"Boss, are you sure we're in the wrong place?"

Looking at the building in front of her, Rosemary had a serious suspicion that she had either been cheated by a damn headhunter or had gone somewhere.

Why?

Because the computers in the design department of Fernandez are basically all DEC minicomputers, more than 40 DEC minicomputers of various models, including display terminals, with a total value of more than 800,000 US dollars, and then two IBM medium-sized computers and corresponding display terminals, Fernandez has invested more than 4 million US dollars in computer equipment, and this technology and R&D strength are second to none among automobile modification companies in the United States and even the world.

And in the software running on these DEC minicomputers, many of the software will appear with the letters "Garrett 2000", so the question naturally arises: how can such a powerful software development company be in such a place? Even if you don't rent a luxury office building, you shouldn't be in a garage, right?

Well, Chen Geng and Rosemary have a garage in front of them, or more precisely, the kind of two-room garage that is most typical of an American-style house.

Chen Geng also seriously doubted that the damn headhunter was cheating on himself, but through the black, dilapidated Corvette C2 sports car parked outside the garage, he could see that the owner of this car liked Fernandez very much - this black Corvette C2 had a claw mark sticker from Fernandez's "devil's claw" modification department.

However, after Chen Geng's eyes fell on the wooden sign at the door of the garage with some mottled handwriting, he knew that he had found the wrong place: "If the sign is correct, this should be the office of Gatry 2000." ”

Wooden signs?

Looking at the position of Chen Geng's finger, the wooden board that had been placed vertically at the door of the garage for a year or two years came into Rosemary's eyes.

Judging by the direction of the handwriting on the board, it is clear that the board should have been placed horizontally, but it is unknown why it was erected aside by its owner, so that if Rosemary wanted to see what was written on the board, she would have to tilt her head sideways......

"Gaiteri 2000 Software Development Company...... This is really the place," she read out the words on the board, and Rosemary's tone was thick with incredulity, "isn't it?"

In Rosemary's understanding, the computer industry should be very profitable, for example, the boss just purchased the four AX-11/780 minicomputers produced by DEC for the design department, the price of a single unit reached 200,000 US dollars, counting the supporting software, Fernandez paid a total of more than 1.1 million US dollars for these four small computers, but Gaitry, a software development company that exists in the DEC company's software supplier directory, actually stayed in the garage?

"If there's nothing wrong with the sign, then it's probably here. Chen Geng touched his nose, he also felt a little incredible.

"Gentlemen, who are you looking for?" Just as Chen Geng was stomping around looking for the doorbell, a young man with messy hair and a pale complexion came out of the garage, wearing a pair of jeans that had not been washed for a month or two months, looking at Chen Geng and Rosemary, and asked vigilantly.

Looking at this young man, Chen Geng immediately smiled: this image is really perfect in line with people's impression of software developers and designers.

"Excuse me, is the Gatri 2000 Company here?" Looking the young man up and down, Chen Geng asked with a smile.

Hearing that someone came to find him, the young man's expression suddenly softened, and he nodded again and again: "No, this is Gaitry 2000 Software Development Company, I am the software architect and chief designer of Gaitry 2000, are you two here to design software from us......?" I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Chiwett Ejiofor, you can call me Watt or Ford...... We at Gateri 2000 specialize in custom ...... of various software for DEC and IBM midsize machines."

I don't know how long this guy hasn't received business, but he was so excited that Chen Geng had to interrupt him: "I'll call you Ejio, Mr. Ejiofor, I do have some business to talk to you about, but ......"

Looking around, Chen Geng meant, "We can't just talk here, right?"

Ejiofor also realized this problem, and was immediately a little embarrassed, and hurriedly invited Chen Geng inside.

Before he entered the garage, Chen Geng could be sure that this was indeed the location of Garrett 2000.

The space in the garage is not small, it is the kind of garage with fifty or sixty square meters, which can park two full-size cars, and there are several tables on the left against the wall, on which are a few Apple Apples Type I computer, a few young people are crackling on the keyboard, there is an unknown model of DEC minicomputer in the corner, empty Coke cans are thrown on the ground, and there are two beds against the wall on the other side, and two guys who don't know how old they are are sleeping face in...... Of course, there is also a strange smell mixed with smelly socks, smelly clothes, and various smells such as not taking a shower for a long time, which is indescribable, but certainly not good.

Chen Geng doesn't care, he has seen a lot of this kind of scene, but Rosemary and Mirren can't, there are few women who don't like to be clean, as soon as they walked in the door, the faces of these two women began to turn green, and Mirren even retched twice from the indescribable smell of mystery.

Looking at the pale-faced Rosemary and Mirren, Chen Geng stopped and said to Chiwett Ejiofor, "Mr. Ejioo, why don't we talk outside...... Well, we have to respect the lady, right?"

Regardless of Rosemary's words, Chiwett Ejiofor also realized what the problem was and smiled awkwardly: "Okay, we'll talk outside...... Andy, Andy, bring me some chairs out and wipe them clean for me! Get me some cans of Coke...... Uh, sir, and this pretty lady, I'm sorry, we only have Coke here......"

"It's okay," Chen Geng waved his hand, and after sitting down on the simple folding chair, he asked Chiwett Ejiofor curiously: "Mr. Ejiofor, I have more than 20 DEC minicomputers in my company, and in the software of these computers, we can often see your Gatry 2000 logo, I always thought that your Gatry 2000 company is a large software development company, but ......"

