bloom america

Chapter 159 Microsoft Model II Computer

After the Oscars were over, Catherine began to continue working on the Internet.

The construction of the university network on the West Coast was carried out simultaneously. In order to complete it in the shortest time, Catherine spent a lot of money.

According to the estimates of the construction company, Catherine's "Noah" - the future headquarters - will be completed before all the fiber optic cables are laid.

Originally, Catherine wanted to cover the entire exterior of the building with solar panels, but unfortunately, this technology is not yet mature.

Noah is an all-steel frame structure with a layer of sea-blue glass on the outside. It looks pleasing to the eye. Although it has not been built yet, it is not far away.

Xbox sales have now reached 1.5 million units. Although it is worse than Nintendo's 2-month record of 500,000 units, this is already great news for Catherine. After all, her Xbox is better than ever in history.

FC will appear more than 10 years in advance.

Because of the booming sales of Xbox, Catherine also decided to release Microsoft's second-generation computer.

This computer will be released on October 1st and uses p, which is the Phoenix operating system. The architecture of this operating system was designed by Catherine on top of dos. However, compared to dos, Catherine's p has better network support.

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Due to limitations in function and storage, it is basically impossible to operate the graphics screen, and p uses the form of a command symbol.

Computers are not yet popular in every household as they were later, because there is no graphical operation screen, and it is very difficult for ordinary people to enter this mysterious field of computers.

Although Catherine knew this, she still wanted to win as many users as possible, so she simply prepared a booklet specifically to introduce the p operating system and the accompanying commands.

Catherine imitated later generations of windows and ordered three types of home edition, professional edition and flagship edition for her second-generation Microsoft computer.

In the home version, the kernel of Catherine's p is stored in a read-only memory, which means that the user cannot modify p, because there is no way to install the operating system at this time, and there is no installation disk or the like.

It's quite troublesome to reinstall the system. Of course, because of this, all Catherine's software is "green". In fact, these software are also stored in the form of cassettes, so

It cannot be modified and the user experience is very limited.

As for the professional version, Catherine installed p in the small memory of the computer. At this time, there were no mechanical memories later. Most of them were magnetic core storage devices with very limited capacity.

The difference between the flagship version and the professional version is that the flagship version uses a z80+ CPU and allows dual CPUs to run - in fact, this is just a gimmick, because dual CPUs mean that it is more difficult to create software.

Adding one square meter, no one would be free to develop such software. In the original world, Sega's SS game console lost to PS, not because of poor performance of SS, but on the contrary, the performance of SS left PS three blocks behind.

The reason for its failure is that it uses dual CPUs, which makes development more difficult, and many software vendors don't know how to optimize dual CPUs. Therefore, ss failed without third-party support.

In addition, Microsoft's second-generation monitors include dazzling displays and spherical displays, with a price difference of about US$50 to US$100. Catherine also launched a complete version without a display.

There is no concept of graphics card yet, but image controller PPU already exists.

Fairchild seems to be very interested in CPUs and PPUs. After all, Fairchild is engaged in semiconductors. Although they can be regarded as Catherine's enemies, as far as Fairchild is concerned, it is actually Catherine who has been giving in.

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This has been true since the earliest licensing of integrated circuits.

Although the situation in the shopping mall is changing rapidly, Fairchild's internal instability also makes them lack the ability to respond to the outside world.

However, Fairchild was the first developer to show goodwill to Catherine and be willing to serve as a third party. Catherine reciprocated the favor and launched a model equipped with Fairchild's "fairchild-i" CPU. fairchild-i is a Fairchild company

Maybe it’s because Fairchild’s talent is stronger than Catherine’s, so the performance of this CPU is actually comparable to the z80+.

Sometimes, what scientific and technological progress lacks is just a light source leading in the right direction. Catherine has pointed the way, and Fairchild's powerful technical capabilities have allowed them to catch up immediately.

Take the second-generation flagship version of Microsoft as an example.

On the motherboard of this machine, there are a total of five cassette slots - the home version has only three, the professional version has four, and two tape data reading devices - the home version and the professional version have only one.

Inside the machine, there is a slot for the PPU, a slot for the main CPU, and a slot for the expansion CPU. The memory is B, and on the professional and home versions, there are 8kB respectively.

