July 15, 1981, Cleveland City Stadium, home of the Cleveland Indians. The stadium was packed today, and the MLB Major League All-Star Game was held in Cleveland this year.

The four major professional leagues in the United States, NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL, Chinese audiences may only be familiar with the NBA. Especially after Wang Zhizhi joined the Mavericks, it was the first time that Chinese played in this professional league that represents the highest level of basketball. And Yao Ming's joining of the Houston Rockets as the champion show made the whole country start to pay attention to this basketball event on the other side of the ocean with great enthusiasm.

When Yao Ming was in the NBA, there was another Chinese player who was playing in the MLB league (Major League Baseball), and he was no less well-known in the United States than Yao Ming at that time. He is the main pitcher of the New York Yankees, and Wang Jianming, who is praised as the "light of Taiwan" by the people of Taiwan and Taiwan on the other side of the strait.

Baseball, known as the national sport of the United States, has always been the number one sport in the United States, and in the eighties, the influence of the NFL (National Football League) did not begin to catch up with MLB, so MLB still sat firmly on the throne of the first professional league in the United States.

MLB's season starts in April and lasts until the end of October. The All-Star Game of the season is the second most intriguing game of the season after the Grand Finals.

The NBA is divided into East and West, while the MLB is also divided into the National League and the American League. The Cleveland Indians are affiliated with the American League, so according to baseball rules, the first half of the first inning was attacked by the visiting National League All-Star team.

The first pitcher sent by the American League All-Star Team specifically selected the Indians as the main pitcher for the All-Star selection. His appearance immediately drew a huge cheer from the home fans. The star hitters of the National League didn't seem to be in the groove yet, and they finished the first half of the game with a clean three-up and three-down.

Baseball is slower-paced, and the game is not as much of a race against the clock as in football and basketball, where you miss a good shot if you're not careful. Many fans to the end of the first half. They haven't found their seats yet.

For televisers, the time for the two sides to switch offensive and defensive positions between the two sides is the time for the commercial break, so a dynamic music immediately came to the television set in front of tens of millions of viewers across the United States who were watching the Professional Baseball All-Star Game in high spirits.

The first thing in the shot is a female white-collar worker who is leaning over to rummage through a row of cabinets for information, and the figure wrapped in the uniform is convex and backward. It's definitely an American hottie, but her expression at the moment is full of distress. Suddenly, the screen turned, and there was an extra computer in front of her, and the hot girl only needed to tap the keyboard a few times, and a copy of the text was displayed on the computer screen.

"ABC Computer. Make the job easier!" The hot girl smiles at the camera with seductive eyes.

At this time, thousands of kilometers away from the game site in Los Angeles, in a family's living room, two brothers were sitting together watching the game.

"This girl is good, I like this big-breasted hottie!" a boy with a reddish nose and a few freckles on his cheeks said to his brother next to him, looking at the ad. Both are loyal baseball fans, but the older brother supports the Los Angeles Dodgers. The younger brother supports the Dodgers' rivals in the same city, the Los Angeles Angels.

The elder brother didn't reply, his focus was not like the pubertal hormone burst younger brother, his eyes would only stare at the hot girl. He was more concerned about the computer that had just appeared in the TV commercial.

My brother had just been hired for a consulting firm not long ago. The large number of customer information that needs to be sorted out every day has always been the company's biggest headache. If he can really solve this problem with a computer, he can build yì his own boss to invest in buying one. So he stood up and got a pen and paper, ready to make a note of the sales hotline on it when the ad was replayed the next time.

Tens of millions of viewers across the United States saw this ad. Many of them are new to it. As early as March, Aikang reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the MLB Alliance and became the national brand promotion partner of the Professional Baseball League. At the same time, Aikang is also broadcasting several TV stations for MLB competitions. Spent a lot of money on a TV commercial for the broadcast season. In this all-star contest, Aikang spent a lot of money to shoot a series of five sets of advertisements. Emphasis was placed on the new ABC-3 computer.

Sports and entertainment are the most important topics for Americans, especially middle-class white-collar workers, to talk about in their daily lives. The ABC-3 computer is defined as a business office, so sports events are an excellent promotion platform.

While the whole American audience was watching the MLB All-Star Contest, in New York, the largest economic center in the United States, more than 700 kilometers away from Cleveland, the global launch of Aikang Computer's new products was held in the Brooklyn hypermarket of the computer park company.

And the protagonist of this press conference is the ABC-3 computer, which has just met with the national television audience in the commercial. Compared to the previous ABC-1 and ABC-2, the new ABC-3 computer is actually a series.

