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 NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL are the four major professional leagues in the United States, and 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 played 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 is known as the national sport of the United States and has always been the number one sport in the United States, and in the eighties, the influence of the NFL (National Football League) has not begun to catch up with MLB, so MLB is still firmly on the throne of the first professional league in the United States.

The MLB season starts in April and runs through 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 MLB is also divided into national leagues and American leagues. The Cleveland Indians are affiliated with the American League, so according to baseball rules. The first half of the first game was attacked by the away team National League All-Stars.

The first pitcher sent by the American League All-Star team specifically selected the Indians as the main pitcher for the All-Star selection, and his appearance immediately drew huge cheers from the home fans. The star hitters of the League of Nations don't seem to be in the groove yet. A clean three-up-and-three-down ended the first half of the game.

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 didn't find their seats by the end of the first half.

For televisers, the time it takes for the two sides to swap offensive and defensive positions is the time for the commercials to be inserted, so tens of millions of viewers across the United States are in front of the TV sets that are watching the Professional Baseball All-Star Game with great interest. Immediately, a dynamic piece of music was heard.

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, there was an extra computer in front of her, and the hot girl only needed a few light taps on the keyboard. A copy of the text is 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 did not reply, his focus was not like the puberty hormone explosion of the younger brother. The eyes will only be fixed on the hot chicks. He was more concerned about the computer that had just appeared in the TV commercial.

My brother just applied for a consulting company not long ago, and 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 the ad, and many of them newcomers became interested in it. As early as March, Aikang reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the MLB League and became the national brand promotion partner of the Professional Baseball League. At the same time, Aikan also spent a lot of money on a TV commercial for the season on several television stations that broadcast MLB games. In this all-star contest, Aikang spent a lot of money to shoot a series of five sets of advertisements, focusing on the newly launched 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 American audience was watching the MLB All-Star Game, 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.

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 also has two options: 10M and 20M. Depending on the user's 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 personal computers have 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 8086 has 16-bit internal and external buses. However, when the 8086 was launched, the mainstream external equipment on the market was still in the 8-bit era. Therefore, after the sales of 8086 were frustrated, Intel reviewed the situation and launched a castrated version of the 8-bit external bus processor 8088.

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

Now the ERM processor developed by 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 most of today's 32-bit processors are still used as high-end products in minicomputers and mainframes, and are not used as CPUs for personal computers.

So, the ABC-3 computer uses the ERM-1 processor. In the end, castration was chosen, and the external bus was only 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, just one year later, your company has launched a brand new business PC. 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 were identified as overlapping issues, which had been considered by ICON's management for a long time. Sales of the ABC-2 computer have been on the rise since it hit the market last year. This also reflects the rapid expansion of the business PC market.

Aikang has officially seen this. The new ABC-3 computer was designed to be used for enterprise-level business applications. However, the ABC-2 computer is still grabbing huge profits for the company, and Aikang is naturally reluctant to stop such a hot-selling product.

In order to avoid ABC-2 and ABC-3 competing with each other, 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 repay the support of consumers for the company, the company's board of directors decided to reduce the retail price of ABC-1 and ABC-2 computers by $150 and $400 respectively.

All the dealers who distribute ABC computers have received the relevant notice from Aikang half a month ago. If you go to buy an ABC computer in the past few days, you will find that the retailers have adjusted the latest price of the computer according to the company's requirements of Aikang. ”

Hawke paused and continued, "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 users 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!

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 ABC-2 performance 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.

Aikang's ABC-3 computer is the highlight of the entire Oriental Group 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......)