bloom america

Chapter 198 Intel Corporation

Fairchild Corporation, a pioneer in semiconductors.

Robert Noyce used to work at Fairchild.

The company started with an order from IBM, and then with the rapid development of semiconductors and integrated circuits, the profitability of the entire company became higher and higher.

Almost everyone is complacent.

However, the general manager of the parent company continued to transfer profits to the East Coast to support the profitability of Fairchild Photographic Equipment Company, which caused some dissatisfaction among the company's employees.

Hurney, Roberts and Clare were the first to lose their patience and even planned to change jobs.

At this time, an olive branch from Intel extended its hand.

The three of them quickly got in touch with Intel.

At this time, this new star in the semiconductor industry has become a holy place in the eyes of Silicon Valley people.

Finally, with the lobbying of the three of them, the eight of them finally entered Intel together.

After accepting Sanders' reception, their work began.

Sanders said that the company will give them an important task, so what they have to do now is to become familiar with the company's environment.

Very important task?

All eight people were eager to give it a try, and Roberts was no exception.

However, after arriving at the company, Roberts discovered that the working atmosphere at Intel was really different from other companies.

When entering Intel, there was a sentence written on the wall: "Here, everyone is the party chairman."

As soon as I entered the company, I felt that the atmosphere was different.

In front of everyone's desk, there is a Microsoft II computer. Not only that, some people also have game consoles in front of them, but no one is playing games.

They looked very serious and were working hard. Next to them, a staff member was putting the bedding on the floor back into a utility room nearby.

"Hey I got the 16-bit phoenix operating system"

A man suddenly rushed over from next door and shouted.

Because he rushed too fast, he collided with Roberts.

"Oh, sorry."

He smiled sheepishly.

"What? Ken, are you sure...wait a minute, aren't you still studying the gates system?" Someone spoke to me.

Ken shrugged: "Yes, but I have already done it. Then a few days ago I heard that a CPU was successfully developed, so I simply made an operating system."

"The graphics card has not been successfully developed yet," someone kindly reminded me.

Ken shrugged.

Pentium computers will use graphics cards that support up to 4096 colors and have a 2D renderer. The general resolution supports 640x480x16 colors.

The basic requirement for Nimbus Catherine is that when using dual renderers, it can support a maximum of 256 colors on the same screen, and the display effect can reach 640x480.

256 colors are almost enough for ordinary games. On the other hand, Catherine is eager to create a graphical interface, so 256 colors are necessary.

Of course, Catherine has not considered 16-bit color and 32-bit color.

The so-called 256 colors means that the same screen can display 256 colors, which is 2 to the 8th power, also known as 8-bit color.

With 16-bit color, the same screen can display 65,535 colors. Many later mobile phones have 16-bit color.

24-bit color, also known as true color, can display 16.77 million colors. Many LCD monitors use this as a gimmick because it is difficult for LCDs to restore the true colors of objects.

In the 21st century, computers generally use true color 32-bit, which is 16.77 million colors and 256 grayscale values. - 32-bit color is not the color number of 2 to the 32nd power, it is actually 1677

Ten thousand colors, but it adds 256 levels of grayscale color. For the convenience of naming, it is defined as 32-bit color.

The most powerful one is 36-bit color, which can display 16.77 million colors and 512 levels of gray value.

Of course, the problem now is not the monitor, but the graphics card.

It's close, let alone 770,000 colors. CRT can theoretically display unlimited colors as long as the system supports it.

But now, the problem appears on the system.

Graphics cards are a big problem.

If this problem is not solved, it will be really troublesome for the system.

Ken did write a Phoenix system that could support 16-bit CPUs, but before the graphics card was ready, he couldn't write a driver at all, so that was all he could do.

"Okay, okay, that's it."

Ken was about to go back, but Roberts stopped him.

"Excuse me, why does every staff member have one on his desk?"

"Oh, that's what our employees use in their leisure time. It's just that this is the hardware research team, and what they are working on is the graphics card equipment... There are more people in our software team who like to play games."

"Playing games while working? Is that okay?"

