game trailblazer

Chapter 16 Estridge's New Choice
While Estridge was worrying, his secretary Jennifer knocked on the door and came in.Estridge asked with a gloomy mood: "Jenny, there won't be another BUG report."

"Mr. Manager, there is actually someone who wants to see you." Jennifer saw that Estridge's expression was not good, and spoke cautiously.

Estridge waved his hands irritably: "I don't see anyone, tell him to get out."

"He said he wanted to talk to you about the operating system." Jennifer was terrified, but decided to give it a try.

"Bullshit operating system!" Estridge is now a little allergic to the word operating system, and wants to get angry when he mentions it, but seeing the thick BUG report on the desktop, he decides to give this guy a chance. There should be no operating system worse than DOS, "Let him in."

Jennifer hurriedly exited the office, and said to Dr. Yu who was waiting, "Sir, you can go in now, the manager is waiting for you inside."

Dr. Yu opened the door and walked into Estridge's office, and said hello, "Mr. Estridge, hello, I was introduced by Mr. Grove."

Estridge thought for a while, and it seemed that there was such a thing, but he was busy catching bugs every day and almost forgot, "You are Dr. Yu? Did you work at Intel before?"

"That's right, it's me." Dr. Yu said.

"How about a cup of coffee, please?" Estridge asked.

"Thank you, no need." Dr. Yu said politely, and sat down, "I'm actually here today to talk to you about the operating system."

"I heard from Grove that you are starting your own business now, and it seems that you are engaged in software. Does it also include the operating system?" Estridge asked.

"I'm working with someone in software development now. I don't know if you have heard of VisualForm, a spreadsheet on the Macintosh. That's what we do." Dr. Yu introduced.

"I've heard of it. I remember that VisualForm should have a supporting operating system, Kylin. Could it be..." Estridge felt that he was getting a little interested.

"Exactly, the Kylin operating system was also developed by us. I wonder if your company is interested?" Dr. Yu began to get into today's topic.

Estridge did not expect that the developer of the Kylin operating system, which he could not find everywhere, would appear in front of him in this way. Of course, he was very interested. If there is an operating system with no bugs to replace the damn DOS system, he will be happy It's too late.For such a big matter as changing the operating system supplier, the decision-making power still rests with the upper management of the company. Estridge himself can only make suggestions, but when he thinks about the relationship between Akers and Bill's mother, he feels that his suggestions I'm afraid it won't have any effect.However, Estridge also has his own way. If we can’t replace people, we can add them. In order to give myself more choices, and for the smooth implementation of the Checkers Project, Dr. Yu was lucky to become the second supplier of the Checkers Project’s operating system. Enjoy the same treatment as Microsoft, of course, including the development machines provided by IBM.

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When Zhang Lexing and Yang Xinxin arrived in San Jose, it happened to be the time when Dr. Yu had officially signed a contract with IBM and was waiting for the development machine to arrive.Hearing that Dr. Yu won the position of the second supplier of the operating system, Zhang Lexing was very happy. He had long heard that Microsoft's first version of DOS was a nest of super bugs, and he was very confident that he could replace it with Kylin.But the most important thing right now is to quickly set up the company's technical department. Zhang Lexing alone still can't handle it.

The next day, Zhang Lexing and his party came to the company. After sitting for a while, Dennis brought the technicians for the interview.After several rounds of exchanges, Zhang Lexing felt that the four people who came to interview this time were of good standard, especially one named Kevin, who was very skilled and had a big picture, so he was very suitable to be the development team leader leading the project.Zhang Lexing was very satisfied, and after discussing with Yang Xinxin and others, he announced that all four of them had been admitted.Next is the time to purchase computers. The IBM machines haven't arrived yet, so everyone can't be idle.

After lunch, everyone teamed up and went to the computer store. After a while of raiding, they moved back two Apple IIplus, planning to develop some software on the Mac to generate income.Games are the easiest thing to do on an Apple machine these days. The graphics and sound effects are very simple. However, although Zhang Lexing has all kinds of games in his mind, most of the graphics are too exquisite, and it is basically impossible to play on the Apple II. Fortunately, I can think of a few suitable ones in the end.Considering the current manpower, Zhang Lexing chose two simple ones to do, one is digging gold (also known as police and catching thieves), and the other is cubes (a simplified version of the popular Tetris on the Apple II).

