game trailblazer

Chapter 27
On July 1983, 7, a very ordinary Friday in the United States, Zhang Lexing finally got a piece of good news. Dick, the sales representative he instructed to go to RB, found that there was a new game console in the local market, and the price was quite cheap. , only 15 yen.

"Boss, this should be the game console you want me to pay attention to. It was officially launched yesterday by a local company called Nintendo, and it seems to be very popular." Dick said on the phone.

Zhang Lexing felt that he couldn’t be wrong. This should be Nintendo’s new product this year—the Family Computer, or FC for short.Because the main colors of the game console are red and white, there is also an alias "red and white machine".This is a gold mine for the next few years, of course Zhang Lexing won't let it slip away.

"Dick, you buy five sets immediately, and then take the fastest plane back." Zhang Lexing ordered over the phone.

Dick's work efficiency was very high. In just one and a half days, he successfully completed the task and appeared in front of Zhang Lexing with five sets of Nintendo red and white computers.Dick's expression was relaxed, but he could hardly hide his tiredness. It seemed that he had spent a lot of energy in getting these game consoles.

The game console is in hand, and the hardware engineers who have been bored for almost a month finally have a new task. Under the leadership of Jim, they start to reverse engineer these sets of Nintendo red and white machines and analyze the hardware structure.Zhang Lexing withheld a set and prepared to relive the feeling of the year on the TV in the office.

Opening the package, Zhang Lexing took out the game console, power supply and connecting wires, connected them to the TV, took out a game card from the package and plugged it in, pushed the power switch, and the familiar yet unfamiliar "Donkey Kong" appeared in the on the TV screen.Zhang Lexing picked up the game controller to control Mario on the screen, while running up the stairs and the road, while dodging the wooden barrels in front and the flames behind, Zhang Lexing accidentally missed, poor Mario was knocked down by a wooden barrel .Although the challenge failed, Zhang Lexing did not give up, and continued to struggle with the handle. Slowly, he had a feeling of fighting at night with the lights on.It's a pity that the good mood didn't last long. Mario and Donkey Kong suddenly froze at the same time. Zhang Lexing found that the FC game machine had actually crashed.Fortunately, the reset button still works, but Mario needs to challenge again from the first level. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, good fortune never comes singly. When Mario finally reached the sixth level, the tragedy happened again, and the screen changed again. not moving.A ridiculous thought suddenly came to Zhang Lexing's mind. Fortunately, it was still in 83. If it was 93, Zhang Lexing would doubt whether he was playing a copy.

Fortunately, there are still professionals to rely on. Although Jim made Zhang Lexing wait for two weeks, the reverse engineering finally has preliminary results.With Jim's explanation, Zhang Lexing finally understood that a game console is not that simple, and FC does not rely solely on the 6502 processor to support the scene. FC uses an 8-bit 2A03NMOS processor manufactured by Ricoh, which not only has the function of 6502 processor, but also includes a sound processor. Although the detailed internal structure cannot be analyzed for the time being, Jim believes that this should be the sound effect of FC games. An important reason why it is better than the Apple II, which also uses the 6502 processor. The unique feature of FC is that it has a PPU (picture processor), which is also a chip produced by Ricoh, and contains 2KB of video memory. According to Jim's calculation, it should be able to achieve a picture resolution of 256×240.The more detailed situation needs to be further analyzed, but Jim believes that even if there is no problem with Atari, this FC game console is capable of defeating Atari.

As for the inexplicable fault that Zhang Lexing encountered, Jim also discovered the reason. In fact, it is very simple. There is an oversight in the wiring design of the circuit board, and the game console will crash after running for a period of time.There are many ways to solve this kind of small problem for the manufacturer. Jim has at least three solutions for simple maintenance, and he also took out a FC game console that has been repaired by flying wires. Zhang Lexing tried it for a long time, but it really didn’t work. That happens again.

"Now we have the capital to talk to Nintendo." Zhang Lexing couldn't help feeling proud. Of course, he also knew that this alone was not enough. To impress Nintendo, he had to come up with better works.

So the reverse engineering started to speed up under the urging of Zhang Lexing, and finally came up with two sets of development tools using the FC game console before the end of August, and Zhang Lexing reorganized the Apple II game development team that had been failing to show good results into an independent studio. It is planned to be responsible for the development of games on FC game consoles in the future.When naming the studio, Zhang Lexing couldn't help thinking of a movie that he had only seen the trailer of, and the funny panda in it left a deep impression on him.Picking up a pen and scribbling on paper for a while, Zhang Lexing finally decided on the name of the studio to be KF-Panda, and the logo of the studio was designed as a naive panda.

