Li Xuan got out of the elevator and walked towards the door, and along the way, employees kept saying hello to him, the big boss. Li Xuan walked to the door of the Dongfang Shi Yàn Building, and the distinguished guest he was waiting for had not yet come, so he simply stood at the door and waited for a while.

"Lao Cai, is the person standing at the door Li Sheng?" Li Jian was a little unconvinced, and asked his friend softly.

Li Jian lowered his head all the way, and when he heard his words, he raised his head and found that it was indeed their big boss standing at the door of the building, as if waiting for someone. So he nodded to Cai Jian, both of whom were teachers at Shanghai Jiaotong University before, and joined the Institute of Oriental Studies as the first batch of outstanding young scholars from the mainland to come to Hong Kong for exchange under the "Dongfanghong" project.

The two of them do not have the habit of drinking afternoon tea in Hong Kong, and they like to take advantage of this free time to go downstairs for a walk every afternoon and smoke a cigarette by the way. The working conditions of the Dongfang Shi Yàn Building are indeed like heaven, but for the two old smokers, the only dissatisfaction is that the entire building is non-smoking. If you want to smoke, you can only go to a special smoking room, which makes the newcomers very unaccustomed.

There are not a lot of old smoking guns in the room, and it is said that many people have jointly written a letter of complaint to the big boss Li Sheng for the ban on smoking. However, the complaint letter was returned, and the smoking ban continued.

After a long time, everyone found that their smoking addiction began to drop a lot. After all, if you can smoke directly at work, everyone will naturally light a cigarette to relieve fatigue. But if you have to go to the smoking room, it will not only be troublesome but also may not be time-sensitive. Unless it's a big addiction to smoking, I can't help it, otherwise everyone will get through it.

For example, when Li Jian first came last year, he still used to use one pack a day, but now it has been reduced to two or three sticks a day. Except in the afternoon, he would always go downstairs for a walk. Light a cigarette to change your mind and relax, and you can smoke it at other times. The addiction to smoking has basically been eliminated.

Instead, Li Jian seems to have become addicted to something else — coffee. When I first arrived at the graduate school last year. Like other teachers from the mainland, he found that what he learned in China was a little backward, and he was far from keeping up with the cutting-edge international technology. So they were ashamed and courageous, and they worked hard to recharge themselves, and everyone only slept six hours a day.

When he was a little sleepy from reading at night, he used unsweetened bitter coffee to refresh himself. After drinking too much coffee and getting used to the faint bitterness, I tasted the aroma and mellowness behind it, and gradually fell in love with this new drink.

Li Jian was even distressed for a while. What should he do when he returns to the mainland after his exchange is over? First of all, regardless of whether there is coffee sold in Huhai City, he cannot afford it even if he has a salary of several dozen yuan a month in China. Shanghai Jiaotong University is not as spacious as the Oriental Research Institute, not only three meals a day are provided for free, but also coffee, snacks, fruits, snacks, everything is enough.

And according to several other Hong Kong colleagues who have studied coffee to a certain extent, the coffee brewed in the pastry room of the real yàn building is made of high-quality coffee beans imported from South America. Li Jian wakes up with a smile every time he thinks about his current working conditions.

When the two entered the door, they greeted the big boss Li Xuan with some restraint, and Li Xuan smiled and nodded at them.

"It's still early, do you want to have a cup of coffee!" Li Jian raised his hand and looked at his watch. There are still more than ten minutes before the end of afternoon tea.

The untwisted quartz watch on his wrist was just bought before the Chinese New Year, and the Seagull mechanical watch, which he regarded as a treasure, was given to his brother when he returned home for the New Year. The Institute of Oriental Studies is very concerned about these exchange scholars from the mainland, and has granted 10 days of family leave during the Spring Festival. Colleagues from the logistics department also called the Xinhua branch in Hong Kong in advance and helped them buy round-trip train tickets. The Spring Festival holiday for local staff in Hong Kong is only four days.

"I can't get used to that stuff, when I was discussing it with you on the road. I have a new idea, and I have to go upstairs to write it down. Design a real yàn in a few days to verify it!" Cai Jian waved his hand at him and said, then strode towards the elevator.

Li Jian shook his head slightly. He thinks he has worked hard enough, but he still sighs to himself compared to Cai Jian, a workaholic. If it was usual, he would definitely order a cup of coffee and take it upstairs, but today he was a little curious about who the big boss standing at the door was waiting for.

"Who do you say Li Sheng is waiting for?" It seems that Li Jian is not the only one who is curious, several people sitting in the pastry room are also whispering and discussing, they saw Li Jian coming over with a cup of coffee, and couldn't help but ask him, "Li Jian, you just came in from outside, do you know who Li Sheng is waiting for?"

