Chapter 138: Sam Threesome

Matthew was the most eloquent of them all, and he was very knowledgeable. On the phone, he said that he was a hardcore user of Texas Instruments, since even his father was an old Texas user. He bluntly stated that he was attending a Latin school, and that he was currently working on an electronic project on calculators, and that the TI-82 calculator was finally identified as one of his main projects a few days ago......

The other party did not doubt Matthew's words in the slightest, and he praised Matthew's behavior, and at the same time was very happy that Matthew liked their company's calculator so much. Not only did I send him the specific schematic diagram, but also gave him some spare parts as a friendly gift, and in the end, I wish Matthew a smooth project.

"Don't be surprised, many hardware hackers obtained the technical information of device manufacturers in this way, for example, Apple also obtained the first batch of parts through this method when it first started its business." In the face of Lin Hong's surprise, Matthew felt that this was very normal, in his opinion, as long as he called, if the request was not too outrageous, the other party would generally respond very happily

An hour later, Vina and Orlando had already gone home, but Arthur and Matthew both stayed in the room and did not come out, not even out for dinner, when Vina asked, Lin Hong had to unnaturally follow Arthur's statement that they were completing a homework assigned by the teacher, and since tomorrow was the deadline, they were working overtime to complete it.

Matthew had called home before, telling his parents that he might be staying at Arthur's house tonight.

When Vena wanted to bring dinner in, she was rejected by Arthur in the room, saying that it would be enough to let Lin Hong do it for her.

Vena even agreed, and although she had some doubts in her heart, she still didn't force her way into the room.

From these details of life, Lin Hong saw a kind of respect for Arthur from Vina, and between them, it seemed that there was a completely equal relationship. Here, parents are very respectful of their children's decisions, and rarely force their children to do something against their will. This seems to be a rare occurrence in the country.

On the other hand, if children want to get money or gifts from their parents, they generally have to pay a certain amount of labor as a price, otherwise if they want money, they must "borrow", since it is borrowed, then it will naturally need to be returned later, just like Arthur borrowed money from his parents to buy Apple computers, when he wants to spend, he will remember from time to time that he still has a debt to pay. According to Chinese customs, it seems natural for parents to give their sons money to buy things.

Since Arthur and Matthew both had a strong interest in Lin Hong's calculator cracking plan, the two of them immediately began to work on some of the things that experimenter Lin Hong had said before, such as entering those instructions that can make the calculator crash instantly, or all kinds of bugs.

Many of these bugs, they have encountered in the process of using it for a long time, but usually do not pay attention to this kind of thing at all, anyway, after the calculator is restarted, it is good, and it does not affect their normal use.

It never occurred to them that these bugs could be used to hack the firmware of the calculator. It's not that they can't think of it, but the calculator is too common in their lives, too low-end, not cool enough, so that no one wants to do something about it, they play more high-end things, so that everyone thinks they are better.

But now that I think about it, if they did crack the calculator and make it a device that could rival a low-spec computer, that would be a pretty cool thing in itself, wouldn't it?

Considering that almost all students have such a similar calculator, Matthew used Arthur's account to publish a post called "Texas Instruments TI Series Calculator Bug Collection" on a technical BBS called "Tulip".

In a short period of time, this post immediately became the most popular post of the day in BBS, and many BBS users actively participated in it, because they have more or less experienced this experience in the process of using the calculator.

Moreover, these users themselves are people who know a lot about technology, and they were inspired by this post, so they picked up the calculators in their hands to test and dig ......

In just half an hour, the number of replies to this post has exceeded a hundred, and each reply is basically substantial, raising at least one calculator firmware bug, all kinds of crashes, all kinds of splashes, all kinds of overflows......

After reading this post, you found for the first time that the calculator you have been using has hidden so many unknown bugs, which is simply too fucked up, as a technical nerd who pursues perfection, they really can't tolerate such a situation, and some people even began to resist the use of Texas Instruments' series of calculators.

