a lot of money, so Wu Hui is very respectful to Duan Yun.

"That was a thing in the past..." Duan Yunwen said with a smile, and continued: "It is not easy to sell domestic tape recorders now. I came to the United States this time to see if there are any new business opportunities."

"That would be a pity, but I heard that our country is developing very fast. Now many small commodities in American supermarkets are produced in our country, which was not seen at all before." Wu Hui said.

"Those are elementary products with little technical content..." Duan Yun curled his lips, turned to Wu Hui and asked, "Then after you graduate from an American university, will you return to China? You have to be honest with me."

"This one……"

"Okay, no need to say, I understand." Duan Yun smiled when he heard this.

In fact, for these government-sponsored overseas students in the 80s, coming to the United States was like entering another world. Both the working environment and salary here are far higher than those in China, and the gap can reach an astonishing 100 times.

When the Communist Party of China proposed to send students to study abroad, some people raised objections, thinking that it would be difficult for these people to return to China once they left the country, which would be a waste of a lot of young talents.

However, Mao Zedong has his own views on this issue. He believes that not only should the government send overseas students to go abroad, but he also proposed: "It is necessary to send thousands of students, not just 10 or 8, and we must do everything possible to speed up the pace, and the road must go further. Wider."

In addition, former U.S. National Security Affairs Assistant Brzezinski once recorded in his memories that he was surprised by the practice of the Communist Party of China to send overseas students, and sent the smartest children from China to the United States. Is there a difference in the life of the country?He asked ***, how many foreign students are you going to send? *** said: How much can you accept?China has no restrictions.

It is said that *** also said internally that if one out of 10 international students returns, it is a victory, but the rate of international students returning to China was indeed very low, and most of them chose foreign countries with better working and living conditions and salary conditions.

Therefore, it is only natural that Wu Hui does not want to return to China.

At Toshiba's booth, in addition to their flagship product, the tape recorder, there are also some of Toshiba's latest product technologies and electronic components.

Among them, a small chip called "Flash" attracted Duan Yun's attention.

The flash here does not refer to the flash software used by flashers, but a flash memory chip based on EEPROM technology invented by Toshiba Corporation of Japan.

Before the appearance of flash memory, people had to use tape floppy disks and hard disks to store large amounts of data. Many companies were working hard to design a solid-state alternative. The earliest storage chips were PROM chips in the 70s.

But at that time, the price of the 5300 PROM chip was 1971 yuan in 500, and the storage capacity was only 128 bytes!
Later, Israeli engineers invented a computer memory chip that can retain data after power failure, the so-called EPROM chip.

This kind of chip can only be erased by strong ultraviolet radiation. The transparent window of the silicon chip can be seen through the top of the package. The EPROM chip can be repeatedly erased and written, which solves the problem that the PROM chip developed in the early 70s can only be written once. However, after the data is written into this chip, the window must be sealed with opaque stickers and tapes to avoid damage to the data due to the surrounding ultraviolet radiation, which is inconvenient to use.

The chip called "Flash" currently on Toshiba's showcase uses an electrically programmable EEPROM chip, and this chip is exactly the storage chip used in the early domestic Walkman!

In fact, in 1980, Fujiwei Masuoka of Toshiba Corporation of Japan recruited 4 engineers and started a semi-secret project to develop a storage chip that could store large amounts of data and make it affordable for users.

Fujiwei Masuoka's team launched an improved product of EEPROM. The memory unit is composed of a single transistor. At that time, conventional EEPROM required two transistors per memory unit. This small difference in price had a huge impact.

But when the discovery was successful, Fujio Masuoka's boss told him that the invention would not be put into production and let him forget about it.

However, Fujio Masuoka will not give up this invention easily. In 1984, he took his memory chip drawings to participate in the IEEE International Electronic Equipment Conference held in San Francisco, which attracted the attention of Intel, and then Intel in 1988. At that time, a 256K chip was launched, which can be used in car computers and other equipment, bringing a new business for Intel.

This also prompted Toshiba's decision to market Fujio Masuoka's invention, and it succeeded in 1989, when the first NAND flash memory notified at that time was put on the market and achieved good success.

But in 1986, Toshiba still brought this flash memory product to the CES exhibition as a sample to demonstrate the technical strength of Toshiba Electronics.

Judging from the performance introduction of this sample, this flash chip has only a mere 2 KB of storage capacity.

However, for Duan Yun, 2 KB of storage capacity is enough to make a repeater, and 2 KB should be enough to store a few complete sentences in English audio.

The next moment, Duan Yun came to the representative of Toshiba's manufacturer.

　I have a cold and feel bad, there are only two cards today, sorry.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)