Although Andy Grove is known for his stubborn temper, he can only pretend to be soft in front of Tang Huan, because Intel is really at a loss at this point.

"Since you have so many concerns, let's compare the previous Intel 8086, Intel continues to set up a second supplier for the Intel 80286. Andy Grove smiled and promised, "I'll still give you a license, so you can rest assured." In addition, we have not slackened in increasing our production capacity. ”

"If that's the case, the development of a personal computer using Intel80286 is less of a serious worry. Tang Huan's face slowed down and nodded.

However, with the increasing complexity of CPU architectures, the R&D progress of third-party manufacturers will still lag significantly even if they are officially authorized.

Originally, in the era before Intel introduced the Pentium microprocessor, AMD's similar knockoffs were often about a year behind the market.

Therefore, in this time difference, passivity is still obvious, but I can only believe in Intel's discipline.

In fact, in terms of business ethics, Intel in this period is still remarkable. For example, it imposes a restriction on itself not to enter areas that compete with customers.

The specific performance is the personal computer market, there is no shortage of processor manufacturers, seeing customers take their own microprocessors, assemble products that are welcomed by the market and make a fortune, so they enter the industry with their heels.

After launching a highly successful microprocessor MOS6502, MOSTechnology was acquired by Commodore due to financial difficulties.

As a result, this company went from CPUs, memory to PCs. A complete vertical system has been formed. Since CommodorePET, Apple's Apple II, and Tangdi's TRS-80 have pushed the development of personal computers into the second stage. Marketing is becoming more and more aggressive.

This year, Commodore released a new eight-bit personal computer, the Commodore64, with a good hardware configuration, but the price is only $595, and there are cheaper PCs in the product line, which is completely aimed at killing other cheap low-end computers in this category.

As a result, Apple's Apple IIe now doesn't source MOS6502 directly from MOSTechnology, but instead opts for Synertek's compatible CPUs, a second source.

Another unkind CPU manufacturer is Texas Instruments. As early as the early 1970s, when the computer market was hot, it grabbed this market by users who used their own microprocessors, and while providing chip sales prices, it fought a price war for calculators and squeezed the living space of competitors.

Today, in the field of personal computers, Texas Instruments plays the same role. It and Commodore are in the low-end market below $500, and they fight to the death.

And these two companies are even more incompatible. Home video game consoles in this price period are the target of fire, and most of the CPUs used in such products are their products.

It is not difficult to guess what kind of chaos the market will be if Intel also takes advantage of the vertical integration of CPU, memory, and personal computers to join the battle group.

Tang Huan is very disdainful of the business strategy of Kangmaoda and Texas Instruments, relying on the advantages of industrial integration, shopping hard in the low-end market, in addition to the seemingly considerable sales volume, how much actual profit can be spoken.

Moreover, limited by the current level of development of the semiconductor industry, the low-end products at this time are far away from the low-end products that can be evaluated as "enough" decades later in the original time and space, and it is simply to fool curious but uninformed consumers with garbage.

Thinking about the two CPU manufacturers that brought huge market pressure to their Xiaobawang game consoles, and then looking at Andy Grove in front of him, Tang Huan is not so resentful of Intel.

Therefore, with the harmonious atmosphere of the talks, Tang Huan made a clear statement, "Intel wants to get the unavoidable bugs in the early days of Intel80286 as soon as possible, and we have also begun to develop personal computers with Intel80286 processors, as for the compiler, we will naturally not forget." ”

Speaking of this, Tang Huan smiled playfully, "I want to see if it's my speed or IBM's speed." ”

"It doesn't matter which of you is fast. Intel has benefited from both drought and flood. Andy Grove, with a smile on his face, thought to himself.

After Andy Grove took his leave satisfied, Tang Huan called his cheap student Anders Halesberg over and instructed him on the compiler.

After the release of TurboPASCAL, Anders Halesberg established himself as a young man, and seeing that he was completely convincing, Tang Huan made him the head of the programming tool software department.

Support for Intel80286 is nothing more than support for new instructions, especially the exception handling mechanism, you know, this is a good thing, with it, the crash of the program will be obviously controllable.

But that's where the difficulty ends, after all, the Intel 80286 is far from earth-shaking in terms of architectural changes, and Anders Halesberg gladly accepted it.

The research and development of personal computers using Intel80286 naturally had to be undertaken by the R&D center, and Tang Huan just had a meeting in the past to solve it.

The reason why it is so weighty is that the system of the second-generation Fangyuan computer, that is, the standard, is not an empty word.

The focus of this upgrade is mainly reflected in the research and development of the north-south bridge chip matched with Intel80286, and then the BIOS and operating system can follow up, and other hardware architectures such as buses do not need to be changed for the time being.

Of course, the more difficult technical difficulties are not without them, and the main problem is the biggest improvement of the Intel 80286 - the two modes of operation it provides: real mode and protection mode.

Intel didn't realize it. How ingrained is the stickiness of software. That is, compatibility with older versions of application code. Becoming increasingly important.

Although Intel80286 still supports the real mode of Intel8086, it cannot be switched back after switching to the protection mode unique to Intel80286, and the protection mode itself is not fully compatible with real mode.

