Reborn America, this is my time

Chapter 6 Personal Computer (×) Electronic Games (√)

Yes, Ethan did it on purpose.

因为他所指的Altair 8800（牛郎星8800），是世界上第一台微型计算机。它于1975年1月1日和大众见面，《大众电子》这本杂志就是它的首发平台。

Because it is a commercial product, this time, "Popular Electronics" did not publish the design drawings of the Altair 8800. Therefore, unless you have the hands-on ability and creative ability like Wild Iron Man, it will be more difficult to imitate.

Because of this, Ethan's knowingly asking was actually asking for a beating.

And after he dodged the Jumbo crab shell thrown by Evelyn, facing the murderous elder sister, he also raised his hands and voluntarily surrendered.

"Alright! Alright! Alright! I was just kidding..."

Ethan's confession made Evelyn roll her eyes, and the girl was a little helpless in the face of this thick-skinned guy like a politician who kept stirring her nerves.

She curled her lips and said, "Ethan, I can't make something like the Altair 8800, because its core is not the drawing and soldering of circuits, but the input and output of binary data."

"If you just want me to copy its circuit, I can buy a machine and take it apart and study it, maybe five hundred dollars? In a few days, I should be able to figure out how Edward Roberts soldered the motherboard, how For embedding memory chips, he drew several wire slots on the motherboard for data storage and thus established the circuit connection between CPU, RAM and ROM."

"However, things in data transmission cannot be imitated in a short period of time. How to compress their size requires a certain amount of research time."

Evelyn was telling the truth.

Before the birth of the operating system, all computers were controlled by instructions. To put it more simply, it was a computer language.Now, the most used in the industry is FORTRAN.

As the first high-level language in the world to be officially promoted and used, FORTRAN has been widely used in the fields of numerical, scientific and engineering computing. However, due to its strong professionalism, it will be very difficult for ordinary people without basic knowledge to learn it.

Ever since, in order to better popularize programming knowledge to the public and enable college students to use computers better, BASIC, a general-purpose symbolic instruction code for beginners, came into being. Because it is easy to understand, seventeen sentences can cover Most of the needs, so shortly after its birth, it walked out of the campus and into the society, becoming the language of choice for beginners to learn programming.

The Altair 8800 uses a simplified version of BASIC.

As for who is the software writer?
Most people in this day and age don't know it.

But Ethan Jones, who has lived in America for many years, already knew that it was a team.

One of them was named Paul Allen and the other was named Bill Gates.

Juhard's first step towards the world is to transplant the BASIC language to the world's first personal computer.

Of course, this kind of thing may be very simple to say, but it is very troublesome to do, because the memory of personal computers in this era is very small, so in order to reserve enough space for the machine, how to compress and optimize is the difficulty.

Under Paul Allen's operation, the BASIC they made for the Altair 8800 was only 4KB in size.

For a real master, this thing may not be difficult to make, but for ordinary guys, it is still very difficult. After all, not everyone can afford a $25 computer at home , Not everyone can sit in front of the computer and rub the code if they have nothing to do.

It was precisely because Ethan knew that this thing was difficult, so when Evelyn said that she couldn't handle it, Ethan didn't force it.

He clapped his hands and said, "Okay, then let's make something else, you know "Pong", right? Can you make this kind of arcade machine?"

"Pong?"

Evelyn nodded after thinking for a second.

"can."

Then, she reacted and said, "You don't want to make video games, do you?"

"Bingo! Congratulations, you got it right, but no points!"

Ethan snapped his fingers and said with a smile, "I just want to make games, because I have a lot of ideas in my mind."

Yes!After Ethan discovered that the return cycle in the financial investment field was too long, and the personal computer industry had software programming barriers, the video game industry, which you copied and everyone copied, became his first choice for making money!
No way, who made the game market in this era still a desert?

If you have an idea, you can make money.

Although he didn't get involved in this industry in his previous life, it doesn't matter, right?

Because of the game, he played too much!
In his previous life, the contents of Steam, PS, Xbox, and NS were all his lifeblood!

Since the 90s, playing "Kuroshio" on the computer at home with an English-Chinese dictionary, and more than 20 years later, the experience of playing "It Takes Tow" with his girlfriend while holding the handle while working is a good memory in his life!

And now...

Can memories be realized?
This special is simply the most wonderful thing in the world!

Evelyn didn't know why Ethan was so happy, but she knew that her younger brother must have some evil ideas.

At the same time, she was also a little worried, "Ethan! Your inspiration doesn't come from Mirov, does it?"

"If you want to retaliate against the fact that they fired you by copying Mi Luohua's game...then it is impossible for me to help you! Absolutely impossible!"

"How is it possible! Do I look like that kind of person?" Ethan was a little unhappy.

"Like. You're the kind of guy who will take revenge, even though you look gentle." Evelyn said seriously.

"???"

Ethan was a little speechless, he didn't expect that he would have such an image in Evelyn's eyes.

"I really didn't copy Mi Luohua."

Ethan emphasized.

However, his words did not receive any response.

Evelyn still looked at him suspiciously.

Such a situation caused Ethan to spread his hands. He didn't know how to explain it, and he played a rogue, "Evelyn! You just said you would do it for me! You can't keep your words!"

"..." Evelyn froze for a moment.

The next second she shook her head helplessly, "Yeah~Yeah~Yeah~"

Ethan's cheeky tricks made Evelyn feel like she was back in the past.

A few years ago, when she was tinkering with all kinds of fun things for "Popular Electronics", Ethan pestered her to make toys like this. Although she thought Ethan was annoying at the time, but...

Well, Evelyn thought about it for a while, and found that Ethan could cheat every time and gain success with her.

"Then are you going to dictate your thoughts to me, or do you have a complete plan?"

Now that Ethan started cheating, Evelyn wanted to assess the severity of the matter by identifying inspiration.

And her inquiry made Ethan happy.

"Of course there is a complete plan."

"Wait for me, I'll go back to the bedroom to get it."

Evelyn was a little surprised by Ethan's cautious approach.

From her point of view, Ethan's idea of ​​making himself a game must be due to his enthusiasm after being fired by Mi Luohua today, but she didn't expect that this guy actually had a plan.

And when Ethan took the three-page document, Evelyn was even more shocked.

Although the paper is a bit worn out, there are many stains at the footer, and the text on it is even scribbled and altered, but the content inside is complete and clear.

Ethan explained his game concept with the first piece of paper——

This is a game where there is no winning, only losing.

The second page summarizes the gameplay of the game——

The player will control a moving object with a certain length on a plane with a boundary, and use the head to hit the light spots that appear continuously in the plane, allowing it to grow, until it touches the boundary or itself, the game will end .

On the third page is a game interface——

On it, Ethan drew a snake.

That's right!

What Ethan wants to do is——

"Snake Game"!
　Note: ① About Bill Gates and Paul Allen writing BASIC for Altair8800, it is actually very interesting.According to the two of them, since there was no prototype at the time, they created an emulator on the DEC PDP-10, which was a popular computer in universities at the time, to emulate the Altair, and then it took about a month. , developed a BASIC interpreter.But when I made a documentary for them in 94, something interesting happened. The reporter interviewed Harvard University, and the staff who managed the laboratory equipment at Harvard University said they didn’t know about it, and said that they didn’t often see them using the machine back then. He also said that Bill Gates and Paul Allen may have used MIT machines, and after the reporter went to MIT, they were not included in the MIT laboratory entry and exit records, so how did these two people Like the gods, only Bill Gates should know that the BASIC interpreter was developed without a machine. After all, Paul Allen has passed away.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)