The Industrial Giant Reborn

Speaking of personal computers, the first person that most people who understand this history think of is naturally Jobs. The Apple he founded has created a new era of personal computers and set off a trillion-dollar new market.

However, as the founder of Apple, Jobs is not a big guy who is proficient in computer technology. On the contrary, he is a college student who dropped out of school, and his computer technology is only relatively good. An engineer may not be as good as Jobs. Jobs' strength is his dedication to products. He wants to provide the public with the products he thinks they need, such as the concept of personal computers, music players, smartphones, and tablet computers of later generations.

The real big man behind Apple, or the early technical foundation, is another co-founder of Apple-Steve Gary Wozniak.

A few days before the opening of Costco, Chen Zhiwen took advantage of the free time in the middle and drove to Silicon Valley, also in Los Angeles, with a few people. In a messy bar, he found someone who was drinking beer and watching a football game. Steve Watts.

"Hello, Mr. Woz. My name is Eric Chen. I'm glad to find you." Chen Zhiwen ordered the most expensive wine and handed it to Steve Woz.

"I don't know you." Steve Woz looked at the Asian in front of him warily, and he wasn't a girl. Why did he come over to strike up a conversation? Also invite yourself to drink, is it gay? Could it be that my round figure is a good target in the eyes of gays?

"I have a friend who knows Steve Jobs. He heard from Jobs that your electronic technology is very good, so I came to you." Chen Zhiwen laughed.

If you directly say that you know Jobs, then it will be easy to be misunderstood in the future, and it will be difficult to judge if someone is added in the middle. Most people will not really ask who this friend's friend is?

"Steve is not bad, he knows that he talks about me, and I have helped him solve many problems." Woz let down his vigilance when he heard his friend's name.

"I've heard that Mr. Jobs won $5,900 in Atari before, all thanks to your technology. This has made my friends envious for a long time." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"$5,900?" Woz almost spit out his wine, and said, "Isn't it $900?"

"No? The $900 is just the company's fee for completing the project, and the $5,000 is an additional reward for Jobs to reduce the number of chips to less than 50. Many people in Atari know about this." Chen Zhiwen said in surprise .

"Damn bastard." Woz cursed a little, and after a while he sighed and said, "Speaking of which, Steve did only talk about half of the project bonus and didn't talk about the extra bonus, but he should tell me."

"Maybe there is some misunderstanding?" Chen Zhiwen persuaded him "kindly".

The story of Jobs and Woz is not a secret on the Internet in later generations. In 1972, Jobs, who had just entered his freshman year, didn’t like what he learned in college, so he dropped out of school, went around and found a job in a game company. Work, that is, the most famous Atari in later generations, and Woz met by chance. Jobs was proficient in product concepts, and Woz was proficient in technology, and the two got better.

Atari, at the beginning of its establishment, released a game called Ping Pong, which is a video game that simulates table tennis. The page is very simple, the kind that no one would look at in the 21st century, but it became popular in 1972. Bars throughout the United States made a lot of money back then, but the founder of Atari was also the first time to start a business, making the most common mistake-not registering a patent.

By the time they realized it, various shoddy ping-pong games had begun to appear on the market in large quantities. The famous Arkanoid.

It’s just that it’s different from ping-pong in that there are many bricks on the Brick Breaking game interface, and the trajectory of the ball is more complicated, and the algorithm is also more demanding, which requires high computing and storage.

In the 1970s, chips were just developing, and their computing power was very low. Whether it was industrial computers, commercial computers or other industries, they relied on stacking chips to improve computing power. 150 chips, one chip costs thirty to forty dollars, the cost is so high that no bar will be willing to buy it.

Therefore, Atari launched an internal reward. Whoever can successfully develop an arcade machine with less than 100 chips can get a reward of 900 US dollars. On this basis, every 10 chips will be reduced. Add another $1,000 bonus.

This award was placed in the early 1970s. It was a huge bonus. Atari’s engineers worked very hard, but after a few months of tossing, the most successful group reduced 30 chips, but the arcade machine with 120 chips , the cost is still too high.

Jobs was also interested in the bonus, but he was just an ordinary technician and didn't understand chips, so he found his friend Woz, who was working at Hewlett-Packard at the time.

Jobs told Woz that the design must be completed within 4 days and use as few chips as possible. After completing the work, they split the bonus in half.

For the next four days, the two spent almost no sleep, with Jobs prototyping and testing and Woz working on the technical aspects.

Unexpectedly, these two really made this "Brickbreaker" that can be recorded in the history of the game forever in 4 days, and the whole game only used 44 chips!

You must know that although Atari was not a big company back then, the success of Ping Pong had allowed it to have dozens of technicians. However, the project that so many people spent several months without being completed was recognized by Woz 4 God did it, and only 44 chips were used. Woz's technical talent is so high that it is very rare in Silicon Valley.

In fact, Jobs' first Apple computer two years later was also Woz's design. Otherwise, the cost would not have come down at all.

Under the leadership of Atari, the arcade era has begun to be accepted by American bars. Chen Zhiwen is naturally ready to enter this lucrative industry, but he only has creativity. Like Jobs, he does not have the ability to develop games. Naturally, he needs Talents in this area, and although there are some electronic talents in Hong Kong, they are all biased towards production rather than design. In this way, the big coffee in Apple's history is naturally the one he needs to invite.

"Forget it, I'll go find Jobs later." Woz said, "What can Mr. Chen want from me?"

"It's only $5,000, Mr. Woz doesn't need to worry too much about it." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile: "I'm going to set up a company in the United States, and I hope to hire Mr. Woz as the chief technology officer of this company."