Originally, Intel also realized that it was taking this upgrade transition too seriously, so it added a virtual protection mode to solve this problem in the later Intel80386.

The BIOS of the second-generation Fangyuan computer is far more advanced than the BIOS of the IBM-PC, for example, there is no fixed number for the definition of the purpose of the higher part of the memory address space like the latter. Thus avoiding a lot of deficiencies, theoretically speaking, the standard of the second-generation Fangyuan computer can be achieved without the difference between the real mode and the protection mode.

However, in terms of specific implementation, for the inherent features such as memory addressing methods within the CPU, the second-generation Fangyuan computer standard is still inevitably limited by the same restrictions as IBM-PC, and has to make some adjustments specific to Intel's CPU.

Fortunately, compared to IBM-PC, which is congenitally deficient in design, these technical problems are much easier to solve, and after Tang Huan pointed out, he turned his attention to the ComputerGraphics-computer graphics function of Fangyuan's personal workstation.

Specifically, it's VFX processing in a variety of categories. and Computer Animation.

Just like for CAD, Tang Huan established a satellite company, Autodesk, which specializes in operating AutoCAD software products. For this purpose, he also founded another satellite company, DigitalDomain, the Digital Domain, or D2.

Spielberg has finished filming "E.T. Alien", and the newly formed D2, together with Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic, has taken on the task of special effects.

An "E.T. Extra-Terrestrial" is not much work for Spielberg, so he still has time to write and shoot a horror film "Poltergeist" for MGM - "Poltergeist" - "Poltergeist", and gradually began to get on the orbit of D2, taking on more special effects tasks.

James Cameron, who is actively preparing for the filming of "The Terminator", has contributed a lot to the improvement of D2's business capabilities.

In addition to VFX, computer animation is also a big business for D2.

However, even though Tang Huan frequently turned on the golden finger of the tech maniac, Fang Yuan's personal workstation still lacked the performance of computer graphics, and could not achieve the level of complete computer animation like the movie "Toy Story" released in 1995 in the original time and space.

This is the objective reality, no matter how powerful Tang Huan is, he can't get rid of the shackles of this basic rule of the world.

Therefore, Tang Huan's goal for D2 is to first become an effective auxiliary to traditional animation, stop-motion animation and other animation methods, and to find a breakthrough in computer animated short films, and finally to the original time and space in the movie "Who Framed Rabbit Roger" in 1988 The technical height of the cooperation between two-dimensional animated characters and real actors is the first stage of the goal.

Currently, D2 has completed two computer-animated short films, both of which are commercials for EA.

The first is the animation of "Street Fighter", which mainly shows the excitement of Chinese kung fu, and the effect is self-explanatory. It's just like in the original time and space. Blizzard's amazing CG for "Warcraft 3" has aroused the same worldwide admiration.

Although the game can't make the character of the warrior monk to such a vivid degree, the shape is there, and this advertising short film greatly aroused the audience's interest, making Street Fighter the most popular arcade game of the moment.

This may have something to do with the current economic situation in the United States, because there is no improvement in sight, people subconsciously need a simple way to relieve stress, and the very percussive "Street Fighter" has become a good choice at the right time, knocking out opponents to the sound of dynamic music, and briefly escaping reality.

The popularity of Street Fighter can be seen in the fact that players on the Little Fighter console platform have repeatedly asked EA when they will launch a version of the home video game console.

Of course, these players are doomed to be disappointed, and the graphics acceleration module of the current Xiaobawang game console is not as powerful as the Xiaobawang arcade machine, and it cannot provide the hardware performance required by "Street Fighter" for the time being.

And in Tang Huan's view, even if the home video game console version of "Street Fighter" can be launched now, it may not be more effective than waiting for the industry to crash in the entire North American market.

D2's second advertising video was used to help the Xiaobawang game console fight back against the low-end computers of companies such as Commodore, because of the marketing slogan "Instead of buying a game console that can only play games, you should buy a personal computer that can play games and study at the same time", which is really disgusting.

Inspired by the Chinese allusion to "painting a tiger doesn't become an anti-dog", this short advertising campaign is used to fight back, and it is a mockery of a low-end computer like Kangmaoda, which seems to be both gaming and learning, but in fact it is not a delay, and it is a completely foolish marketing method for the layman.

The novel content production method of computer animation naturally attracted people's attention to a great extent again, making EA slap the competitor hard.

Commodore has no power to fight back against this, because the video effect of the 1982 version of the Xiaobawang game console has reached the level of the current average arcade machine - not including its own Xiaobawang arcade machine - and their low-end cheap personal computer is indeed much more amateurish in comparison.

However, Commodore was as aggressive in its marketing as ever, and it immediately announced that it would reduce the price of the Commodore64, which was released only this year, by $100.

Seeing this scene, Texas Instruments immediately reacted-for-tat and lowered the price of the product corresponding to the Commodore64 by $100.

In this market, where home video game consoles and low-end cheap personal computers coexist, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a bloody battle and a lot of sorrow, depending on which one cannot withstand such a fierce price war and is the first to go out.

This shows how powerful this short film in the form of computer animation has triggered a chain reaction in the market.

At present, D2 is working on another challenging task assigned by Tang Huan. (To be continued......)