Although Chen Geng was halfway through his words, how could Chiwetel Ejiofor not understand what Chen Geng meant? He smiled bitterly and said: "We are software developers, not computer manufacturers, and in fact, we software developers are not as good as those hardware developers who provide supporting facilities for DEC...... Uh, what do you call me, sir?"

"Fernandez Chen, just call me Fernandez. Chen Geng nodded and said, "This is Miss Rosemary, and this is Miss Mirren." ”

"Oh, hello Mr. Fernandez, hello Miss Rosemary, hello Miss Mirren," Chiwett Ejiofor explained to Chen Geng: "As a software developer, it is not difficult to develop a software, but it is very difficult to develop a software that can be stable and reliable, and will not crash often when running, which requires repeated testing, but our profits are very low," Speaking of this, it seems that Chen Geng is afraid of not believing it, Chiwetel Ejiofor took the initiative to explain: " Let's just say last year, we developed more than 5 pieces of software for DEC, but do you know how much money we made? It's less than $400,000. ”

"So little?" Chen Geng was surprised.

In the United States in 1979, $400,000 was definitely not a small amount of money, but considering the frequency with which Garrett 2000's company logo appeared on his DEC minicomputer, Chen Geng felt that this money was too little.

"It's okay," Chiwett Ejiofor didn't feel that he was making less money, he was even quite satisfied: "There are 8 people in our company, do you know how much money each of us made after removing the water, electricity, rent, and damn taxes?

Today, when the per capita annual income of the United States is less than 10,000 US dollars, the annual income of 35,000 US dollars is indeed a large amount, and it is different from salary income, if it is dividend income, the income tax is actually very low, almost equivalent to 4.5 times the American per capita after-tax income, from this point of view, Chiwett Ejiofor is indeed qualified to be proud.

Think about it again, in this era when tape is still used as the main recording medium and hard disk is an absolute high-end product, the size of the software is neither in "GB" nor in "MB", but in "Kb", a few people can develop a good software, and Chen Geng is relieved.

"That's really powerful," nodded, Chen Geng said: "That's the case, I hope that Gatry 2000 will design a computer-aided design drawing software according to my ideas......"

"Mr. Fernandez, you may have some misunderstanding about software development," before Chen Geng could finish speaking, Chiwett Ejiofor interrupted him: "Computer software development is a complex process, first of all, I want to know your computer model, and secondly, ......"

Chen Geng knows why Chiwetel Ejiofor said this, one is that software development is a very mysterious and lofty thing in the eyes of many people, and even in the eyes of software developers themselves, on the other hand, the software development of computers in this era is indeed very troublesome.

Software development in the seventies and software development under the indos system are not the same thing at all, under the operating system of indos, everyone only needs to strictly follow the development requirements of the indos system for software development, anyway, all software is compatible, but in the seventies, compatible?

What's that?

Not to mention that computers of different brands cannot be compatible with each other, even if they are different models of computers under the same brand, it is impossible to achieve mutual compatibility of programs, and a model of computer with one or several software, there is no system software and application software at all. For example, I want a computer for flight control. Then there's only flight control. For example, Gatry 2000, they developed a program for DEC's PDP-8 computer, but this program must not run on PDP-11, in the same way, a software that runs on a PDP-11/03 computer basically cannot run on PDP-11/23, a model of computer with a set of programs, this is the mainstream and status quo of today's computer industry, and no one thinks there is anything wrong with this.

A question can be raised here, for example, why was Gates able to accumulate a huge fortune in a short period of time, while Chiwett Ejiofor could only earn $400,000 a year of hard-earned money? It wasn't that Gates had a good mother who let Gates hug IBM's lap under his mother's introduction.

Before leaving the factory, IBM had pre-installed Microsoft's MS-DOS system for their personal computers, and as many personal computers IBM sold, Gates would collect as much money as he could.

Okay, back to the question we just had, is there a solution to this problem?

In fact, there is, that is, they are compatible with each other, and DEC has realized this, so in 1978 they developed the VAX-11 series of computers, but because DEC did not pay enough attention to the VAX-11 series of computers, this small computer announced in 1977 and launched in 1978 was not officially launched until this year.

After this computer was officially launched, Chen Geng bought four without hesitation, and the unit price of 200,000 US dollars did not include the price of the display terminal, which really made Chen Geng's flesh hurt for a while: how many cars do you have to sell to earn back this is almost 1 million US dollars.

"$100,000!" Chen Geng said before Chiwett Ejiofor could finish speaking.

"Ahh......h shit, OK, of course no problem......" In front of $100,000, Chiwetel Ejiofor was momentarily speechless.

The power of $100,000 is huge, and in the face of $100,000, Chiwetel Ejiofor did not hesitate to offer himself to his knees: Isn't it just to develop a software according to the request of Mr. Fernandez Chen? No problem, as long as you give money, all problems are not a problem.

He cautiously asked Chen Geng: "Sir, what is the model of your company's computer? I need to know your computer model before determining the software development plan......

"It's DEC's PDP-11/40. Without waiting for Chiwett Ejiofor to finish speaking, Chen Geng said.

The PDP-11/40 is a small computer made by the famous minicomputer manufacturer DEC, which is good at computer graphics, equipped with a dedicated graphics processor, and because of this, PDP-11/40 has become the first choice of the design departments of countless industrial companies: at this price point, no computer can compare with the drawing power of DEC's PDP-11/40.

"PDP-11/40?" Chiwett Ejiofor was stunned for a moment, and then looked at Chen Geng's eyes a little different: the person in front of him really understands computers......