The ABC-3 computer launched by Aikang this time, the memory can be expanded from the standard 128K to 512K, the display is available in monochrome and color, and the newly added storage hard disk is also available in 10M and 20M. Depending on the user's configuration requirements, the ABC-3 computer is priced from $2,999 to $3,999, and is divided into several different price points.

"Compared with the previous ABC-1 and ABC-2, the biggest advantage of this new computer, which gathers the wisdom of all the R&D personnel of Aikang, is faster speed and more powerful performance! I can confidently say that all the products on the market are outdated, and the personal computer has entered the 32-bit era!"

Sir Albert Hawke, CEO of iKang Computer, waved his arms high in a confident and passionate tone, and said to all the audience who attended the new product launch of iKang.

In fact, the ERM-1 processor used in the ABC-3 computer is a castrated version of the 32-bit processor. Just like Intel's previous 8086 and 8088 processors, the internal and external buses of the 8086 are both 16-bit, but the mainstream external devices on the market were still in the 8-bit era when the 8086 was launched. So after the 8086 sales setback, Intel judged the situation. A castrated version of the 8-bit external bus processor 8088 is introduced.

The wider the bit width of the bus, the faster the information can be transferred. So in general, a 32-bit processor will be much more powerful than a 16-bit processor.

The ERM processor developed by the Dongfang Shi Yàn room has also encountered the same problems that Intel encountered a few years ago. The development of peripherals has not kept pace with the development of processors. If the new processor uses a 32-bit external bus, there are very few peripherals and chips to choose from. Because now 32-bit processors. Most of them are still used as high-end products on small computers and mainframes, and are not used as CPUs for personal computers.

Therefore, the ERM-1 processor used by the ABC-3 computer finally chose to be castrated, and the external bus only has 16 bits. Although this will prevent the processor from maximizing performance, it is also a forced and helpless thing.

"Sir Hawke. When your company launched the ABC-2 computer in Los Angeles this time last year, it was also targeting business applications. Now that your company has launched a brand new business PC just a year later, will the two be in competition? Does it mean that the previous ABC-2 is outdated!"

Chandler Thomas, a senior editor at Computer Enthusiast magazine, asked Hawke a somewhat poignant question on the stage. On July 15 last year, he was one of the participants in the new product launch held by Aikang in Pasadena, Los Angeles, on the West Coast. Since then, Thomas has been following the growth of the company, watching the little-known company rise to capture a large share of the PC market.

ABC-2 and ABC-3 are identified as overlapping issues, and the management of Aikang has long considered them. Sales of the ABC-2 computer have been on the rise since it was launched last year. This also reflects the rapid expansion of the business PC market.

Aikang officially saw this point, and only then did the new computer ABC-3 be placed on enterprise-level business applications. But the ABC-2 computer continues to make huge profits for the company. Aikang Company is naturally reluctant to discontinue such a hot-selling product directly.

In order to avoid competition between ABC-2 and ABC-3, the best thing to do is to segment the market. Let ABC-2 reduce prices to seize the low-end business market, and ABC-3 will capture the mid-to-high-end business market.

"First of all, I would like to announce to you that with the continuous advancement of computer hardware technology, the manufacturing cost of the ABC-1 and ABC-2 computers previously produced by Aikang is also decreasing. In order to give back to the majority of consumers for their support to Aikang. The Board of Directors of the Company has decided to reduce the retail prices of the ABC-1 and ABC-2 computers by $150 and $400, respectively.

All distributors who distribute ABC computers. I have received the relevant notice from Aikang Company half a month ago. If you go to buy an ABC computer in the past few days, you will find that the retailers have already followed the requirements of the company. The latest price of the PC has been adjusted. ”

Hawke paused before continuing, "The ABC-2 computer is now priced at $2,499, which is $500 less than the minimum configuration of the ABC-3 computer. There is a difference between the target audience of the two, and customers who are less affluent can choose the more affordable ABC-2 computer.

Customers who are looking for high processing performance can choose the latest ABC-3 computer. Different consumers make a reasonable choice according to their actual needs, after considering both performance and price!

The ABC-2 uses an 8-bit 6502 processor, and although it uses a dual-processor parallel design to improve computing performance, it is still far inferior to the 32-bit ERM-1 processor. If I continue to boast that the ABC-2 is not lagging behind, I am lying!"

Li Xuan sat in the audience and watched Hawke deal with various questions from reporters with ease. No matter how sharp the reporter's questions were, he fully displayed the suave and suave of an English gentleman.

The ABC-3 computer of the Aikang company is the highlight of the entire Eastern Bloc in the second half of this year, and Li Xuan naturally will not stay in Hong Kong, as he flew to the United States as early as early July. (To be continued)