Reborn Tokyo Golden Age

It has been almost half a year since the release of the CD-ROM blue book.

During this period, the three electronic technology companies headed by Shirakawa Electric, Sony, and Philips are all paying close attention to their layout in the field of optical drives.

But there is no doubt that as the inventor, Baichuan Electric is the fastest.

The originally very simple optical drive system has been polished for several months, and now it has become a boxy black box.

"How about the service life, can it meet the design requirements?"

Bai Chuanfeng picked up the external version of the optical drive in front of him and turned it upside down, feeling quite heavy.

"Because the first product to be shipped is a commercial optical drive, we have selected the most reliable materials for both the motor and the laser head.

According to internal test calculations, there is no problem in using it for more than 5 years. "

Heitaro Nakajima turned on the computer and connected a black external optical drive to the host computer.

With a soft beep, a green indicator light on the upper part of the optical drive lights up.

Soon with the operation of the system, the CDD symbol representing the CD-ROM was found.

Entering the interior, one by one documents are densely arranged in front of you.

"It's not bad." Bai Chuanfeng nodded in satisfaction, it was much smoother than the first operation.

For the identification of CD-ROM, Microsoft has also added corresponding functions to the system.

Led by IBM and promoted by Sony, Philips, and Shirakawa Electric, Microsoft quickly followed up the development of related systems and software.

To say that it is indeed a professional software company, Microsoft's experience after updating the system is much better than that of Fujitsu.

Although the DOS system is still extremely crude, the basic use of the CD-ROM is still no problem.

"Has the supply from Beimi started?"

Bai Chuanfeng put down the external optical drive in his hand, and began to care about the market situation on the other side of the ocean.

"Hay, the freighter has been sailing for two weeks."

This question was answered by Sasaki Yakumo, who is in charge of warehousing. He is now in charge of the logistics scheduling of all products of Baichuan Electric.

For this kind of large-scale transoceanic transportation, the cost of cargo ships is the lowest.

Of course, the time will be relatively long, it will take about a month from Neon to Beimi.

According to the first batch of products under the original agreement, Shirakawa Electric will first provide a total of 10,000 sets of built-in optical drives.

Among them, there are 6,000 sets of 2x speed CD-ROM drives and 4,000 sets of 4x speed CD-ROM drives.

And these 10,000 sets of optical drives are all specially designed business editions.

As for the optical drive for ordinary users, IBM means to produce a thousand sets first to test the waters.

After considering this, Shirakawa Electric also agreed to IBM's request.

After all, it is Party A, and as many orders as it places, Baichuan Electric will produce as many products.

In Beimi's computer field, IBM is the one talking. Shirakawa Electric is still unable to promote the popularization of optical drives by itself.

However, in addition to the shipment to Beimi, in Neon's local market, Shirakawa Electric's external optical drive is also listed simultaneously.

The black box is 15 cm long and 5 cm high, which seems to be about the same size as the floppy drive.

Regarding the optical drive, the neon media has reported countless times.

So when it is placed on the counter, it is destined to attract the attention of the public.

So on the day of the launch, some people with good pockets were curious and bought an external optical drive to try it out.

Because of the high price of the optical drive, even the cheapest optical drive in Neon is $159, which is close to 40,000 yen.

Therefore, every customer who buys a CD-ROM drive comes with a few CDs.

There are some literary works that have been suppressed in advance, as well as comics that have been serialized, all of which come from the copyright library of Tokuma Bookstore.

In order to enrich the distribution content of the CD-ROM, and to prevent users from buying CD-ROMs and having nowhere to use them, Shirakawa Electric simply compressed some serialized books and periodicals of Tokuma Shoten into CD-ROMs.

Although the current computer is a DOS system, pictures can also be viewed through specific software.

As a result, novels and comics became the first users of CD-ROM and CD-ROM platforms.

However, Shirakawa Electric's idea is good, but the feedback from users after actual experience is not very good.

"Although the CD-ROM is very convenient to use, the novels and comics in the CD-ROM are very rich, and even thoughtfully indexed the catalog.

But staring at the computer screen for a long time, the eyes are too tired.

So when I picked up the magazines around me to relax, I realized why not just buy physical books? "

"I don't like reading novels and comics. After buying the CD-ROM, I don't know what to do with myself."

"The machines are expensive and have a lot of storage capacity, but they just don't work."

"A disc with 700MB is hundreds of times larger than my floppy disk, but I can only watch it, but not control it."

The reports in the newspapers looked dazzling and at the same time made Bai Chuanfeng frown.

As much attention was paid to the reports on the CD-ROM at the beginning, the doubts are now as fierce as they are now.

At this moment, he also understands why IBM insists on using optical drives on mainframes and compatible computers first.

After all, it has just entered 1983, and the DOS system of the computer does not yet support video playback.

This greatly limits the selection of content that can be recorded on CD-ROM, and those complicated formats are not supported by current computers at all.

The software based on this operating system is generally small, limited by the capabilities of the CPU, and the files processed by the computer are relatively small.

