Chapter Seven Hundred and Twentieth Four Flicker, Then Flicker

Keng Keng.

Li Zitao knocked on the door, the footsteps gradually approached, and the tension in his heart relaxed.

Although the person who is about to meet has single-handedly created a giant industry that will be established for less than a hundred years in the future, and firmly controls the industry's cutting-edge technology.

But in terms of his achievements today, it seems that it is the other party that needs to be looked up to, not him.

The door opened.

The first thing that catches the eye is the gray hair, and the face is well maintained. There is no wrinkle feeling after the skin is loose and collapsed, but full and rosy.

"Charlie Lee." Thomas J. Watson, who was standing in the room, said with a smile.

"Thomas J. Watson." Li Zitao stretched out his hand and smiled, "Your way of meeting people is very impressive."

"I just hate trouble, there are a lot of people looking at IBM." Watson invited him in, and music was playing in the spacious room.

"How about some whiskey?" Watson asked, raising the compass of the gramophone, walking to the liquor cabinet and pulling out an unlabeled bottle.

"No problem." Letting his body sink into the sofa to relax, Li Zitao crossed his legs and made a relaxed expression.

"Try it, I brewed it myself." Watson put the glass in front of him, and sat opposite to taste the whiskey in his hand seriously.

Li Zitao was not in a hurry, he looked around indifferently, saw the refrigerator next to him and thought about it, got up and went to the door, found ice cubes in it and added them to the cup.

"The moisture after the ice cube melts will destroy its purest taste, and the taste will be affected." Watson opened his mouth, but he was talking about adding ice cubes.

"Compared to the original taste, I like to choose what I like. After all, only what I like is the best, are you right?"

Li Zitao took a big sip, put down his glass and said pointedly.

"Looks like we're the same kind of people, Charlie...I hear you're interested in IBM?" Watson leaned back. "Tell me, what can you do to change it?"

"IBM has no shortage of funds for the time being, and IBM seems to have enough contacts. Knowledge...sorry, I don't seem to understand."

Li Zitao seemed to be negating himself, and he suddenly paused and said, "How about creativity? It can enable IBM to create innovative ideas of the times."

IBM is not short of money, nor is it short of talents. Product innovation and quality are the key to IBM's success, and it is also the reason for its current achievements.

But when it comes to creativity, who is better than him who 'comes back' from the 21st century?

"Tell me." Watson looked at him suspiciously, creativity, is it a puncher?

"It's worthless to say it." Li Zitao shook his head.

Watson hesitated for a while, then raised his head and said, "If your creativity can impress me, I can agree to whatever you want."

"Okay." Watson's quickness was beyond his expectation. He took out a pen from his pocket, and Danny had already brought over the paper on the table.

"Watson, have you heard of the Analytical Engine?" Li Zitao asked without looking up while writing and drawing on the paper.

"You mean the machine made by Charles Babbage, the English mathematician and inventor? I remember it was called the Difference Engine, not an Analytical Engine,

IBM's existing computing puncher is better than it, smaller and simpler to calculate, if you mean this, I don't think there is any need to, any more..."

The disappointment and contempt in Watson's eyes gradually disappeared, and his gaze has been attracted by the mechanical instrument drawn by Li Zitao on the paper.

"What's this?" Looking at the box right above the paper and the whole body composed of densely packed pipelines, I became inexplicably excited.

He had a hunch that this was the future of IBM, and it was a strange feeling, but now Watson had put all his attention on the pattern on the paper.

"I call it an electronic computer. Its basic principle comes from the Analytical Engine, which is an enhanced version of the Difference Engine you mentioned. Its maker is also Babbage.

If you want to know more clearly, you can visit the Royal Academy Museum in London, where Babbage put the failed prototype of the machine for people to see,

Now let’s talk about this electronic computer. This is equivalent to its gears, and it is also a storage library. In the original machine, each gear can store 10 numbers.

Here's the relay, now it's replaced by a tube, here... the information is recorded on punched cards to be encoded, and then the punched cards are connected in series,

Write a fixed calculation method, then whether it can form an instruction to let it automatically perform arithmetic operations,

If it can have the functions of logical calculation and data storage, think about it, Watson, what will IBM get? "

Under Li Zitao's temptation, Watson murmured instinctively: "In the future..."

"That's right, it's the future." Li Zitao excitedly slapped the table, bringing Watson who was in deep thought back to his senses.

Looking at the young man with a complex expression, Watson couldn't understand him a bit.

"IBM's punching machine is very good, but it can't perform more complex calculations. With the needs of artillery rays and large laboratories, using the punching machine to complete the work requires at least one or two hundred people to cooperate, and it takes 40 days. time to complete,

And it only takes a short day to get the correct value. "

Li Zitao was actually guilty when he said this, because he is completely fooling around now, relying on the memories of the first generation of electronic computers and the graphics in his mind to fool him.

"How can it be done? Besides, you also said that such complex calculation methods are only needed by professional laboratories and the military."

Watson rubbed the corners of his eyes trying to calm himself down, but he opened his slightly narrowed eyes from time to time, and he couldn't hide Li Zitao's movements of peeking at the drawings on the table from the corner of his eye.

"This is a problem for scientists. If it has been researched, the current IBM may have gone bankrupt." Li Zitao's words made Watson's pupils constrict.

Realizing that the other party was intimidated by him, Li Zitao secretly laughed in his heart; 'If Watson knew how huge this thing is and how expensive it is to make one, he would have gotten up and left by now. '

It is impossible to popularize the manufacture of a behemoth like the first generation of electronic computers, and its role is only to assist large laboratories and the military to perform accurate and fast calculations.

But just as its birth was inspired by the "analytical machine", future electronic computers are also born from the research and optimization of its principles.

From the 'Adding Machine' in the 16th century to the 'Punching Machine' in the 19th Century to the 'Difference Engine' later. '

Then came the more powerful "Analytical Machine." The concept of this machine is the basis of the concept of future computers. There are only slight differences between the two, and they are very similar.

It is this small step, one small step forward, that eventually led to the birth of electronic computers, until the popularization of computers and the advent of the Internet age.

If there is no such a small step, a small step of progress, perhaps in the 21st century, human beings are still complacent about being in the age of steam.