"I'm curious too?" Li Jian shook his head and sat down with them. Two of the three colleagues are two people and one is Taiwanese.

At first, they were discriminated against, but with their own efforts, they were able to close the knowledge gap with other researchers in a short period of time. Soon, he began to join various scientific research groups to play a role, and won the respect of others with his practical actions.

This is also what Li Jian and other exchange teachers are most proud of, they have not disgraced the motherland. Now when Li Jian chatted with these official staff of the Oriental Research Institute, he obviously did not feel the initial contempt, and everyone could be treated equally.

"It's the first time I've seen Li Sheng personally stand at the door to greet him, I guess it's a big shot!" one person guessed.

"Come in, I guessed right, it's a gringo!"

Another colleague pointed out the window and pointed out the lobby outside the glass window. The others looked up at the door and saw Li Xuan walking into the building with a tall white man, talking and laughing all the way.

"Huh, it's him?" Li Jian said softly.

"Who is this gringo? do you know?" asked several pairs of eyes staring at him.

Li Jian works in the ERM project team, and he saw a photo of this person a few days ago, so he nodded and said: "He is Professor John Hennessy of Stanford University in the United States, and the leader of the MIPS project!"

"Oh!" everyone suddenly realized.

Everyone in the building knows that one of the projects that the big boss Li Xuan values the most this year is the development of the MIPS architecture. Microprocessor research and development has always been the core business of Oriental Research Institute. The ERM-2 architecture under development is the highest priority project in the entire Oriental Real Yàn Building.

If the previous ABC-1 and ABC-2 computers laid a good foundation for Aikang to enter the personal computer industry, then the ABC-3 computer and portable ABC-P4 computer developed by relying on ERM-1 processor have completely established Aikang's hegemony in the field of personal computers.

On the second day of the New Year this year, Aikang officially announced that it had reached a settlement with IBM on the previous patent dispute. According to the terms of the settlement that were subsequently unearthed by the American newspapers, several patents involving the ERM architecture were not found to be infringing. IBM only required iKang to pay a licensing fee of $780,000 for another patent on the interface, and did not delve into the alleged infringement.

This price is much lower than the original speculation of the outside world, which also greatly enhances the image of Aikang. IBM's team of professional lawyers has not been able to catch the big handle on Aikang, and the technology of the ABC series of computers is trustworthy.

1982 can be regarded as the year of the explosion of the personal computer market, before the mainstream media continued to pay attention to the personal computer industry, so that the whole society has a great vision of electronic office in the information age. After President Ronald Reagan took office, a series of economic adjustment policies began to show results, and the US economy has ended its recession and began to grow slowly. The enthusiasm of enterprises to invest has increased, and the number of potential customers for computer products has begun to increase.

The price strangulation tactics of Japanese semiconductor companies have further escalated, and memory prices have begun to collapse. In the case of 64k memory, the price at the beginning of last year was $50 per piece, and now it is $5, which is only a tenth of what it was a year ago. And Japanese semiconductor companies have mastered the mature technology of 256K memory, which means that 128K memory is no longer an advanced technology, and the price has fallen by a third in just two months.

Expensive memory has always taken up a significant portion of the cost of computer hardware. Although Aikang did not reduce the price of computers after the memory price drop, it upgraded the memory configuration. The minimum standard configuration of ABC-3 has been increased from 128K memory when it was first launched to 1 memory, so as to better play the computing performance of ABC-3.

Under the combined effect of these factors, the sales of ABC-3 computers rose rapidly after entering 1982, exceeding 50,000 units per month. Even the suitcase-style ABC-P4 portable computer has exceeded 10,000 units per month in just a few months since it was launched at the end of last year. Combined with the sales of ABC-1 and ABC-2, Akon has deservedly become the leader in the personal computer market.

Outsiders see only superficial sales, while insiders can see that the ERM-1 processor plays an important role in this. It was this seemingly inconspicuous processor developed by the Oriental Research Institute that allowed the performance of Aikang's personal computers to rival that of any competitor.

And what kind of surprise will Li Xuan bring after the launch of MIPS, another processor architecture that Li Xuan also attaches great importance to? The performance of this new architecture is even better than the previous ERM architecture.

"John, you came at the right time! Aikang Company has just produced the first batch of workstation computer prototypes, and our real room is responsible for technical testing for them, do you want to go and see it?" Li Xuan asked with a smile.

"I knew it was going to be a great product, but I'm more concerned about something else. You said you were going to surprise me, I guess you didn't mean that, right?" John Hennessy asked, staring at Li Xuan with burning eyes. (To be continued......)