Genius remembers in a second [Aishang Novel Network biquge.info] to provide you with wonderful novels to read.

The computer laboratory of cpT (Carpenter Electronics) was brightly lit, and it was already more than ten o'clock in the evening, and there were still many people who had not returned.

Usually they work overtime until 9 o'clock in the evening, but now it has been extended to eleven or twelve o'clock. For workaholics like Seymour Clay, work is life, and the real room is home. Going to work or getting off work, it's the same for him. Most of Seymour's subordinates are similar to him, after all, people gather like in groups.

Originally, Alex was a free man, he came when he wanted and left when he wanted. Ever since he felt the pressure of IBm, he began to change his previous lazy habits and slowly ate and lived with Seymour. Alex, who wielded all his strength, not only impressed the others, but even Seymour was secretly frightened.

On this day, Alex was tinkering with a tin box that was larger than the palm of his hand. He was so focused that Seymour didn't even know when he walked up to him.

Seymour looked at the tin box a little strangely, it contained some circuit boards, motors, heads, and head locators. He secretly guessed that the circuit board should belong to the control module, which is used to control the operation of the motor and the movement of the head and head positioner.

As for what the other parts are used for, he can't understand it. He began to think that Alex was working on a disk drive, but they already had it, and it had been improved, and it was no longer as big as it had been. From the size of a wardrobe to the size of a cardboard box, the number of jù that can be stored also multiplied.

"What the hell are you doing with this little thing?" Seymour finally asked.

Alex realized that the person standing next to him was Seymour, and he knew that there was someone around, but he didn't know who it was. He replied, "It's the floppy disk drive I mentioned to you, didn't I let you reserve an interface when you wrote the operating system?" ”

"Floppy disk drives? What's the difference between this and the disk drive we already have? ”

"The difference is huge, strictly speaking, our one is called a hard drive, and it can't be moved at will. Floppy disk drives are different, and can be used as a medium when you need to do a number of interactions. ”

"Where is the number of floppy disk drives saved? I only see the structure of the read and write number jù, why don't I see your storage medium? ”

Upon hearing this, Alex pulled out a card with a plastic case from a drawer. It is said that it is a card, but it is actually thicker and larger than a card. It looks like it should be 3 inches in size, or a bit bigger than that. The color of the plastic is dark blue, and on one side there are pieces of metal clamped to it.

"This is the medium on which the number of jù is stored, and I call it a 'floppy disk'!"

Alex handed the floppy disk to Seymour, and then took out a floppy disk from the drawer, the floppy disk had a red outer shell and a label on it that read "Test Disk". He inserted the floppy disk into the floppy drive, then pressed a button on it, and heard the floppy drive squeak.

Seymour glanced at the floppy disk drive, which was not connected to the computer at this time, and of course nothing was displayed, so it should still be in the testing stage. He touched the blue floppy disk in his hand, and looked at it carefully, and now there was a black disc wrapped in plastic, which should be coated with magnetic material to show color and luster. He also found a small square on it, which he could move with his hand.

"What is this little square for?" Seymour asked.

Alex took a look at it, and then explained: "This is used for write protection, opening the square hole is write protection, at this time can only read the number jù, not the number jù." Closing the upper hole is to turn on the write protection, and at this time you can write a number of jù to it. ”

Seymour had heard of such a feature for the first time, but he was smart enough to immediately understand how important this little thing was. He nodded and praised: "This write protection function is really good, it can prevent miswriting operations, and it can also protect some important numbers." ”

In fact, the structure of Alex's floppy disk drive is very simple, and some people have been using it for a long time, and they also use this way of storing the number of disks and reading and writing the number of heads jù. Both IBM and cpT have used a similar method to store data, which is also a type of disk drive.

It's just that their disk drives are too bulky, and they started out with a wardrobe size, and now they're about the size of a box. It is very inconvenient to exchange the disks inside and put them into another disk drive. Sometimes, for the sake of a little bit of jù, they have to make such a big move, and they die of trouble.

After seeing the floppy disk and the floppy disk drive, Seymour immediately understood how useful this thing was. In the future, when they want to interact with each other, they no longer need to disassemble the disk drive and take out the disk media from it.

"How many jù can I store on a floppy disk?" Seymour is most concerned about this, in his opinion, such a small disk, should not be able to store much.

"It's a 3.5-inch floppy disk that can store 1.44m of the number jù."