The KF-Panda studio was formally established, and the development work also started.Although the processors of the Apple II and FC game consoles are both 6502, Zhang Lexing still understands that there is still a big difference in the programming design of the two, so he didn't try to make something big at once, let the studio's The designers used "Digging for Gold" to practice first.With the compilation source code reference of "Digging Gold" on the Apple II, and Zhang Lexing is very familiar with "Digging Gold" on the FC game console, the development of the project progressed very quickly, and it was basically completed in just one week.Seeing that everyone has a relatively deep understanding of FC game programming, Zhang Lexing decided to leave two people to debug "Gold Digging", and the rest will continue to work on the new project "Super Mario", which is used to impress Nintendo. The essential.

According to Zhang Lexing's original idea, it is to directly follow the original version of "Super Mario", which he is very familiar with.However, after consulting the company's legal counsel, Zhang Lexing discovered that it is not that simple to use someone else's copyright image to make a game. If it is not for commercial use, it is not a big problem, but if it is used in a commercial game, then it must be obtained from the copyright owner of the image. Agree, otherwise it will not be sold, and even the cassettes that have been produced must be destroyed.Zhang Lexing didn't want to be so foolish to touch Nintendo's bad luck. Who knows what Lao Shannei would think, if he really refused to release it, Zhang Lexing would have to be caught blind.

Since the image of Mario cannot be used, Zhang Lexing simply replaced the protagonist of the game Mario with a cartoon prince, and even changed the name of the game to "Super Prince". Of course, it is still basically the same, but the image is slightly adjusted. After all, this part is the most fun part of "Super Mario".This time the development time will be longer. Although Zhang Lexing is very familiar with "Super Mario", this game is much more complicated than "Gold Digging". It took almost three weeks to basically get it done. "Super Prince" can be played, but Zhang Lexing is not satisfied. Although most of the content is the same, even the movements of the game characters are exactly the same, but he always feels like something is missing when playing.Zhang Lexing was very worried that the game would not be attractive enough to Nintendo, and he was also worried that the sales of the game would be affected by the change of game characters. He didn't want the first battle on Nintendo's red and white machines to be ruined.To be on the safe side, Zhang Lexing decided that it would be better to make another original version of "Super Mario". Anyway, it is basically off-the-shelf, at least with a little modification.The progress this time is very fast. Zhang Lexing found an artist and took some time to redraw the parts that needed to be modified, and then found someone to replace the relevant textures. It was done in less than two days. It will be done. It can be said that it is exactly the same as the "Super Mario" in Zhang Lexing's memory.

In the following days, Zhang Lexing was very busy. He officially bought the cassette factory that he had been in contact with some time ago, and then arranged for people to start adjusting the production line according to the characteristics of FC game cards, and at the same time retrain the production workers.The FC game development team on the other side was not idle either, and collectively went to battle to conduct comprehensive tests on the completed games.

In mid-October, several FC games have completed the final test and have been burned into game cartridges. On the other hand, the adjustment of the cartridge factory has basically been in place, and everything is ready.Business negotiation is a very complicated matter. Zhang Lexing is not arrogant enough to think that he can handle Nintendo easily by himself, so he organized a team of more than ten people, including hardware engineers, translators, lawyers, bodyguards and others. The elite of the industry.Of course, Zhang Lexing did not forget to bring the solution to the FC crash, the FC game console modified by experts, and the finished game cassette, and the group rushed to the destination-RB Kyoto.

When the plane landed at Osaka Airport, it was already the evening of the second day local time.In order to adjust to the jet lag earlier, everyone found a nearby hotel to rest for the night.Early the next morning, the interpreter booked a vehicle and a temporary tour guide through the travel agency early.After breakfast, Zhang Lexing and his group took several vehicles and were led by the tour guide to a three-story off-white building in Kamitoba Hokatecho, Southern District of Kyoto.If he hadn't seen the obvious "Nintendo" logo on it, Zhang Lexing would have thought that he had met a black-hearted tour guide. He didn't expect that the Nintendo at this time was also very ordinary. It is really hard to imagine how powerful it will be after a few years.Taking out a stack of yen that was just exchanged to send the tour guide away, Zhang Lexing decided to meet Hiroshi Yamauchi, who is known as the godfather of RB games.

(End of this chapter)