Roberts also liked to play, but he didn't think such a computer could be placed in an office.

"As long as we finish the required work, the remaining time - until get off work, is at our own disposal. If we have a new product of our own, we can also research it ourselves and then release it. Isn't that great?" Ken seemed to be thinking.

Showing off.

"We can openly use the company's stuff for private work. As long as we share 50% of the copyright, the company can even help us promote our own products. Isn't that great? This is why I came to Intel."

Roberts was stunned. How could this company be like this?

However, he is looking forward to working in Intel more and more.

"These are a bunch of impersonal guys here. They only know how to be sarcastic... Hey, wait, who are you and why are you here?"

Ken finally realized something was wrong. It seemed that no one could enter here, right?

"Uh...I'm new here."

Roberts identified his employees.

"Oh, oh. So you work here."

Ken patted Roberts on the shoulder.

"The people here are really boring. If you want, you can go to the software department, which is much more interesting."

"Thanks."

Roberts ended his conversation with Ken and went into the hardware development department.

The factory designed by Catherine is divided into two departments: software and hardware, and then subdivided into several research groups. The two factories are not in the same place.

However, people from the software department will always go to the hardware department to investigate.

Hardware is the biggest obstacle limiting the development of current software, so whenever a problem is encountered, it always appears in the hardware department first. Although there seems to be some conflict between the two parties, Roberts finds it quite interesting.

Roberts is now looking forward more and more to the new task that Catherine is going to give him.

…

Meanwhile, Catherine was thinking about graphics operating systems.

——For the new generation of computers, Catherine plans to adopt a graphical operating system instead of a command line mode. Of course, she will also retain the command line mode.

However, it seems very difficult to achieve a beautiful 16-color graphics operation screen.

The route that Catherine takes is fashionable, cutting-edge and popular. Catherine is not satisfied with developing a monotonous interface.

But...is 16-bit color really useful?

Catherine thinks she doesn't have that strength.

Unless you can get Japanese art from the 1980s, that's pretty much it.

Japanese artists in the 1980s and American programmers in the 1950s are both a legend.

In Catherine's previous life, there were a number of exquisite Japanese games in the 1980s, but most of these games were 16 colors - 16 colors, not 16 bits, which means that the screen could only display 16 colors at the same time.

.

However, Japanese artists are surprisingly able to create a large number of exquisite games by relying on 16 colors.

The most typical ones are "The Age of Discovery 2" and "The Legend of Taige". If we talk about h-gmae, "The Lost City" is also 16 colors.

Especially "Age of Discovery 2". Because of the excellent art work of this game, until the 21st century, some people still think that it should have 256 colors.

The rare 256-color games produced at that time had extremely gorgeous graphics. The most typical one was "Beautiful DreamWorks".

Most of the brutal 1980s artists are now children, and Catherine doesn’t know what the Japanese art technology is like in this era. After all, it’s almost 20 years early... 20 years before Einstein created the "Theory of Relativity", he also

He's just a small clerk.

Art is very important. Since you want to create a graphical interface, art is necessary.

Of course, a PC is different from a Nimbus. If the PC displays 640x480x256 colors, it will require about 512kb of memory. In order to save costs, Catherine can only use the 16-color realistic method.

"Ah...it's really troublesome..."

Catherine was very confused.

Interface design is really a headache sometimes.

"Perhaps Anya will have an idea?"

Elsa, who was packing up documents, suddenly said something.

"Aniya..."

Aniya is very sharp in the use of color. The paintings on Catherine are all the same as the real ones. The painter seems to be very sensitive to color.

Maybe...she can find a way?

"It's just like treating a dead horse like a living horse."

Catherine could only be so sure in the end.

Then, she called DreamWorks.

After the receptionist transferred the call to Aniya, the other party seemed very excited.

"Hey Kate, I didn't expect you to call. How are you doing?"

"Very good, how about you?"

"The Legend of Chun-Li is coming to an end. Kate, I can't believe how popular this novel is. Oh, I'm going to attend a book signing in a few days. It feels great."

The other party obviously enjoyed it.

"Aniya, maybe you can come over and do me a favor..."