There are three versions, 4kb and 2kb, which are shared with the video memory, but this can be expanded.

The second-generation Microsoft computer using p is fully compatible with the first-generation office software. After all, those software originally ran on the large Wenquxing. It is not too difficult for a real computer to run such a program.

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The price of the flagship version using the Dazzling Display is 2,000 US dollars, which is about 10,000 US dollars when converted to 2010, and then about 60,000 when converted into RMB.

However, the price of the professional version has dropped significantly. The one with Dazzle Vision technology only costs US$1,200, while the lowest-end home version is US$899.

No matter which computer it is, Catherine will give away a Minesweeper game.

The home version and professional version use tapes as carriers, while the ultimate version uses cassettes.

The reason why Catherine gave away the Minesweeper game was mainly because of the use of the mouse.

In Catherine's eyes, a computer without a mouse is a complete pain in the ass.

In addition, Catherine also launched an office version.

This machine has no cassette slot, the PPU has been castrated, and only a recordable tape device is provided.

Such data tapes now also function as USB flash drives and floppy disks, mainly to facilitate the portability of data.

This model cannot play games, but with the core of the z80, it is more than enough to process data. It only costs US$799, but if you buy more than 10 units, it can drop to US$699.

“Network functionality seems to be good too.”

Sitting at Apple's headquarters, Catherine looked quite satisfied.

In front of her is a flagship version of Microsoft's second-generation computer.

Twelve computers like this have been installed in various universities and are being used for on-campus network testing.

Looking from behind the computer, a network cable is connected to a huge photoelectric converter, and then passes through a section of optical fiber to another converter, and then another cable is sent out and enters the computer next to Catherine.

above.

The computer next to Catherine is different from ordinary computers. Instead, it uses IBM storage equipment, mechanical storage, and the amount of data it can store has reached 5MB.

What Catherine is doing now is making web pages.

Used for web pages with only text interface.

p can only perform a single task, that is, it cannot open multiple windows at the same time like windows.

But precisely because of this, browsing the Internet will go smoothly.

The z80+ and b are quite good for browsing online messages.

"It's a pity. It would be better if the hard drive could be more powerful."

If there is a large-capacity storage device, Catherine can definitely develop a lot of software. Even if there are system limitations, this is not a problem for Catherine.

"But this is all we can do now."

Catherine began to think about how to build the company's website again. This would be something that would be displayed in front of several universities in the future, so she couldn't lose face.

In fact, what Catherine wants to develop most is a color and graphic web page, but this idea is very unrealistic.

Today's Catherine's machine can display up to 32 colors (not 32 true colors, but 32 colors), and the screen resolution at this time is only 320*240.

This is still the effect of the flagship version, while the lowest-end home version can only display 16 colors at most, and the screen resolution at this time can only reach 256x240.

There is no problem in displaying such a web page, but I'm afraid it will become a big tragedy in terms of memory.

And a webpage with only a black and white text interface can run completely without any problems even with a small memory of 2kb.

"Oh, it would be great if I could really run into communism..."

Catherine lamented.

Although she sighed like this, from the outside, it seemed that Catherine had indeed done it.

She completely separated the computer host and monitor, just like the chassis and monitor that appeared later. Then the keyboard and mouse were also connected. From the outside, it seemed to be no different from the computers at the end of the 20th century.

In this regard, although there are predictions of future trends, it is more of Kaiser's self-consolation.

After thinking about it, Catherine inserted another tape into the computer.

The data recorded in this tape is a pre-programmed website sent from Stanford University.

The data on the tape began to be scanned. Catherine typed a command and quickly read the contents of the tape.

Due to technical limitations, the tape can only record one piece of data at a time. After the recording is completed, it will be "rewinded" to the beginning. If you want to record multiple data, you must package the data into one.

After all, tapes cannot be read at will like optical discs, and positioning the file header is very difficult and error-prone.

The website of Stanford University doesn't seem to be very good. It's just a text introducing the establishment of the company. At the bottom are a few lines of addresses. As long as you type this address, you can jump to what you want to see. As for clicking on it like IE

It is impossible to convert the address with the mouse.

However, Catherine's mouse can come in handy at this time. It can select text and then copy it to the command bar, making the entire operation fast.

"There will be bread, there will be cheese..."