Chapter Two
Seeing that the Ching Ming Festival is coming soon, Tang Huan took advantage of today's Sunday break to pay homage to his grandfather at the cemetery alone. Unexpectedly, he ran into Deng Lijun on the way back.
Tang Huan bought several different newspapers, flipped through them and walked back to the scene of the incident. His second-hand car was still parked on the side of the road obediently. It confirms the characteristics of the current era.
When Tang Huan accidentally saw the promotional information of Apple Computer on the advertisement page, Tang Huan's eyes lit up. This is a colleague. Old business, easy to familiarize yourself with.
At the end of the 1970s, it was at the dawn of the development of microcomputers. The future IT leaders are still exploring at this time. Intel’s main business is memory, not CPU; Microsoft is selling BASIC compilers everywhere; RSI, the predecessor of Oracle, survived by fooling around; among the exceptions, Hewlett-Packard was still obsessed with minicomputers, and the blue giant IBM was worried all day long because of anti-monopoly investigations. Computer stood out and became popular, and won the favor of Wall Street investors. When it went public next year, the three founders, Markkula, Jobs and Woz, directly entered the ranks of billionaires.
What is the concept of a billionaire in the early 1980s? Thinking of this, Tang Huan lifted his spirits. If he couldn't even seize this opportunity, he would be born again in vain.
Now that the target of the first bucket of gold has chosen Apple Computer, the next step is to consider how to act.
Tang Huan smiled disdainfully when he saw how powerful the Apple computer was in the advertisement. It’s no wonder that minicomputer manufacturers such as HP look down on microcomputers, thinking that they are just toys with weak functions. It can still be used as a calculator, and it can also be used to play games. It doesn’t even have an office software.
Since the use of personal computers is still so mediocre, it is up to you to open the door to another new world. The first king-level application that Tang Huan chose to develop is naturally the spreadsheet software that is almost used everywhere. .
In fact, the world's first spreadsheet software, VisiCalc, was launched in 1979. The developers were Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of Harvard University. The initial price was $100. Within six years, VisiCalc The sales copy exceeds 700,000 copies, which shows its ability to attract money.
Thinking of potential competitors, Tang Huan couldn't read the newspaper anymore. The gimmick of the world's first spreadsheet software, the title of the father of spreadsheets, and the sales of tens of millions of dollars must not be spent. fall to his house.
Tang Huan started the car and went straight to the university, where he could find an Apple computer as his software development platform.
...
The University of California, Berkeley is located northeast of San Francisco, on the hills of Berkeley.
In the landscape of the campus surrounded by mountains and sea, covered with flowers and trees, and lawns like carpets, more than 80 towering and elegant buildings are scattered among them, among which the 307-foot-high Sather Tower is the landmark building of the school. Standing on the tower, you can have a panoramic view of the rainbow-shaped Golden Gate Bridge and the downtown area of San Francisco across the water.
Tang Huan didn't care to watch the scenery along the way. After parking the car, he went straight to the Institute of Engineering. As the most common microcomputer - Apple computer, he could easily find it there.
Feeling that he had wasted too much time acquiring modern scientific knowledge, Tang Huan also took economics, electronic engineering, and computer science as electives in addition to studying in the Department of Mathematics of the College of Arts and Sciences according to his personal interests. During the recent period, Tang Huan mainly hung out in the engineering college, and had a good relationship with Cai Shaotang, a Chinese professor there, so he happened to ask him for help.
Even though today is Sunday, Cai Shaotang is still working. This is his normal state, because American university professors have scientific research tasks in addition to their usual teaching, and Chinese who are ethnic minorities will even succeed if they don’t work hard. There is no chance.
Tang Huan quickly found Cai Shaotang and explained his purpose.
For Tang Huan, who is also diligent and motivated, Cai Shaotang was deeply impressed and admired him very much, and readily agreed to his request.
Cai Shaotang has been a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Berkeley since 1971. Looking at the appearance of this middle-aged Chinese man, Tang Huan had a flash of inspiration in his mind, and suddenly remembered that this man is not an ordinary person. Even known as the father of nonlinear circuit analysis theory, because of the successful prediction of memristors, Cai Shaotang is expected to win the Nobel Prize in the future.
Such a talented person may only be famous in academia, and the general public doesn't know much about it, but when it comes to Cai Shaotang's eldest daughter, tiger mother Amy Chua, people will have the impression that the publication of the book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" once detonated The world's big discussion on Eastern and Western education methods.
I have to say that this is really an era of showing off your talents, with great people walking everywhere, and there are a lot of opportunities.
After Tang Huan sighed, he quickly got into work. He had a sense of urgency in his heart. After all, he knew that the spreadsheet software would be popular because of his foresight. I don't know how the other party's progress is now, so don't be careless. It can be said that "time is money" is the most appropriate portrayal of the current situation.
The microcomputers on the market now provide the operation interface for ordinary users, which is a variety of disk operating systems, namely DOS, and the development interface for professionals is assembly language, and Apple computers are no exception.
