In October 1980, Seagate's new generation of hard drives was released, and this hard drive was different from the previous generation, which was a 5.25-inch hard drive, which quickly spread in the market as soon as it was launched.

Oranges USA has been paying attention to the U.S. hard drive market, and Seagate's new generation of hard drives has just been launched, so I bought two and sent them to Hong Kong.

Looking at the two hard disks that had just been sent back, Li Yixuan sighed in his heart, the inertia of history is really strong, Seagate is still back on the track of 5.23, it seems that he is not going to compete with Li Yixuan in the 3.5-inch hard disk market.

Dismantle the hard drive case, the internal structure inside is flawless, this is a typical micro Winchester structure, the capacity is 20MB, the speed is 3600 rpm, the interface is ST412, the number of platters is 2, it has four heads, the weight reaches 5 pounds, and the market retail price is $1600.

Obviously, this hard drive is aimed at small computer users, in the era of the personal computer market has not ushered in a big explosion, the number of small and medium-sized computers in the market is the largest, Seagate is aimed at this market.

Obviously, Alan Shugart's calculation succeeded, and in the small computer and medium-sized hard disk market, Li Yixuan could not help but admit that he could not compete with him. In the original history, Seagate relied on the small computer hard disk market to accumulate the first pot of gold. In just over 10 days, Seagate received orders for more than 40,000 units. And with the development of time, its orders will always be steadily upward.

This is a turning point for Seagate, holding back for so long to release a big move, and it succeeded, and survived, which is enough to make Seagate cry with joy.

"Son, why don't we launch a 5.25-inch hard drive." Zhang Guifang saw Seagate's 5.25-inch hard drive conquering the market everywhere, and her eyes were red.

Li Yixuan was a little moved, but after thinking about it carefully, he still refused, "Mom, 5.25-inch hard disk and 3.5-inch hard disk are two thoughts. If we want to produce 5.25-inch hard drives, we need to put in a completely new production line, and it will take one year to put them on the market at the earliest. ”

"Then just give up the small form factor hard drive market?" Zhang Guifang said unwillingly.

Li Yixuan said: "At present, DEC is the overlord in the small computer market, followed by HP, and the interface data of ST412 DEC is not open to the public, if we want to enter this market, we must negotiate with DEC to obtain the interface data of ST412." However, to obtain the interface data authorization of DEC, it is impossible to get it without two or three years of negotiation time, and even if we get the authorization, we will pay a great price, and the gains outweigh the losses. That's why I know that the market for small form factor hard drives is much larger than the PC hard drive market, but I haven't launched a 5.25-inch hard drive. A barrier to entry alone is not something we can get into. ”

Zhang Guifang was dumbfounded, she didn't expect such a thing, "Then why doesn't DEC disclose the interface data of ST412?" And how did Seagate get the interface data? ”

Li Yixuan looked at his mother and smiled: "Why didn't you announce it?" Of course, he wants to monopolize, DEC's Olson, like IBM's Watson father and son, was born in the era of the American monopoly, and they are all monopolistic ideas, even if DEC does not make small machine hard drives, it will also want to enter the field of companies in several layers of skin. As for Seagate, I think Alan Shugart must have paid a big price. ”

Zhang Guifang pursed her mouth, she felt that these American companies were insatiable.

Li Yixuan then comforted her: "Don't worry, this monopoly situation of DEC company will not last long, Seagate's success in small computer hard disks has also attracted the attention of giants like IBM, and it will not be long before he enters the market in this field." ”

Historically, IBM released its first small form factor hard disk in 1981 with a capacity of 100MB, and then Quantum, Fujitsu, Diaton, Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC and other companies will also enter.

These companies also face the same problem as Seagate, which is the ST412 interface data problem, but Toshiba and Fujitsu have teamed up with IBM to come up with a new interface, STA 212, which is fully compatible with DEC's ST412.

DEC's plate is passive, and the two sides will definitely fight, and then it will be a protracted marathon lawsuit, and it was not until the US Supreme Court in '87 that IBM was victorious. Only at that time can we enter the small computer hard disk market without any scruples.

It was not until 1987 that Li Yixuan sneered, and the number of personal computers in the United States must not be smaller than that of the minicomputer market, so why should I enter it? It's better to stay in the PC market all the time.

