The power of the classics is endless, and even with the humble hardware of the PC, "Cube" quickly stood out among EA's eight debut games, selling more than 150,000 units in less than a month. Zhang Lexing has never doubted the appeal of the "Cube" game, but it is not a good way to always repeat other people's ideas, and Zhang Lexing feels that it is necessary to make some innovative games, so that he can also make some accumulation for his future plans.

"What should you do?" Zhang Lexing sat at his desk, staring at a PC and thinking hard.

"Action games? no, the performance of the machine is too average, and it is estimated that it is similar to slow motion. Shooters?, the ending is pretty much the same as an action game. Role-playing games (RPGs) are made, but the picture is expected to be miserable. The requirements for the picture are relatively low, but according to the current speed of the machine, it is estimated that it will be slow and scary. Alas......"

Zhang Lexing lowered his head in distress, and the mouse on the desktop came into view. Speaking of this mouse,It's rare to be able to use it after buying it back,Although the latest version of the Kylin operating system has begun to support the mouse,But there is no application software to consider the mouse,As a result, Zhang Lexing can only experience a long-lost movement and clicking feeling in a few small programs that come with the Kylin system。

"Since there is no software that supports the mouse yet, why don't I make a game that supports the mouse, and I can also consider talking to the mouse manufacturer about bundling. With a flash of inspiration in his mind, Zhang Lexing suddenly thought of a good idea.

Of course, games that are too complicated must not be considered, and with the poor resolution of the CGA graphics card, it is impossible to make too detailed game graphics. After going through the game in his mind, Zhang Lexing remembered a game in his previous life that was claimed to be the world's largest installed base and the largest number of people who had played - "Minesweeper", which was a very small game at that time, but if you get it now, it is estimated that it can also fill the scene, and more importantly, this game is relatively simple to do.

Zhang Lexing took out a few blank pieces of paper and began to design "Minesweeper" on them. Zhang Lexing divided the difficulty of "Minesweeper" into three levels: elementary, intermediate, and advanced, in fact, there should have been a custom level, but after considering the resolution of the CGA graphics card, he had to give up. The area with a primary setting of 9×9 has 10 mines, the area with an intermediate setting of 16×16 has 40 mines, and the area with an advanced setting of 16×30 has 99 mines. Mines are randomly placed at each start, and players can eliminate or mark them by clicking on the mouse, and if they are found, they will pass the level. As for the most attractive part of "Minesweeper" - the ranking, Zhang Lexing did not forget to add it. Even the game interface Zhang Lexing drew it casually, after all, it was too familiar and too simple.

With the written game setting, Zhang Lexing came to his PC game development team, and the interesting setting immediately made the developer interested. After a few days of hard work with the mouse, the development team easily got the game, and the idle artist also beautified the monotonous game interface, and a boring programmer estimated that he had seen too much of "Dungeons & Dragons", and also made a similar game background. When Zhang Lexing saw the final product, he found that this was no longer the simple game in his memory, and after a group of people's tossing, he now began to look like a serious game.

The game is made, if you want to sell it through the retail market, Zhang Lexing estimates that it will definitely be the end of the direct street, after all, the mouse is not too popular now. Fortunately, VisualSystem has also accumulated some contacts in recent years, with the help of Yang Xinxin, "Minesweeper" successfully negotiated a bundle with several mouse manufacturers, in fact, this is also a win-win thing, with software to help the mouse is more acceptable to users, Zhang Lexing does not have to worry about the sales of "Minesweeper".

Soon, the mouse bundled with "Minesweeper" appeared on the market, and the interesting and challenging game mode began to drive the sales of the mouse, and many users also started a new operating experience, this trend also attracted the attention of many software companies, and even some companies began to try to introduce mouse operation into their own products, of course, VisualSystem is naturally at the forefront.

……

Time magazine, published in early 1983, broke with convention and chose a machine instead of a human as its "Man of the Year" for the first time. Time magazine wrote: "Sometimes, it is not one person but a process that is most influential in a year, and there is a general consensus in society that this process will change all other processes." …… As a result, Time magazine selected PC as the Person of the Year in 1982", and the PC landscape was like no other.