The goal was determined, and Zhang Lexing led several developers to start the game design journey.There are many people and strength, relying on Zhang Lexing's guidance, it only took five days to complete the two games.The next task was for Yang Xinxin and Dennis. Relying on the software sellers contacted in advance, the two games were put on the shelves, and Yang Xinxin also arranged for college students to demonstrate the gameplay of the two games to customers in the software sales store.

With simple operation and challenging level design, the two games quickly set off a small craze, especially the cube game, which made many Apple players addicted to it, constantly trying to challenge their limits.The sudden upsurge of cube games even led to a slight increase in the sales of Apple II, and even Trip Hawkins, the director of Apple's marketing department, became interested in it.

At this time, Zhang Lexing and his development team have completely ignored these things, because the IBM development machine has already been delivered, and the IBM technical specialist who came with the machine came to investigate the confidentiality of the development environment. of.The technical specialist first rejected our plan to develop in the open office area, and then chose an independent office located in the innermost part of the office. This is a room less than ten square meters without windows and air conditioners.The technical specialist also specifically proposed that the door of this room should be locked at all times, and all equipment and documents related to the IBM checkers project must be placed in this room. For safety reasons, IBM also specially provided a safe to store and Plan-related documents.Before leaving, the technical specialist also proposed to put a layer of barbed wire on the ceiling of this room to prevent people from stealing confidential information from the roof. Zhang Lexing felt like he was locked in a cage, so he worked with the developers Strong objections were raised before IBM dropped this absurd request.

After finishing the development office, the development work of VisualSystem's PC version Kylin operating system officially started. There are two development machines sent by IBM. The hardware configurations are somewhat different. The processors are both Intel’s 8088CPU. One has *KB memory and the other has only 16KB. Both are equipped with two 5.25-inch Floppy drive, in terms of display, one uses a color monitor and the other uses a monochrome monitor.The reason why he sent two sets was that Estrich wanted VisualSystem to test in different environments and facilitate the development of the operating system.

The first problem faced by the development team led by Zhang Lexing was to figure out the hardware structure of the IBM development machine. Thanks to Estridge for his support, the random materials sent included a lot of hardware details and system structure. And other information, and even some information collected during IBM's support of Microsoft's development of the DOS system, which makes VisualSystem's development team equivalent to standing on the shoulders of giants and has a good starting position.Referring to the detailed random information, Zhang Lexing and the technicians quickly figured out the architecture and system call method of the IBM development machine.

Next, the development team entered the system design stage. In another period of Zhang Lexing’s life, his Kylin operating system was transplanted to a PC/XT computer (an upgrade model of the upcoming IBM-PC, launched in 1983. ), although Zhang Lexing did not remember all the codes, but the system structure, module division and key parts of the codes were still fresh in his memory, so Zhang Lexing took out a system design draft not long after, after serious discussions with Kevin and others , the development team officially started coding work.

From then on, the development team led by Zhang Lexing nestled in a hut less than 10 square meters, enduring the high temperature and sweltering heat and writing code day and night. Relying on the code left before and the random data provided by IBM, one obstacle after another was gradually solved. When the last day of July came, the Kylin operating system and the C compiler running on it were finally completed and passed the test, and VisualSystem was able to successfully complete the agreement with Estridge, and it could start supplying the operating system to IBM. It's ready.

After the copy of the Kylin system was submitted to the Checkers project team, Zhang Lexing began to look forward to the news of the launch of the IBM-PC nervously and excitedly. Dollar profits didn't thrill him either.The days pass while waiting...

On August 1981, 8, IBM officially released the product of the checkers plan to the outside world in New York - IBM-PC. The products launched this time are launched in a series, including low-end basic models with 12KB memory to High-end machine with color graphic display capability.Optional operating systems include Microsoft's DOS system, VisualSystem's Kylin operating system, and Digital Research's CP/M-16 operating system.

(End of this chapter)