……

In the context of the rapid development of the IT industry dominated by microcomputers, the annual developer conference is divided into spring and autumn seasons, and it has become the most influential technical event in the industry at this stage.

Its content covers a wide range, from a specific technical implementation to an industry standard, and the final result can often even influence various standardization organizations in the United States and even at the international level, which can be said to be growing day by day.

Compared with the distractions caused by the debate and game of competition for standards at the macro level, most technical elites are more obsessed with the sense of achievement that can be brought by the functional application of technology at the micro level.

This autumn developer conference, focusing on the 32 architecture of the four generations of Fangyuan personal computers under development, further introduced the technical achievements to the participants.

Although IBM is aware of the importance of openness to personal computers, the actual operation is only reflected in the IBM-PC motherboard expansion slot, as well as the unintentional uncontrolled IBM-PC compatible machine tide, and the mind has not reached the level of Tang Huan, who brought people in the industry together and introduced and promoted the development of third-party products before the product was launched.

In fact, in high-end fields such as Fangyuan workstations and Fangyuan servers, Tang Huan is also similar to IBM in the research and development of "closed-door" methods, but in the area of Fangyuan personal computers, his attitude is very open and radical, which has attracted a large number of third-party developers to cheer.

Among these attendees are many large companies, and the new technologies used in Guy Circle's personal computers are often extended from the advanced technology of Radius workstations and Radius servers. There are a lot of opportunities.

For example, the theme of today's conference - the display subsystem of the four generations of Fangyuan personal computers. It is destined to stir up the pattern of the industry again. The importance shown by Tang Huan's appearance also illustrates this point.

The entire Fangyuan computer product line has a unified set of display standards, called VideoGraphicsStandard, that is, VGS. Among them, Fangyuan graphics workstation has the highest specifications, while the third generation of Fangyuan personal computer uses VGS version 2.0, which supports the highest resolution of 640×480 and the number of colors is 16.

The display subsystem specifications of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer have been upgraded to version 2.5 of VGS, and 640×480 has become the standard resolution, through the color index table. The number of supported display colors reaches 256.

The most basic beneficiary of this hardware enhancement is applications such as word processing.

On the VGS2.5 640×480 standard resolution screen, text mode supports 80×25 or 40×25 letters and numbers, 16 foreground colors and 8 background colors can be selected for each character's block area, and the characters themselves can be set to flicker or not.

Features such as these support make it possible to display text content in a richer way.

After introducing the features of VGS2.5, Tang Huan demonstrated it on the slideshow software PowerPresenter, and the audience could directly see the operation results on the big screen.

The demo is a third-generation Fangyuan PC, but with a new graphics card that fully supports VGS2.5. This kind of smooth transition can only be provided by the Fangyuan computer system. It not only breaks down the entire complex R&D plan into more user-friendly modules, but also makes it easier for third-party developers to set up development and testing platforms in a more timely manner.

VGS2.5 has a color table of 256 indexes, which is not fixed, which is also a powerful point compared to other types of personal computers such as IBM-PC, which can display only a fixed number of colors such as red, green, blue, black, white, yellow, etc., while the former's group of 256 colors can be designated as any color.

The reason is that VGS2.5 uses 6 binary bits to represent each channel of red, green, and blue, that is, the 6th power of each with 2 equals 64 combinations, and the three primary colors are further combined to form 64×64×64=262144 colors, and the 256 colors of the color table can be selected among these 262144 colors.

In order to illustrate the power of this color palette, Tang Huan used the bitmap program that comes with the operating system to demonstrate, and pointed out some programming skills that are very useful for the game screen effect.

After the introduction of this stage, everyone in the audience threw out their own questions in the most popular interactive session.

Tang Huan couldn't answer them all, seeing that there were a lot of people who cared about the graphical user interface operating system, he expressed his opinion.

"It has been the consensus of the industry that the graphical user interface is the general trend of the development of personal computer operating systems. But I don't know if you have thought about what elements must be possessed of a graphical user interface operating system that is both functional and cost-effective? I think that collaborative multitasking, memory protection, and so on are indispensable. Judging from the current level of development of the IT industry, it is clear that everyone is not ready. The forerunners that have emerged are good examples. ”

Although Tang Huan did not name names, everyone in the audience naturally thought of Apple's Lisa computer and MAC. The former supports advanced features such as multitasking, but it is too inefficient to entice users to pay $10,000 for it, while the latter does not support multitasking, not even hard drives, and the price is reduced to a quarter, but the efficiency is just as poor.

"Tang, it is said that there is already a prototype of the GUI operating system in Zheru's R&D center, I wonder when it will be showcased? Or do you think when the practical GUI operating system will be widely available?" asked the participants with great interest.