Behind the scenery there is often an unknown bitterness, PC has brought a huge influence to IBM, but it has also brought IBM a lot of compatible machine manufacturers to follow the trend, constantly competing for IBM's market share. Estlic was not worried about all this, because he had been prepared. At the beginning of March, IBM's long-brewing counterattack began, and the long-planned IBM-PC/XT (named after eXtendedTechnology) machine was launched, with 128kB of memory as standard, 8 expansion slots and a 10MB hard disk, pre-installed with Kylin 1.2 system that supports hard disks. As soon as the new machine was launched, it was loved by business users, and with the PC/XT, IBM's market zhan rate exceeded 76%, squeezing Apple out of the microcomputer hegemony in one fell swoop.

After the success of the PC/XT machine, Estlic was very proud, not only did Apple's throne not be secured, but those pesky compatible fleas were not as happy as before. But what he didn't expect was that due to the boom of PCs, the bureaucrats at IBM headquarters began to focus on his territory.

So under the banner of attaching importance to the PC business, the PC branch was established, and Estrich was promoted to president, but it was not as free as in the past, and any major decisions needed to be approved by IBM headquarters before they could be implemented. After the establishment of the PC branch, the bureaucrats at the headquarters began to put on a show, first giving the first order that they thought they were clever - to develop a simplified model of the PC, and the reason was simply that the bureaucrats looked at the report in the office and analyzed the conclusions: " As a simplified version of the mainframe computer, the PC is selling well in the market of commercial users, so the corresponding household market with no high requirements for computers as high as the commercial market should also be able to accept a simplified model of the PC, as long as the sales strategy is appropriate, we will open a huge new market......"

Based on this logic, after the PC/XT, IBM began to develop a new model, the PCjr, nicknamed "Peanut", specifically for the emerging home market. In order to make the new machine acceptable to price-sensitive home users, IBM designed PCjr with a low-cost concept, resulting in a hardware platform that was completely incompatible with the PC. As a low-cost computer, the PCjr comes with a 62-key IR wireless/wired keypad made of hard plastic keys. The keyboard can not only communicate with the host computer through the infrared port, but can also be connected like a normal keyboard using a wired mode.

Estlic wasn't interested in this kind of whimsy, but after all, he was nominally in charge of the PC branch, and if PCjr's final results were not good, he would not look good. There was no way, although there was still some reluctance, and Estlic could only force himself to help PCjr find more support. PCjr's operating system has been developed by VisualSystem, but home computers obviously can't have only one operating system, but also need a large number of home-friendly applications to support. In addition to family property management, the most interested should be game software, so he set his goal on Zhang Lexing's PC game development team, although PCjr and PC are not fully compatible, but at least there are some similarities, after all, there are too few companies engaged in PC game development these years.

In this case, Estlic brought his subordinates and, of course, a PCjr engineering prototype to visit Zhang Lexing's PC game development team.

"Mr. Zhang, I didn't expect you to be so versatile, not only can you play the operating system, but also do a good job in game development. The PC version of "Blocks" that you launched some time ago is very fun, and even many people in our company have become block fans. "As soon as Estlic met, he threw a top hat over.

"Thank you for the compliment, I wonder if Mr. Estlic came over in person?" Zhang Lexing knew that his company had a good relationship with IBM's PC branch, but it was not so good that he came to the door without incident.

"Hehe, it's not for PCjr. Estlic chuckled dryly, his expression a little embarrassed.

"Isn't the operating system development agreement already signed? The development team has also gone to work at your IBM, and I haven't seen them myself for two months, so if you want to catch up with the progress, I'm afraid you're in the wrong place." Zhang Lexing felt very strange, this Estlic was busy and dizzy.

"It's not an operating system," Estlic quickly explained, "I came this time to hope that Mr. Zhang could develop a game specifically for our PCjr, which can fully demonstrate its 16-color display effect, as well as the advantages of three-channel and 128K large memory." ”

"It's not a big deal, but you should at least let me know what PCjr is like, and even though we developed the operating system, who told you to keep it too secret. Zhang Lexing felt that it should not be difficult to develop a game, and now his PC game development team has attracted many experienced developers to invest after the success of "Cube", and his technical strength has increased a lot.

"No problem, I also brought one this time, and some development materials, you can study it carefully. Estlic had his men bring the PCjr engineering prototype and set it up on an empty table in the studio, with the development materials piled up next to the PCjr.

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