The king of ghost horse comedy

Chapter 343

And VISICALC, a unique spreadsheet office software, quickly attracted the interest of Microsoft.Both Bill Gates and Paul Allen are keenly aware of the value of this software, which is likely to trigger a revolution in the computer industry.

In the 70s, personal computers such as Altair, APPLE [-], and APPLE [-] came out one after another.But their biggest customers are tech-savvy people who are interested in computers, and they are willing to tinker with their favorite things on these PCs.

But for people who don't know anything about computers, these electronic components are just a bunch of expensive junk.However, the birth of VISICALC gave personal computers new uses. People can use personal computers to easily process tabular data. This is simply a technological revolution in the office field, which may completely change the embarrassing position of personal computers today.

Think about it, when personal computers became popular, one would be installed in every office, and when people used it to process data, that person's computer really ushered in a golden period of development, and it was no longer just a carnival for a few people .

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were aware of this kind of business opportunity, so they wanted to buy the ownership of VISICALC software from Stanley Angel Investment Fund.The price they offered seemed ridiculous to Paul, only $40.

In fact, the $40 is already the entire savings of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Did they want to buy this VISICALC software because they saw its huge commercial value?But Bill Gates and Paul Allen are not the only ones who also see the value of this product.

Paul and Xu Guanwu are also aware of the huge value contained in this software. Xu Guanwu still knows that in the new century, Microsoft basically relies on OFFICE office software to survive. The complete set of MS-OFFICE office software is hundreds of dollars, with annual sales reaching 200 billion More than US dollars, but a very powerful gold-absorbing machine.It can also be seen how huge the office software market is.

Although VISICALC is just a prototype now, who knows if it will develop into a giant like MS-OFFICE office software in the future? !And Microsoft only offered 40 US dollars to buy this egg that might hatch a golden chicken, which is absolutely wishful thinking.But Xu Guanwu still agreed to meet them, because he also wanted to meet Bill Gates, the future richest man in the world.

But first, he was going to go to Apple Computer to have a look.

……

The current R&D headquarters of Apple Computer is located next to the Stanley Angel Investment Fund Company. Because of the capital injection of the fund, Apple Computer is developing very fast. It is no longer the time for two or three people with four or five guns.

Steven Jobs is also a very business-minded person, so after receiving a large investment, the first thing he thought of was to expand enrollment.And soon recruited many technical geeks interested in computers from the computer clubs in nearby universities. They got together to improve the performance of computers, develop various interesting programs, and became the technical backbone of Apple Computer.

In his previous life, Xu Guanwu had admired the name of Apple for a long time, especially coveted the IPHONE, which is popular all over the world, but he was afraid of the pain and dared not cut his kidney, so he couldn't experience it himself.Now that I have become a major shareholder of Apple, I really have to go and see it quickly.

Accompanied by fund manager Paul, Xu Guanwu and his wife came to the Apple headquarters separated by a wall.Although the headquarters sounds grand, it is actually an ordinary two-story building with the signboard of Apple Computer hanging on the door—a rectangular piece of metal with a bitten Apple LOGO welded on it.

When Xu Guanwu saw the painted colorful Apple LOGO, he couldn't help but feel a little kind. It's been a long time.

There were no security guards at the door, and when everyone walked in together, they could hear chattering inside, as if it belonged to the Youth Alumni Association, and could clearly smell the smell of welding, which made Zhao Yazhi frown.

Then the three came to a large room, and saw more than a dozen people standing around a large table.There are many electronic components on the table, and a chubby young man is holding a soldering iron, soldering something carefully.The people next to them were discussing in a hurry. It didn't look like a big company, but a bit like a computer interest group.

Paul originally wanted to call out and ask Stephen Jobs and others to come and meet Xu Guanwu, the major shareholder.But Xu Guanwu waved his hand to stop him.It's the first time I meet these technical geeks, who knows what quirks they will have, maybe they will hate this bureaucratic style, it's better to keep a low profile as much as possible.

The three of them quietly came to the table together, and seeing that everyone was focusing on the chubby young man, no one noticed that there were suddenly three more people around them.The three of Xu Guanwu also looked at the chubby young man curiously.I saw him holding a soldering iron in one hand, holding an electronic component with tweezers in the other hand, and carefully soldering it to a circuit board.

Xu Guanwu vaguely feels that this circuit board is a bit like a computer motherboard in the future, but the configuration is a little bit shabby. There is neither a graphics card nor a sound card, and there are only a few card slots, and there are also few external ports. Pitiful.Xu Guanwu only saw three ports, and guessed that they might be connected to an external monitor and keyboard, and he didn't know what to do with the extra one.

Then I saw the chubby young man installing electronic components on the circuit board one after another. This work lasted for more than an hour.Although Xu Guanwu didn't know much about electric welding, he saw that the fat young man had steady hands and quick hands, and the solder joints were smooth, complete and beautiful like handicrafts.I knew that this fat young man was very skilled.