Later, some people began to analyze why some of these bugs existed, and they posted a separate post to discuss it, some speculated that it was due to software design reasons, and some people said that it was due to hardware design flaws, and everyone seemed to be unable to convince anyone, so they began to find their own arguments.

Someone gives you a piece of code, and when the code is run, it behaves exactly like the one in the calculator. There are also people who directly draw the circuit diagram of a part of the calculator by hand, and then prove that the latest chapter of the magic quest cannot complete some kind of data processing according to the hardware principle based on this hand-drawn drawing......

……

Lin Hong and the three of them squatted in front of the computer and refreshed the post, all of them very excited. They didn't expect this question to resonate so much, and the discussion post about calculators took up almost the entire page on Tulip BBS, and there was more and more trending.

The post posted by Matthew seemed to be a fuse, and with a bang, it directly detonated an arsenal.

Lin Hong held a pen and paper in his hand and quickly recorded some information that he thought was more important.

Sure enough, the wisdom of the crowd is strong, he tested it all night yesterday, and what he found was only a small part of it, and Matthew only posted here, but he collected so much useful information, which is of great significance to his cracking work, and it is also very inspiring, making him think of a lot of methods that can be used to crack it. Of course, everything remains to be tested whether it will work or not.

"Stone, are you really sure you can crack the calculator?". Matthew confirmed again.

"Theoretically, it's entirely possible." Before Lin Hong could answer, Arthur preemptively said.

Lin Hong nodded: "Arthur is right, but you still have to try, you can only know if you try it yourself, isn't it?" ”。

"Wow, I can't wait to see this day coming," Matthew cupped his cracked glasses, "I'm 100% sure that once we crack this calculator, we'll be the brightest stars in the school"

Lin Hong and Arthur have no doubt about Matthew's assertion, which can be seen from the reactions of these people on BBS. In addition, having a "computer" as small as a calculator was something that was previously unthinkable, and there doesn't seem to be such a product on the market yet.

Of course, there are still some gaps between this "computer" and the real computer, which is caused by hardware limitations, but at least it can do most of the computer.

Next, the three of them discussed it together and found that if it is cracked, the charm of this product for everyone lies in two points.

The first is that it can be programmed however you want, rather than being limited to a few functions specified by Texas Instruments, as was the case in the past.

Arthur was looking forward to it, and in his words, he even wished that the calculator could be networked to allow for an invasion. Of course, networking is simply not practical, because the hardware of the calculator has completely limited it. However, the infrared data exchange function that it carries itself is a bit interesting, and theoretically speaking, it can realize an online network in a sense.

The second and most crucial point is that the ability to run games in it is the feature that Matthew is most looking forward to.

This calculator has an LCD display with a size of 96x64 pixels, which can display some relatively simple graphics.

Matthew wanted to be able to port some of the games on handheld consoles or computers.

Ideally, of course, he would have designed a few games himself, then wrote them and embedded them in the calculator......

As soon as they think of the scene after the cracking, Matthew and Arthur are full of hope for the future.

At the same time, Matthew and Arthur have a deeper understanding of Lin Hong's hardware technology through this matter, and in this regard, the two of them are incomparable in any way. Matthew specializes in game stuff, including game planning and design, and he once designed an arcade entertainment game, which he later sold to game companies for a good buck. Arthur, on the other hand, specializes in software programming and networking.

Thus, at Matthew's suggestion, a three-person project team called "Sam" was born, named after the initials of the three of them. S is for Stone, A for Arthur, and M for Matthew. Because Lin Hong is the initiator of this project, he is in the front.

However, Matthew and Arthur didn't know that in addition to Lin Hong's solid hardware knowledge, his software programming ability was also quite good, and what he lacked was just the accumulation of relevant knowledge.

Chapter 138: Sam Threesome

Chapter 138 Sam trio, go to (Saint King txt download) to read the novel