However, unlike personal computers that are generally recognized by people, Apple computers at this time did not use Intel x86 CPUs, but another set of instruction systems, MOS6502. The reason Woz chose this was because MOS6502 was the cheapest.
As a result, it brought some small troubles to Tang Huan's program development, but that's all, thanks to the thriving open source code community in his previous life, the collection of so many elite memories, and his own talent , these problems are of limited difficulty.
Tang Huan's title of madman was not exaggerated. He only slept for three hours a day. In the next four days, he wrote thousands of lines of assembly code, completed the main function of the spreadsheet, and it ran reliably. It can be directly used by ordinary users as a finished product.
After testing this spreadsheet software named CGrid for the last time, Tang Huan was very satisfied and marked the completion time next to the version number 1.0 record of the notebook. April 5, 1979 coincided with the Ching Ming Festival. Worship ancestors today. Tang Huan suddenly felt a little dazed and bewildered. He really didn't know where his roots should belong.
However, Tang Huan quickly put away this emotion. Now that he has been reborn, he must seize the moment and contact Apple as soon as possible, so that his CGrid can log in to their computer sales platform as soon as possible to earn a lot of dollars.
The current power structure of Apple should be that Markkula is the chairman of the board of directors, Woz is the technical director, Jobs is the vice president, and Scott is the president. Among them, Scott was specially invited by Markkula to restrain Jobs. The two don't get along well. From this point of view, the target that needs to be dealt with is undoubtedly Gangzhu Qiao. Thinking about the various rumors about this person's weird temper in his youth, Tang Huan scratched his head subconsciously.
If you want to discuss business with Jobs, you must make an appointment. Tang Tan dialed the Apple company's contact number recorded in his notebook, and he replied politely. Jobs is busy with financing matters recently, and he rarely shows up in the office, so he can't make arrangements. There is a confirmed meeting time, but there is an important interview tomorrow, maybe he will show up.
Tang Huan put down the phone and sighed regretfully. It seemed that something was not going well, but thinking about it, Apple Computer is now the darling of investors. Naturally, Jobs has to socialize everywhere, but he can't just wait. I'll go to Apple tomorrow to have a look.
After thinking about it, Tang Huan tidied up the mess around the computer, got up and left the office. He hadn't seen his aunt Tang Yun for several days. If he didn't want to be blamed, he had to go home quickly.
Tang Huan felt a little nervous at the thought of facing this only family member, but it was better to break through this hurdle sooner rather than later. But in fact, he was a little overwhelmed, because Tang Yun was a little depressed after paying homage to his relatives today, and didn't pay attention to the difference between Tang Huan and before. He thought his behavior of not showing up these days was to avoid the family Internal conflicts made me feel even more guilty.
"Tang Huan, how is the choice of graduate major?" Tang Yun asked with concern.
Tang Huan changed his mind, he was only thinking about how to pan for gold, and he forgot to continue his studies.
"Auntie, I'm in my twenties, and it's not the same thing to rely on your help all the time, and I heard that the restaurant business is not good now, anyway, I have adapted to life here, why don't I find a job, There is still time to study for a master’s and doctorate degree.”
"Tang Huan, don't worry about the economy, I can make a living. You always worry about money, but you don't consider your aunt as a relative. Your father and I are now the only ones left to depend on each other. You It’s only natural for me, and I will still count on you to die in old age in the future.”
Seeing Tang Huan scratching his head and about to speak, Tang Yun waved his hand and continued, "Your father and I studied here when we were young, and the whole family has immigrated here for more than ten years. It can be said that we know the rules of American society very well. Yes. If we Chinese want to get ahead, getting a doctorate is the safest way. Isn’t there a lot of outstanding Chinese in Berkeley? Besides, the current economic stagflation situation, not to mention inflation, unemployment rate It’s all increased, where can I find a suitable job, don’t waste time, listen to my aunt, and choose a major to go to graduate school with peace of mind.”
Tang Yun is a heroine, and naturally has a stubborn temper. Tang Huan is not good at confrontation and insists on opposing, so he can only smile bitterly to himself. Bill Gates has dropped out of school to start a company, why can't he follow suit.
Although there are many opportunities in this era, once the opportunities are missed, many advantages will disappear.
The life blueprint designed by my aunt may not be suitable for a reborn person like myself, so let's secretly follow the original plan, and find opportunities to communicate with each other slowly.
"By the way, Ms. Deng, who claims to be your friend, has called twice in the past few days. I said that you are busy with your studies and won't be free until the weekend. You should hurry up and reply."
Tang Huan patted his forehead. He has been busy developing programs these days, but he forgot about Deng Lijun. Let alone neglecting the beauty, it might lower the newly established goodwill.
Seeing Tang Huan rushing to make a phone call, hinting that he would avoid it from time to time, Tang Yun was amused, and shook her head to make room.