In the early morning of December 30, Los Angeles time, Zhang Heng and the four of them had breakfast in the hotel and called a taxi to rush to the Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Center, three kilometers away.

The skies in Los Angeles are unusually overcast today, with a strong storm in the Pacific Ocean said to be approaching California, and Santa Monica and Long Beach beaches have been temporarily closed.

The expressions of the people in the taxi were just like the weather, gloomy.

Last night, Zhang Heng did not dwell on the brand and price issues first, and put forward a monthly prepayment and deposit requirements, and after this request was rejected by William on the spot, the negotiations between the two sides broke down.

Zhang Heng and the others refused each other's dinner invitations, went to the hotel restaurant to eat a buffet, and went back to the room to rest early.

Including Chen Zhenning, who was sitting in the passenger seat, the three of them had no intention of watching the bustling landscape outside the window, and secretly looked at Zhang Heng in the back seat from time to time, watching the exterior scene, they had inexplicable confidence that the boss would come up with a solution.

Zhang Heng really didn't think of any good ideas, he came to the Convention and Exhibition Center today to find an opportunity, but he was not pessimistic, Daheng Printing Paper wants to make money, and the same is true for 3M Company, the two sides have not yet reached the point of tearing their faces, and there must be talks in the past two days.

The Los Angeles Convention Center was built in 1971 and just opened last year, at this time it is not as vast as it will be, covering an area of only 20,000 square meters, with no blue glass curtain walls or anything like that, just a steel shed building similar to a basketball stadium.

On the metallic gray exterior wall in the center hangs a banner with large characters: American Cultural, Educational and Office Supplies Exhibition (Los Angeles 1973.1.1~1.3).

After arriving at the hotel yesterday, by reading a large number of local newspapers, Zhang Heng thoroughly figured out the relevant insider details of this exhibition.

It was a traveling show organized by the American Stationery Industry Association, first held in 1970, once a year, fixed on the first three days of the new year, in Atlanta in '70, Miami in '71, Chicago in '72, and Los Angeles in '73.

The biggest purpose of the American Stationery Association is to compete with GLM's 25-year successful New York International Stationery, Paper Products & Gifts Fair, which is currently the world's largest professional event.

As a professional exhibition company, GLM not only made huge profits by organizing the New York Convention and Exhibition, but also faintly controlled the lifeblood of thousands of stationery manufacturers in the United States, which made the stationery association both coveted and afraid, so it came up with this trick.

If you look at the cities chosen for the exhibition, you will understand that the Stationery Association is a point to lead the way, and eventually wants to surround New York.

Unfortunately, the messy scene at the Los Angeles Convention Center made Zhang Heng doubt their efforts.

Finally found the exhibition reception center located in a remote corner, Zhang Heng and several people showed a copy of the license, got the participation card, and entered the convention and exhibition center.

The 30th and 31st days are the time for exhibitors to set up the exhibition, and the venue is chaotic, the ground is full of various materials, and from time to time someone yells or rushes to the wolf.

From time to time, several people avoided the difficulty of walking through the venue, watching each of the labels hanging high, which confirmed the corresponding booth site.

Most of the exhibiting brands Zhang Heng have never heard of, it should be some small factories, but there are also many European and American brands that everyone has heard of or even heard of it.

In addition to 3M, there are CROSS, SANFORD, PARKER, DUNHILL, MAPED, MONTBLANC, HP, IBM, etc.

There are even RB manufacturers participating in the exhibition, Zhang Heng saw the brands of KOKUYO and Zebra, but unfortunately there is not a single Chinese brand, maybe there are products made by them to come here.

He stopped in front of the booths of HP and IBM for a long time, and most of the common office equipment that the other party was preparing to exhibit, such as copiers, printers, fax machines, office access control, etc., and the highly professional small computers and other equipment obviously would not be put on this kind of exhibition.

As soon as he left the booths of the two, Zhang Heng was attracted by a conspicuous "M" logo.

"Horses drag mules!" he couldn't help blurting out the joke of his previous life, and before the three men could understand it, he ran to the MOTOROLA booth with a smile.

Motorola presented a single-minded product: analogue technology walkie-talkies and pagers that provide solutions for effective communication among employees within the group.

Needless to say, the U.S. military and police are its big customers, including the Xiangjiang police, there are 73 countries and regions around the world military and police personnel use the company's military version of the product, the civilian version is widely used in the industrial and mining, adventure tourism and transportation industries, in recent years has become the favorite of countless civilian enthusiasts.

The earliest prototype of the latter was a taxi call system introduced in 1953, when it received voice signals.

Subsequently, Motorola focused on the development of miniaturized text signal receivers for the group's employee users, and successfully launched the first generation of mature products in '56, which was well received by employers and employees of large industrial construction groups and medical research institutions.

Until the 21st century, in various American dramas such as "Strange Doctor House" and "Emergency Room Story", people can still see scenes of doctors using pagers from time to time.

According to the on-site staff, next year, in 1973, the United States will officially open two frequencies of civilian paging channels.

The pager cigarette case is the size of a cigarette case, about the thickness of a cigarette case, and uses two No. 5 dry batteries to receive 24 bytes at a time, which are displayed on its small LCD display.

In order to let exhibitors understand its utility, Motorola even set up a temporary communication relay center in the convention and exhibition center.

Zhang Heng tried it out, and at the gate 200 meters away from the development stage, he successfully received the "Hello, HONGKONG!" from the booth staff.

The uncontrollable smiles on the faces of the on-site staff strongly conveyed a message: the pager has arrived in the spring of the United States.

Zhang Heng still clearly remembers that it will also be April next year, or Motorola, will show the world the first handheld mobile phone (mobile phone) in human history, DynaTAC 8000X.

Motorola's awesomeness in the communications industry, everyone will know in the future, but at this time, as the only person on the earth who understands its future, Zhang Heng, who has really come into contact with this company, has been in a state of confusion since he left their booth.

"Boss, look over there!Boss?" Bai Shaoyi's call woke Zhang Heng up, he shook his head and smiled.

Motorola is powerful, Daheng company is weak, in the short term can only watch these predators continue to launch products that change the world, but Daheng has its own, there are infinite possibilities, vain self-esteem can not change the status quo, only hard work, catch up is what you have to do.

Initial success of the post, arcade machines are just around the corner, and the Walkman project is about to launch......

I'm not doing badly, keep up the good work!

Smiling and cheering himself up, Zhang Heng looked at the place where Bai Shaoyi was pointing, and his eyes lit up.

On the two unmanned booths, there was a sign that read: "Temporarily idle".

PS: Friends, don't dislike Xifeng even less, to be honest, I wrote this chapter for nearly three hours, and dinner passed in the gourd of my wife's complaints.

The history of Motorola and the history of pagers, at that time, various stationery brands, Los Angeles Convention Center archives, I spent at least an hour and a half searching for information, not only through Wikipedia (Baidu is not accurate enough) to query the full English information, but also to look through a few books I specially bought.

I can responsibly say that most of the characters, products, buildings, time points, event details, and technical points in this book are all real and verifiable.

I know that some of the plots in this book are not mellow enough, which may be unpleasant to book lovers, but for the sake of Xifeng's hard writing, is it good to give a ticket?