American Entertainment 1982

"Hello, are you Jason White from Actor Software, who came to 'connect' with me?" A male student whose voice sounded thinner as he laughed, stretched out his hand to Jason: "I am a woman from Stanford University. Gary Goode, Social Work Major, Equality Advancement."

Seeing Jason staring at him blankly, with no intention of shaking hands at all, Gary explained: "Just kidding, that word has a double meaning."

"I know the pun. This is the one I wished in my heart that I wasn't the one who came to pick you up when you reached out. I thought it would be a girl." Jason White disgustedly joked with himself when he came up. The man said:

"If a girl tells me a butt joke, I'll say she's outspoken, open, the new female leader, but you're a man, and I'll say get away from me, fag!"

Gary laughed disapprovingly, and led Jason towards the office space of the training company they provided: "I'm not gay, classmate Jason, I'm just trying to let you understand that although we pursue women's equality, most of the time members They can also take all kinds of jokes, and they will not be angry at any time."

"If a girl stood in front of me and said what you said, I would cover my mouth happily, but now I cover my mouth, because I don't want to spit it out disgustingly, butt jokes between men? Are you sure? Didn’t you stay in this association for too long and have some inner changes? Go see a psychiatrist.” Jason followed Gary and approached the four mobile homes that looked teenage older than his grandmother:

"Where did you find these relics belonging to the lost Atlantean period? I see traces of various ancient languages ​​on the wall."

"That's urine, Jason White," Gary reminded.

Jason shot back: "That's sarcasm, Gary Goode."

Stanford University has a serious shortage of dormitories, and at the same time it stipulates that college freshmen must live in school apartments, and are not allowed to rent out rooms to ensure that students can reach various classrooms and libraries within ten minutes.

Therefore, college freshmen enjoy the best apartment dormitory in the core area, and some old students who cannot be assigned to normal apartments will live in the 3.8m*18.3m standard mobile board set up in the core area of ​​the campus if they do not consider going out to live. Although it has a bathroom, water and electricity, but to put it bluntly, this thing is a caravan. No one wants to be a camper at Stanford University for several years.

"Nine mobile dormitory buildings were scrapped this year, and our association bought four of them. They were intended to be used as utility rooms, but now they just need to be remodeled and used as training classrooms." Gary Goode opened the door of one of the dormitories, Then he backed away immediately, and said to Jason: "You can go in and take a look, and confirm whether it is enough to hold fifty computers."

Jason shook his head resolutely: "The purpose of my coming, first, is to inspect the site. The site is provided by you, and the computer is provided by us, right? So the hygiene is your responsibility, and we will not pay the cleaning fee. I won't go in until the work is done. The second thing is that the eight are 1.7 meters tall, with blond hair, preferably with sea blue eyes, like to wear skirts, have some experience with computers, of course it doesn't matter, the main thing is Leave the girls who meet the above conditions to me, and I will train them, and then they will train those women who are eager to find jobs."

Gary asked with some surprise: "When Renee talked about this, he only said that he hoped that someone in the promotion association would be willing to spend his spare time as a training teacher, and he didn't mention those... appearance restrictions."

"I added that myself. You are the largest women's campus organization at Stanford. Please, it's just some conditions that are easy to meet." Jason asked Gary seriously.

Gary shrugged: "At present, 63% of the members of the Promotion Association are people of color. You hope to find eight purebred white beauties in such an organization? If it is that kind of beauty, countless men line up to pursue her, and she needs What equality are you chasing? The only one who fits your criteria is Renee Moore, Tommy's girlfriend."

"OK, relax the conditions, women, brown or white, gentle, cheerful and beautiful, I don't discriminate against blacks, I just... can't see black women recently, by the way, these women can't have the word Marcus in their names , thank you." After listening to Gary's words, Jason said something a little lost, and then cursed in a low voice:

"I should have known fucking Tommy Hawk was lying to me!"

Ted was coming from a distance in a golf cart, and before stopping the car, he yelled, "Jason, where's that bastard Tommy?"

"Take his golden cat girlfriend for a ride, and trick me into coming here to wipe his ass!" Jason scolded angrily.

"Find him." Ted came over and looked at Jason: "SSD's legal counsel firm received a lawyer's letter from far away Cambridge, Massachusetts, saying that the software of your Actor company infringes Lotus Corporation's computer software copyright."