As for the multimedia that became popular in later generations and is inseparable from life, even the concept has not been systematized at this time, and some research institutions have only proposed related ideas.

This has led to the huge capacity of optical drives and CD-ROMs, which seem to be completely useless on current computers.

Users cannot enjoy music movies through it, or store their own treasured materials.

The former is because the computer does not support it, and the latter is because the optical drive does not support it.

Therefore, the current optical drive and CD-ROM are facing an awkward situation. They are very nice, but they seem to be unusable.

This is also the reason why users and the media raised doubts. After all, you played so loudly at the beginning, but when you get it, you find that it is far from as good as you imagined.

But if it's useless, that's not enough. Many companies have a high evaluation of optical drives.

Because they often have a lot of data to store, and the disk is too small to hold a few files.

And mechanical hard drives are too expensive and bulky.

This has led to many companies still retaining data storage rooms, the rows of filing cabinets and dusty portfolios, which are the original storage methods widely used today.

But it is different now that there are CDs. A 12cm disk can hold the content contained in 150,000 sheets of 16-format paper.

There is no doubt that this is definitely a boon for companies with large file storage needs. After IBM's Amway, many companies have expressed their purchase intentions.

The commercial optical drives shipped to Beimi this time will basically be installed on mainframes and commercial compatible machines.

Even for the compression of CD-ROM discs, Shirakawa Electric has received orders from many companies.

After all, if you have a CD-ROM drive, you can burn your own data into a CD-ROM in order to fully play its role.

All the materials that need to be burned will be pressed by Shirakawa Electric's optical disc factory.

The same is true here in Neon, and the purchase of optical drives is basically public institutions.

The optical disc suppression orders of these departments are basically divided by Sony and Shirakawa Electric.

As a brand new technology, institutions with special needs are often the first to use it.

However, although ordinary users' demand for optical drives is not so strong, the commercial optical drives shipped this time have brought a lot of profits to Shirakawa Electric.

Because of its high price, this batch of Beimi alone can bring a profit of 6.7 million US dollars to Shirakawa Electric.

The double-speed optical drive costs $600, which is a profit of $450 after all costs.

The price of a quad-speed optical drive is $1,300, and its net profit is as high as $1,000.

This is indeed a huge profit. Even though the use of optical drives is still very limited, the profits make up for the lack of shipments.

The commercial application of optical drives has just started. Although the evaluation on mainframes is good, the feedback from ordinary users cannot be ignored.

"Our recordable disc format, when will it be resolved?"

Bai Chuanfeng put down the newspaper in his hand, and turned his gaze to the people below.

At this moment, the conference room is full of decision-makers from Shirakawa Electric, from the manufacturing department to the design department.

However, because the evaluation of optical drives in the market is not high, everyone's face is not very good.

Hearing Shirakawa Kaede's question, Heitaro Nakajima answered first.

"Because the CD-R format was jointly developed with Sony and Philips, it is expected to be standardized and enter the commercial stage next year.

The rewritable CD-RW format is a little slower, but not too late. "

A large part of the dissatisfaction among users is due to the fact that individuals cannot control the storage space of CDs.

This is equivalent to having a white girl in front of you, but when you touch it with your hand, there is a layer of glass in the middle.

Therefore, although the floppy disk has a small capacity, it is so popular because it has a rewritable function.

Before the advent of recordable optical discs, there is still a long way to go for the promotion and application of optical drives.

Of course, if the development of computers can support multimedia format playback, optical drives will also usher in explosive growth.

But instead of expecting Microsoft to develop a Windows system as soon as possible, it is better to work harder on yourself.

"This year's desktop CD machine development plan, add a task.

We need a device that can support CD-ROM data reading and parsing. "

After Bai Chuanfeng put down the pen in his hand, he gave the order firmly.

"Hey" Nakajima Heitaro was stunned for a moment, then his frown slightly loosened, "Shirakawa-san, what do you mean...?"

"Since the current computer does not support video playback, then we will do it ourselves.

The CD-ROM drive needs to be the same as the video tape player, which can play music or video.

Nakajima-san, is there any problem with this in terms of technical difficulty? "

There is no way for Bai Chuanfeng to solve the technological progress of recordable discs.

But it is not impossible to give full play to the advantages of CD-ROM.

After understanding his plan, everyone's eyes lit up.

Heitaro Nakajima took over the task immediately, "There is no problem with this at all, and our CD-ROM will be on the market in October as scheduled."

In addition to video tapes, there are also LD disc players on the market. Its principle is similar to that of a CD, which can be used as a design reference for Shirakawa Electric.

Therefore, in terms of technical difficulty, there is no problem with CD-ROM imaging.

"In addition to CD drives, we also need a large amount of image data as a content distribution library.

Movies before Daying are all compressed into CDs, so that users have content to watch.

Shochiku, Toho, and Toei also went to contact, as well as TV dramas from major TV stations. These are the best content distributors for DVD players.

By the way, especially at Nikkatsu, we need to focus on taking care of them. "

"Haihuo?" Everyone looked puzzled.