"We do work on a graphical user interface operating system. After answering the first question lightly, Tang Huan quickly moved on to the second question, "As for when the practical graphical user interface operating system will be popular." I think. It depends on when the microprocessor vendor will be able to provide a CPU that is powerful enough. ”

Speaking of which. Tang Huan raised his finger and pointed at the Logo on the big screen, "The fourth generation of Fangyuan personal computers has opened the era of 32-bit personal computers, which is only the first step, and the next step is to popularize the practical graphical user interface operating system, because the 32-bit architecture provides more computing performance." ”

Speaking of this, Tang Huan smiled slightly, "I understand everyone's expectations for the graphical user interface operating system, but in fact, this does not affect our development of graphical user interface applications." FeeDOS's shell program, as well as office software such as spreadsheet CGrid, word processing WordEasy, PowerPresenter, etc., all provide mouse-driven graphical user interfaces. ”

"It's too difficult to develop, and for some software projects, the gains outweigh the losses. "For example, when we make a game, we naturally need to focus on the game itself, and we can't focus on the graphical user interface. ”

"The fourth generation of Fangyuan personal computers will provide a framework that will make it easier to develop graphical user interface programs. Tang Huan casually tapped on the keyboard a few times, and the content of the slides changed, "Including a more powerful BIOS." There is also an OS-level software package. However, the topic will be introduced by someone else. What I'm going to talk about next has to do with video games on the Radius PC platform. ”

"VGS2.5 defines how the digital video signal inside the host computer and the analog video signal of the display are converted, and for programs like video games, there is only a better visual display platform, but the digital video data processing that takes place inside the host computer is still heavily dependent on the CPU to calculate. ”

"If we can provide an acceleration mechanism that reduces the burden on the CPU, so that it has more resources to process the game AI, then I believe the gaming experience will be even better. ”

This acceleration mechanism is implemented on the Fangyuan graphics workstation through the 2D accelerated graphics card on the hardware side and the OpenGraphicsLibrary on the software side - the open graphics library is OpenGL. ”

"2D accelerated graphics cards can directly implement functions such as drawing squares, lines, and circles in hardware, as well as functions such as area filling and block image transfer, and OpenGL defines a cross-programming language, cross-platform API specification for generating 2D images. It's similar to floating-point arithmetic, and while it can be implemented entirely in software, hardware acceleration is the full power of it. ”

"With the maturity of this acceleration mechanism, we are now ready to introduce it to the Fangyuan PC platform to bring revolutionary convenience to video game development. ”

Tang Huan talked eloquently on the stage, and everyone in the audience listened attentively, occasionally a thought flashed in his heart in the gap, "The four generations of Fangyuan personal computers are supported by these high-end technologies, and it seems that they are really going to open an era." ”

Tang Huan will not be like IBM, in order to distinguish between high, medium and low-end products, and let the research and development of personal computer products be restricted. No matter who is missing, the earth will continue to rotate. If you rest on your laurels, others will naturally see the opportunity to surpass it, so it is better to seize the initiative in your own hands.

What's more, in the era of microcomputers, there are also many ways to divide the high, medium and low-end of products, and they can be operated on indicators such as running frequency, cache size, parallel linewidth, etc.

Therefore, Tang Huan has never worried that this practice will lift a stone and shoot himself in the foot, and his family will compete with each other for jobs.

After introducing the theme of VGS2.5 and 2D acceleration, Tang Huan picked up the remote control and pressed it, the projector he occupied gave up the big screen, and the staff began to prepare to play a promotional video.

I have to mention that the complete set of solutions for the modern office automation system created by Tang Huan has been basically completed.

Laser printers, dot matrix printers, inkjet printers, scanners, modems, digital fax machines, projectors, etc., as well as spreadsheets, word processing, slides, and databases in software. Naturally, the money is rolling in.

Watching Tang Huan use a mouse and a remote control on the stage, he completed a lot of routine operations, so chic that it was indescribable, and many people in the audience drooled with envy, and involuntarily turned to the idea of going back to mobilize the company to purchase a set of office automation equipment.

Soon, as the background music sounded, everyone's chaotic thoughts were swept away by the majestic melody. The distant sound of the trumpet at the beginning seems to present a historical picture of swallowing mountains and rivers in front of them.

Under the instruction of Tang Huan, this "Dawn of Heroes" was composed by Hu Weili, performed by the Xiangjiang Orchestra and the Xiangjiang Chinese Orchestra, and the chorus of the Xiangjiang Academy of Performing Arts.

Compared with this magnificent "Dawn of Heroes", although the promotional film of "Three Kingdoms" is excellent, Tang Huan is not satisfied, he knows that this is due to the high vision generated by the information asymmetry advantage he has, so he is not nitpicky and embarrassed for his subordinates.

The hot screening of "Phantom of the Tomb: Wrath of the Dragon Emperor" made many people recognize the beacon scene in the promotional film at a glance, which is ancient China, and the accompanying introduction made them understand that this is the Three Kingdoms era in Chinese history.

Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan rose together, one Lu, two Zhao, three Dianwei, four passes, five horses, and six Zhang Fei, and the famous generals were like clouds; coupled with the strategic strategies of Zhuge Liang and other strategists, they laid a natural and strong foundation for the game.

After the promotional video was played, Tang Huan said with a smile: "EA's latest game "Three Kingdoms" supports both the second-generation Xiaobawang game console and the third-generation and above Fangyuan personal computers, and the picture of Fangyuan personal computers running games in the short film is achieved by the third-generation Fangyuan personal computers with graphics cards that support VGS2.5 and 2D acceleration. ”

"It should be clear that the image quality of "Three Kingdoms" is very good, and this is the credit of hardware acceleration. With a lightened CPU, it is possible to execute more interesting game AI, so the playability of Three Kingdoms is also very high. ”

"In a few days, COMDEX, "Three Kingdoms" and 2D accelerated graphics cards will be officially launched. If you are interested, you can personally experience the phased new technological achievements of these four generations of Fangyuan personal computers. (To be continued.) )