...

When Tommy hurried back, Eric, Ted, Charles, Jason and others were already waiting in the coffee shop closest to the fraternity house, and SSD's legal counsel was also present.

The reason why I chose this place instead of the fraternity house is mainly because the girl Holly Keener will come over later, not a party invitation, and no one can come in and out of the fraternity house casually.

Actor Computer Software Company is a software company registered and established after Tommy received 50,000 yuan from the Entrepreneurship Center. Tommy holds 70% of the shares, Jason and Holly each hold 15%.

"Don't worry, Tommy." Seeing Tommy walking in, Charles, the chairman of the fraternity, stood up and walked over, patted him on the shoulder, and said in a relaxed tone as much as possible: "I have already told the law firm about the next major work It is to help you get through this hurdle, and I will pay for the expenses, although let the opponent come over, the law firm we hire at a high price every year is not a dead bag."

Tommy said gratefully to the other party: "Thank you, Charles, I will return the money to SSD as soon as I make money."

SSD has its own cooperative law firm. Like when Tom Prosk or other members started their business, in order to save money, they temporarily entrusted their legal work to SSD’s cooperative law firm. The same is true for Tommy’s company, but usually most It was some consulting issues such as contract terms. It was the first time in the past two years that Tommy encountered the trouble of being sent a lawyer's letter.

And the opponent is still the well-known Lotus company in the software industry. It has only been a year and a half since its establishment. VisiCalc, which has a high sales volume of Apple computers, was completely defeated by it. In January 1983, the software was officially launched, and 300,000 sets were sold in six months. This figure may not seem amazing enough, but multiplied by its unit price of 495 US dollars After that, it was very scary, which means that the company got nearly 150 million US dollars in sales within half a year with just one piece of software.

"Tommy's software hasn't been sold yet, how does Lotus know about SSD-2?" After Tommy also sat down, Eric asked first: "It's strange, isn't it? It hasn't even finalized an official name yet. "

"If we don't commercialize, can we save a lot of trouble? Just tell them that we don't sell, we just entertain ourselves and help others." Jason White looked at several people and gave his own thinking: "Otherwise ...you know the kind of big companies that are in trouble, I mean they have the money to keep having lawyers in trouble, and if we run out of startup funds, or SSD's lawyer fees, we just have to shut down, so we can make the software free , but training charges also make money.”

"OfficeSmartSuite, OSS for short, the first S stands for Stanford, and the second S stands for SSD." After Tommy sat down, he drank his coffee in silence, looked at Eric and said with a smile, "What do you think?" Sample?"

"Eric, it's not important to worry about how the other party knows about it. What needs to be considered is how to face it. At the same time, Tommy, I remind you that this is not the time to pay tribute. The other party tells you to stop developing and hand over all Relevant codes and data, you have to tell us your thoughts, so that everyone and lawyers can help you." Seeing that Tommy wasn't nervous, Charles put the topic back on track, and handed the lawyer's letter to Tommy .

Charles has presided over countless meetings, and he is very good at correcting the problem immediately when the brothers digress. His words also made several people present look at Tommy Hawke and nod again and again.

The people sitting here today are all members of the small circle of SSD Eric, the recruiting chairman. The so-called small circle means that SSD will subdivide some small groups because of different hobbies and interests. Some people like sports activities, and some people like business activities. Some people like various social activities, because they have the same hobbies, they have more opportunities to meet each other than other brothers, and the relationship is closer.

Tommy didn't even read the lawyer's letter, but lit a cigarette. Anyway, SSD's brother worked part-time in the coffee shop, and the complaint also deducted his wages. He had already seen the part-time brother give him the middle finger. care:

"I did copy it, but the code has been changed. The other party can still be so excited and confident of winning because of some kind of misleading. Isn't Eric curious about how Lotus knows about this software?"

"So?" Charles' eyes lit up.

"I asked Holly to disclose it to them on purpose." Tommy exhaled a puff of smoke and looked at everyone:

"The software is about to go on the market, and we don't have the money to buy expensive advertising space in those computer magazines. What should we do? Find the most powerful one to fight, pretend to be weak and innocent, and trick some reporters into interviewing us. If the other party Take the challenge... let those Harvard and MIT nerds understand that Actor does not focus on software innovation at all, but just like its name, concentrate on performing every scene."

first update~~