Chapter 004: Z80 Processor

Li Xuan was stunned for a moment, he didn't expect his boss to agree so lightly, in fact, his bottom line was 50,000 Hong Kong dollars, he originally thought that it would take a lot of words, but he didn't expect things to be much smoother than he imagined.

Huo Junming doesn't look very kind usually, in fact, as a shrewd businessman, he knows very well what to fight for and what not to fight. Compared with the millions of profits that can bring him every year by winning the agency, 100,000 yuan is just a small amount. Just as Li Xuan said before, he ate a large piece of meat by himself, and he didn't allow others to follow behind and drink a sip of broth?

In comparison, he doubted that Li Xuan could get out the Hanka he was talking about. But these are all things for later, and the most important thing now is to contact the Japanese company to get the exclusive agency distribution rights. Whether Li Xuan can drink the soup depends on his own ability, if it is really unreliable, he can spend more money to find a capable professional to make a Han card.

"Well, okay, Lao Xi, you are so refreshing, I am not ambiguous! You go to contact the Japanese Epson company now, and wait for them to reply to you, it is estimated that it will take a few days, I will hurry up to get the circuit design of Hanka ready, and you can also have a little more sincerity and confidence when you go to Japan to negotiate with the other party!" Li Xuan said loudly.

"Well, you are a young boy with a lot of ambition, don't let me down!" Before Li Xuan went out, Huo Junming said a word of encouragement behind his back.

"Vincent, what are you talking about with Lao Xi inside, why did you go in for so long?" Huo Junming's secretary Cao Yajing's desk was not far from the door.

"Company secrets, your level is too low to know!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

"Hmph, you'll just trick me. Be careful, I will secretly give you small shoes to wear in the future, and say bad things about you in front of Lao Xi every day!" Cao Jingya gave him a blank look.

"The amy I know is a kind and generous beautiful girl, how can she do such a dirty thing!" Li Xuan half leaned on the other party's table, and was not in a hurry to leave, "Otherwise, I'll buy you, please have afternoon tea!"

"Cut, it's not sincere at all! It's not that I was invited alone, everyone in the company has a share, you think I don't know!"

"Alas, other people's is just ordinary milk tea, but I invite you to pearl milk tea. Others only have pineapple buns, and you still have egg tarts, is it sincere enough!" Li Xuan got up to leave, and said as he walked.

"That's pretty much it!"

After Li Xuan and Cao Jingya laughed a few words, they returned to their positions. The military order he made in front of his boss just now, designing a Hanka is naturally not something that can be completed in a day or two.

In fact, he started to do it as early as half a month ago, and the core of Hanka is naturally a chip that stores a Chinese character library and can process Chinese character information. The second is the integrated circuit board that matches the chip design.

The printer designed by Li Xuan is ready to use the Z80 processor as the core. The chip was launched in 1976, and the Z80 was founded by several technicians who had quit Intel, and the chip was designed to be a copycat of Intel's 8080 processor.

As a result, Z80, the newly listed Li Ghost, beat Intel's genuine Li Kui, and the only killer feature is the price. At that time, the retail price of the 8080 chip was $150 each, and the price of the Z80 was $25.

The 8-bit chip Z80 was later selected as one of the 25 most shocking chips in history, and even in the 21st century, 30 years later, it still continues to glow with tenacious vitality on some low-end microcontrollers.

The reason why Li Xuan chose it, in addition to the consideration of cheap price, another important factor is that he is no stranger to the structure of this chip. When Li Xuan was in college, there were many Z80 single-board computers purchased in the nineties in the real yàn room that were idle and useless.

In a major assignment in a professional class, he also studied the feasibility of improving the backward Z80 single-board computer into an MCS-51 single-chip microcomputer. To this end, he spent half a semester doing various practical works, and finally wrote a complete thesis. Later, this paper was recommended by the teacher to be published in the natural science edition of the university's university journal. Therefore, Li Xuan is very familiar with the circuit structure and performance of Z80, and is naturally more handy when designing the corresponding circuit board.

Before Li Xuan's rebirth, he was engaged in the underlying design of embedded systems, and he had to be excellent in software programming and hardware design. Hardware design naturally includes the design of the circuit board. Designing a Hanka wasn't a difficult task for him, and compared to his work before he was reborn, the task was at best an entry-level difficulty.

But just because it's easy in theory doesn't mean it's easy in practice. In the 21st century, circuit design has already entered the stage of computer automation development, and various CAD and EDA auxiliary software are very handy. Back in 1979, commercial computer-aided software had not yet come out, and most of the design and wiring of integrated circuits were done manually.

Of course, if Li Xuan was in a large company like IBM and Intel, there would definitely be design software developed by those companies and large-scale computers for on-board simulation inspection. But Li Xuan is now fighting alone, which undoubtedly greatly increases the difficulty. Fortunately, the circuit diagram of this Hanka is not too complicated, and Li Xuan can barely cope with it.

As for the negotiation with the Japanese, it depends on whether the boss Huo Junming can say that he can successfully convince the other party. If he doesn't succeed, his efforts these days will be in vain. As for whether Huo Junming will turn his face and deny people after winning the distribution rights of Epson's MX-80 printer, Li Xuan thinks it is unlikely.

Based on his own observation since he joined the company, although the boss is more shrewd in business, he is not the kind of person who is calculating, and he is more decisive in doing things. This is also the reason why Li Xuan is willing to encourage him to go to Japan to talk about agency.

If the other party really kicked him away in the end, Li Xuan could only consider himself unlucky. Who called him that he was not strong enough and was not qualified to be a player, but could only be a small chip for others.

As for applying for a patent or something, this is not a very powerful invention, it is just a small application based on someone else's product. The design of the whole Chinese Hanka is very large, and it is based on the original Japanese Hanka in the Epson printer, and the line interface is also based on the printer's interface, so there is no value in opening this printer.

And from a certain Cheng dù, Li Xuan's Han card is suspected of plagiarizing other people's technology. If someone really wants to avoid his design, it is not difficult to redesign a Hanka.

So he didn't think about applying for a patent at all, after all, applying for a patent is not free, on the contrary, the cost is not cheap. Even if you apply for a patent in Hong Kong, it costs a few hundred dollars, and to apply for an international patent, you need to find a special agency, which costs at least thousands of dollars.