Xu Guanwu watched with relish and praised repeatedly.Paul got impatient and wanted to interrupt their work several times, but Xu Guanwu stopped them all.Because he also wanted to see what this young man was doing.However, Zhao Yazhi and Paul's legs hurt from standing, so they each found a seat and sat down.

Finally, the chubby young man finally put down the electric soldering iron in his hand, and then lifted up the circuit board very excitedly, carefully examining every solder joint on it.It's perfect, nothing is missing, just like they designed it before.The young man was very happy and loudly announced that the circuit board was successfully completed.Immediately, everyone jumped up happily, as if they were hit by a red envelope that fell from the sky.

Although Xu Guanwu didn't know what they were happy about, he guessed that they must have made a great achievement, so he couldn't help cheering along with him.

"Huh?! Who are you?" He cheered, making people notice his existence, and then even Paul and Zhao Yazhi who were sitting next to him also saw it.

"Stephen, let me introduce you." Paul stood up in the eyes of everyone, "This is my boss, Mr. Xu Guanwu." Then he pointed to a stubbled young man next to him, "This It's Steve Jobs, the manager of Apple Computer." Then he pointed to the chubby young man holding a soldering iron and said, "He is Stephen Wozniak, the manager of the R&D department."

Xu Guanwu looked at this stubble-mouthed young man in surprise. He never imagined that he was the "Joe Gang Leader" who would lead the world's electronic product trend in the future.

When Xu Guanwu later published his memoirs, he wrote, "I don't want to describe my first meeting with Steve with a sentence like 'he is slovenly, but his eyes are shining with wisdom'. In fact, he It's been two days since he closed his eyes. Apart from the bloodshot eyes, there was a little bit of gum in his eyes, and there was no wisdom at all. Moreover, he didn't exude charming charm. On the contrary, because he hadn't bathed for two days, Instead, there is a faint smell of sweat..."

Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak were a little surprised when they saw Xu Guanwu for the first time.In their eyes, Xu Guanwu is like a star, dressed very gorgeously, with a well-tailored Armani suit, a linen Armani shirt, a Dunhill tie with a gold and diamond-encrusted tie clip, and polished feet Bright Saint Laurent leather shoes, so bright that people can almost be seen from the shoes.

Compared with Xu Guanwu, who was dressed in dazzling designer clothes, most of the technical geeks present were in denim clothes, and most of them hadn't been washed for a long time, giving off a faint smell.And the hair is very disheveled, like a street hippie.It really pales in comparison to Xu Guanwu.

However, Xu Guanwu had been an nerd for a while in his previous life, and he did not despise these technical geeks at all, but felt a sense of intimacy from them. "This is probably the first batch of otaku in the world. It's just that the otaku KUSO of later generations are all about Japanese manga, American dramas, etc., while the tech geeks KUSO are computer technology, and they never waste paper."

"Hi, nice to meet you today." Xu Guanwu smiled and stretched out his hand.

Steve Jobs froze for a moment, and then stretched out his hand, but just as his hands intersected, he suddenly retracted his hand, as if he had touched a soldering iron.When Xu Guanwu was surprised, he saw Jobs rubbing his hand behind his back vigorously, then quickly stretched out his hand, and shook Xu Guanwu's hand lightly.

When Xu Guanwu saw that Jobs was blushing, he couldn't help being a little amused secretly. Unexpectedly, the famous leader Qiao would also feel embarrassed.In comparison, Stephen Wozniak was much more comfortable. He stretched out his big hand and shook Xu Guanwu tightly, "Mr. Xu, welcome to visit."

Xu Guanwu nodded, and then shook hands with all the R&D personnel.Then everyone froze there, not knowing what to ask.To be honest, you make it easy for these developers to write code, and let them deal with people, especially the boss, but it is tantamount to killing them.Xu Guanwu also knew their embarrassment. In his previous life, every time he met the boss, he would be nervous and at a loss, sweating all over his body.

"What were you guys messing with just now, can you explain to me?" Xu Guanwu immediately shifted his focus, pointing to the circuit board on the table.

"This is a new motherboard we designed for APPLE II. We added some electronic components to it to make it more capable of data transmission and more stable..." Steve Wozniak told Xu Guanwu introduced.

After hearing this, Xu Guanwu didn't understand. He was more familiar with computers such as dual-core, quad-core, memory, graphics card, etc., and they were all wandering around, commonly known as the level of two or five eyes.Can't understand Stephen Wozniak's professional exposition at all.But he still showed great interest and patiently listened to Wozniak's story.

"In this way, the performance of APPLE II has been greatly improved. This is really very good news." Xu Guanwu clapped his hands and said, "I really want to congratulate you for making such a big progress. .”

"Thank you." Steve Jobs nodded and said, when he mentioned the topic of computer professional field, he was more calm.

Afterwards, everyone in Xu Guanwu saw with their own eyes the first startup process after the new motherboard was installed on the Apple II computer. It took a total of 3 minutes, which was undoubtedly greatly shortened compared to the previous Apple II startup time of 5 minutes.

(End of this chapter)