The minicomputer will eventually be introduced; Small form factor hard drives will eventually be replaced by 3.5-inch hard drives for personal computers. This is history that no one can change.

Staying honest in the PC hard drive market is the best choice for Oranges.

"So Mom, we don't have to envy Seagate. There is an old saying that it is better to retreat and close the net than to envy the fish in the abyss. We have been working quietly in the 3.5-inch hard drive market, and when the personal computer market explodes, we will rely on our previous word-of-mouth advantage, and Oranges will definitely soar. ”

Zhang Guifang was completely convinced of Li Yixuan's analysis, "Then what should we do next?" ”

"The next step should be handheld and 16-bit computers." Li Yixuan said with a smile.

"Don't consoles do it?"

"Yes, but not an 8-bit host, it's a 16-bit host." Li Yixuan replied: "In order not to let the game console rob the market of the Oranges I computer, we have endured not to launch the game console in the past few years, and now after two years of development, the market of the Oranges I computer has been stabilized, and it is time to consider launching our own game console, but this will be put in the end, I plan to launch the handheld first, Tetris handheld." After a few years, the cartridge chip capacity will be larger, and the price will be lower, and then the GB handheld with replaceable cartridge will be launched, and the color will be directly on the OLED screen. ”

"OLED screen! Are you taking too many steps? Zhang Guifang was surprised.

"It's not big, it's not big at all." Li Yixuan shook his head and said.

In fact, with Li Yixuan's character, he doesn't want to step directly into the OLED screen at all, but there is no way, the basic patent of the traditional LCD screen has always been in the hands of RB's NEC and RCA in the United States, and Li Yixuan has no chance to get involved. Buy from them, at this time, the LCD screen is expensive and the screen is small, and it is better to do it yourself after thinking about it.

In 1963, RCA's Optel laboratory successfully made the first generation of LCD screens, that is, the first generation of NT-LCD LCD screens. However, because RCA did not pay attention to NT liquid crystal and thought that he had no market prospects, it sold all the technology to RB's NEC, that is, Sharp.

Unexpectedly, Sharp used NT as the display screen for electronic watches, and officially released it to the world in 1971, and it was a great success.

Next, RB Casio released the world's first LCD screen calculator in 1973; Panasonic also used NT LCD as the central control display of video recorders, and both were very successful.

At this time, RCA regretted that it was too late, RB had already established a series of patent pools around LCD LCD, and RCA had no chance at all. So I put the idea on the new generation of SNT-LCD liquid crystal.

But what RCA didn't expect was that Sharp launched the second generation of NT-LCD liquid crystal in 1978, and launched SNT-LCD two years later, and what made RCA desperate was that Sharp announced the news of TNT-LCD liquid crystal research and development to the world in the second half of the year after the launch of SNT liquid crystal, that is, in October 1980.

RB has already established a large number of patents in LCD technology, and Li Yixuan has the opportunity to enter, so he can only pin his hopes on OLED LCD.

As early as two years ago, he had plans to apply for OLED patent technology, and when all the OLED basic patent applications are completed, he will release the news of OLED liquid crystal to the world.

Why not apply all at once, divided into several years? The reason is simple, he doesn't want to repeat the mistakes of Wang An back then.

When Wang An invented the magnetic core memory, the US Patent Office never approved it. Later, due to the solidarity of the academic community, the patent office had to approve Wang's patent, on the premise that the promising technology with a market value of billions of dollars a year would be sold to IBm.

If Li Yixuan was like Wang An, he waited until he got the OLED liquid crystal to apply for a patent, and the final result would be the same as Wang An. So he had to resort to this seemingly very stupid approach.

And in order not to irritate Western countries, he also turned OLED liquid crystal into monochrome liquid crystal, which is no different from NT liquid crystal from the appearance, and it does not have the ability to bend the screen, and it does not have the function of backlight at night.

In this way, the US Patent Office would only think that Oranges had just implemented NT-LCD liquid crystal in a different way.

To put it bluntly, Li Yixuan played a trick, using the cover of Sharp's SNT liquid crystal to change the name of OLED to darken Chen Cang.