Military Industry of Great Powers: Build the Strongest Flanker.

Chapter 221 OpenGL, an international standard led by Zhongxun

Teacher Xiao Zhao knows that it should stop for a while.

Although China currently does not have excellent third-generation fighters, its radar system has already attracted the attention of the United States.

Coupled with the newly introduced Wei Snake III short-range air-to-air missiles and the Aspad medium-range air-to-air missiles, China's air force is already capable of facing the U.S. threat...

……

Zhao Guoqing returned to Shenzhen City, and the microcomputer puzzle was still missing the last link.

This link lies in the American silicon graphics company SGI, which Envision wanted to acquire but was blocked by Congress.

The development of things started with the emergence of computers. At the beginning, computers appeared for calculation and did not have much need for display.

When computers began to involve the field of graphics and images, IBM, Intel, Silicon Graphics, Motorola and Apple all launched their own solutions.

As the leader in the old graphics and imaging field, Silicon Graphics is determined to dominate the world.

The product they launched is the OpenGL API graphics interface, which is a cross-programming language and cross-platform hardware programming graphics program interface. It abstracts computer resources into OpenGL objects, and the operations on these resources are abstracted into OpenGLs. instruction.

This is progress like a milestone.

To this end, Sinocom sent a delegation of 17 technical personnel to participate in the formulation of the OpenGL standard under the recommendation of Goldman Sachs.

Not only that, Wison and Goldman Sachs hold 17.2% of Microsoft shares, plus Vision holds 12.2% of Microsoft shares, the three companies already have the ability to make decisions on Microsoft.

Teacher Xiao Zhao told Gates in an email: "Microsoft needs to join the OpenGL family, so that hardware developers around the world can develop their multimedia hardware based on OpenGL, and game developers and software developers around the world can also develop based on OpenGL. OpenGL designs their favorite games and multimedia, and we can even accelerate computers through OpenGL's vector computing API interface!"

Clearly, this is a tempting proposition.

Moreover, Sebastian Hedlund, business manager of Goldman Sachs, is very supportive of Mr. Zhao’s idea.

Zhao Guoqing said to Sebastian: "The advantage of Goldman Sachs is not only capital integration, but also technology integration. Combining the advantages of Microsoft and Silicon Graphics in the multimedia field means market and money!"

Mr. Gates really wants to develop Microsoft's own DirectX graphics programming interface. In fact, this project has already been initiated to make up for the weak multimedia performance of Windows 3.0, and they hope to release DirectX graphics at the same time when Windows 3.1 is released. program interface.

However, Mr. Gates was disappointed. His technical director said that it was impossible to complete DirectX before the release of Windows 3.1, because Windows 3.1 will be released in less than three months, and they still don't know what they need. !

Compared with Microsoft's confusion in developing DirectX, Zhongxun Company is undoubtedly the most prepared.

"Zhongxun Company has four suggestions for OpenGL. The first is the display part, including DDraw 2D, 3D graphics acceleration, which applies vertex arrays, display lists, texture objects, frame buffers, shading languages, pixel buffer objects, geometry Regulations for shaders and such..."

"The second sound part, in addition to playing sounds and processing mixes, also enhances 3D sound effects and provides recording functions."

"The third input part allows the design of special game input devices according to the input language!" "The fourth part is the network part, which provides a variety of networking methods, supporting TCPIP, ipx, modem, serial port and GPRS/WAP dialing through mobile phones, allowing Players can compete online, and it also provides an online conversation function!”

Zhongxun seized the leadership of OpenGL from the beginning. Zhongxun’s solution not only included the OpenGL solution, but also added the configuration of sound, input, and network functions.

Not only that, compared to the vertex array proposed by Silicon Graphics, Zhongxun also added the design of frame buffer objects and geometry shaders, which greatly enriched the application scope of OpenGL. At the same time, it also provided an excuse for vector calculations. It is possible to provide large-scale calculations with computing acceleration provided by microcomputers.

Fred said to Ticas Findlay, chief engineer of Silicon Graphics: "If you don't agree, CITIC can only develop it ourselves. Our standards are more comprehensive and perfect!"

Tikas took the last piece of paper in the plan, which contained the OpenGL ES plan, and said, "Mr. Fred, what is OpenGL ES?"

Fred waved his hand and said: "OpenGL not only wants to dominate mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers, but also mobile devices. This is a solution for mobile devices. It can be regarded as an API subset of the OpenGL solution, eliminating unnecessary and API interfaces with lower performance are customized for embedded devices, and it took Zhongxun a long time to find a way to make them compatible with the OpenGL family!"

Tikas and Gates looked at each other and saw relief in each other's eyes.

"This should be Zhongxun's private product. They want to tie the graphics interface of the embedded device to OpenGL!"

Gates shrugged and said, "Why not?"

This is the only solution that Microsoft can come up with. Microsoft only needs to add an OpenGL.dll tool to the system to solve the problem perfectly.

After a month of argumentation, on November 1991, 11, Sinocom Technology, Silicon Graphics, Microsoft, Intel and Motorola jointly launched the OpenGL 16 standard and established the OpenGL Standards Committee. On the first day, the standards committee Major hardware manufacturers, game and software manufacturers send invitations.

The Linux Open Source Committee immediately announced its participation in the OpenGL open standard.

You know, there has been no graphics API interface standard in the world for too long. In the past, each company worked on its own in the field of graphics API. Hardware manufacturers can only adapt to their own small circles, while game manufacturers need to develop game versions for different hardware. This greatly increases the cost.

Now, software and hardware jointly comply with the OpenGL standard and provide a unified multimedia programming language.

This means that products developed by hardware manufacturers based on the OpenGL standard can use a unified hardware driver standard, while games or software developed by software manufacturers based on the OpenGL multimedia language can be used on any hardware developed based on the OpenGL standard.

They have found a home.

Only three days after the development of OpenGL, 167 software and hardware vendors joined the OpenGL family, including IBM.

Microsoft took the opportunity to announce that Microsoft's next-generation graphics operating system, Windows 3.1, will fully support the OpenGL graphics API interface standard.

As soon as this news came out, Microsoft's valuation rose sharply, from US$78.6 to US$92.3 that day. Its total market value reached US$ billion. On the second day, it reached a market value of US$ billion. By the third day The rally has slowed down and is now in the $ billion range.

(End of this chapter)