"What? How can you store so many jù? ”

Seymour was stunned by Alex's words, knowing that a few years ago, a disk drive the size of a wardrobe could only store 1om of jù. There were dozens of disks the size of records in it, but the palm-sized disk in front of him could store 1.44M of the number jù, how could he not be surprised.

"Yes, in the beginning, I wasn't able to store as many jùs, and then I wasted a lot of space when I counted jù now. Just change the format in which it is stored, and you will be able to make use of that space. ”

Hearing this, Seymour immediately became interested, and he was always curious about this technical question: "How did you do it?" Tell me about it. ”

"To achieve this effect, you first have to format the disk and divide it into several tracks, each of which is divided into several sectors, each of which can store 512 bytes."

Alex said as he took out a piece of paper, drew a circle on it, and continued, "We know that if a disk is round, then its magnetic tracks are also concentric circles. A track is about a few tenths of a millimeter wide, and the number of jù is stored on these tracks. ”

As soon as Seymour heard it, he understood that the disk after this formatting could indeed make use of the disk space on a large extent. The record format they used to use wasted so much space because the head was too large.

"A floppy disk has 8o tracks, each track has 18 sectors, and a number of jù can be stored on both sides. So you can calculate that a floppy disk can store 1.44 m of the number jù. ”

"You're a genius! I was able to come up with such a solution. Our hard drive also needs to change the storage format. ”

After hearing this, Alex smiled and said, "Don't worry, I've already changed it." You've been focusing on writing the operating system, and I didn't want to bother you to say it. Now our computer hard drives are capable of storing about 5oom. ”

"It's great, with such a large amount of storage space, I don't think IBm36o will be able to compete with us."

"That said, if their computers had been developed one step ahead of us, we would still have been greatly impacted. But don't worry, I've got a killer plan in place. Floppy disks are just one of them, and I have more powerful ones. ”

Alex smiled mysteriously at him, and by looking at his expression, he knew that he had already made up his mind.

"If you have any other good things, take them out and see."

"No, this kind of thing can't be exposed at will, if it is revealed by IBm, it is directly imitated, and our advantage will be gone."

"So secretive from me?" Seymour was dissatisfied, he didn't think Alex had anything good, but his curiosity had been stirred up and he couldn't suppress it.

Alex looked left and right, stood up and said, "Okay, you come with me, I've hidden the things." ”

Under his leadership, the two of them went to a storage room, which was used to store the parts needed for research. Alex opened the door, turned on the light and walked in. They walked through the shelves to a door, which had been locked. Alex pulled out a key and opened the door, revealing a small, unventilated room that had once been the residence of the storeroom's administrators.

Now this is Alex's secret research base, and no one knows what he's doing in it. He was the only one who had the key, and no one else could enter the room.

Under the blazing light, Alex pulled out a long strip of black plastic with various keys and a long black wire on it. In addition to this, there is something like a shuttle, which is also connected by a black line. The shuttle is also made of plastic, and it also has two buttons on it.

Seymour recognized the long thing at a glance, and he said, "Isn't this a keyboard, we already have a mechanical keyboard, there's no need to make a plastic keyboard." Isn't a mechanical keyboard more durable than a plastic keyboard? ”

Keyboards have a long history, as early as 1714, there were various forms of typewriters, and the earliest keyboards were used in those typewriters that were not yet technically mature. Early keyboards were fully mechanical, and if you typed too fast, you might have a problem with the keys. However, this problem has been well solved, and the computer uses this "QeRTy" keyboard.

"Of course, this keyboard is very different from the previous keyboard, you can see it by looking at it."

After hearing this, Seymour took a closer look and found some differences. This keyboard in Alex's hand is made up of 83 keys, and there are some special keyboards on top that Seymour has never seen before.

Seymour still shook his head and said, "No matter how the keyboard is modified, it can only be used to type the number jù, and they also have a keyboard." This is not much of an advantage for our computers. Or look at your other little thing, what can it be used for? ”

"It's called a 'mouse', and it's used to replace the cumbersome instructions on the keyboard and make it easier to operate the computer." Alex said, handing the mouse to Seymour.

"What's the use of the two buttons on the top and the ball on the bottom?"

Seymour took the mouse in his hand and fiddled with the gum ball exposed from the mouse's lower body with the other hand, wondering what it could be used for. In his opinion, it is enough to operate a computer with a keyboard, and adding an extra mouse not only wastes resources, but also complicates operations.