It has been almost half a year since the release of the CD-ROM Blue Book.

During this period, the three electronic technology companies led by Shirakawa Electric, Sony, and Philips are all grasping their own layout in the field of optical drives.

But there is no doubt that as the inventor, Shirakawa Electric is the fastest.

After months of polishing, the original rudimentary optical drive system has now become a boxy black box.

"What is the service life like, and can it meet the design requirements?"

Bai Chuanfeng picked up the external version of the optical drive in front of him and turned it upside down, feeling quite weighty.

"Because we shipped commercial optical drives first, we used the most reliable materials for both motors and laser heads.

Based on internal testing, there is no problem with using it for more than 5 years. ”

Heitaro Nakajima turned on the computer and connected a black external optical drive to the console.

With a soft sound of "drop", a green indicator light on the upper part of the optical drive lights up.

Soon, with the operation of the system, the CDD symbol representing the optical drive disk was found.

Inside, documents are densely arranged in front of you.

"Not bad" Shirakawa Kaede nodded with satisfaction, which was much smoother than the first operation.

For the identification of optical drives, Microsoft has also added corresponding functions in the system.

With IBM taking the lead, as well as Sony, Philips, and Shirakawa Electric, Microsoft quickly followed up the development of relevant systems and software.

To say that it is worthy of being a professional software company, Microsoft's experience after updating the system is much stronger than Fujitsu's half-baked at the beginning.

Although the DOS system is still very rudimentary, there is no problem with the basic use of optical drives.

"Has the supply of Beimi already started?"

Shirakawa Kaede put down the external optical drive in his hand and began to care about the market situation on the other side of the ocean.

"Hay, it's been two weeks since the freighter set sail."

The question was answered by Yakumo Sasaki, who is in charge of warehousing and is now in charge of the logistics and scheduling of all of Shirakawa's products.

This kind of large-volume transoceanic transportation has the lowest cost of cargo ships.

Of course, the time will be relatively long, and it will take about a month to get from Neon to Beimi.

According to the original agreement, Shirakawa Electric will first provide a total of 10,000 sets of built-in optical drives.

Among them, there are 6,000 thousand sets of 2x speed optical drives, and 4,000 sets of 4x speed optical drives.

And these 10,000 sets of optical drives, all of which are specially designed business versions.

As for the optical drive for ordinary users, IBM means to produce 1,000 sets to test the water first.

After considering this, Shirakawa Electric also agreed to IBM's request.

After all, it is Party A, and as many orders it places as many products as it produces.

In the computer field of North Rice, IBM is the one who speaks, and Shirakawa Electric has not been able to promote the popularization of optical drives on its own.

However, in addition to the delivery to Beimi, in the neon local market, Shirakawa Electric's external optical drive is also on the market at the same time.

The 15 cm long and 5 cm tall black box seems to be about the same size as a floppy drive.

Regarding the optical drive, Neon Media has reported countless times.

So the moment it is placed on the counter, it is destined to attract the attention of the public.

So on the day of the listing, some people with good pockets and money also bought an external optical drive to try it out with curiosity.

Because of the high price of optical drives, even the cheapest optical drive in Neon costs 159 dollars, which translates to nearly 40,000 yen.

Therefore, all customers who buy optical drives are included with several discs.

There are some literary works that have been suppressed in advance, as well as manga that have been serialized, all of which come from the copyright library of Tokuma Shoten.

In order to enrich the distribution content of CD-ROM and to prevent users from buying optical drives and having nowhere to use them, Shirakawa simply pressed some serialized books and periodicals from Tokuma Bookstore into CD-ROMs.

Although today's computers are DOS, it is possible to view pictures with specific software.

As a result, he and comics became the first batch of users of CD-ROM and CD-ROM platforms.

However, Shirakawa's idea is good, but the feedback from users after the actual experience is not very good.

"Although the CD-ROM drive is very easy to use, the CD-ROM and comics are very rich, and even the catalog index is intimately made.

But staring at a computer screen for a long time, my eyes are too tired.

So when I picked up the magazine next to me and relaxed, I realized why not just buy the physical book? ”

"I don't like comics, and after I bought the CD-ROM drive, I didn't know what I was supposed to do."

"The machine is expensive and the storage capacity is very large, but it just doesn't work."

"A disc of 700MB is hundreds of times larger than my floppy disk, but I can only look at it, not control it."

The newspaper reports one after another looked dazzling and made Shirakawa Kaede frown.

How eye-catching the report of the optical drive was at the beginning, how fierce the doubts are now.

At this moment, he also somewhat understands why IBM insists on using optical drives on mainframes and compatible machines first.

After all, it has just entered 83 years, and the computer's DOS system does not support video playback.

This greatly limits the choice of content that can be burned on CD-ROM, and those complex formats are not supported by today's computers.

The software based on this operating system is generally small, limited by the power of the CPU, and the file size processed by the computer is relatively small.

As for multimedia, which became popular in later generations and is inseparable from daily life, at this time, even the concept has not yet been systematized, and some research institutions have only put forward relevant ideas.

As a result, optical drives and CD-ROMs have huge capacities, which seem completely useless on today's computers.

Users can't use it to enjoy music movies, or store their favorite materials.

The former is because the computer doesn't support it, and the latter is because the optical drive doesn't.

So now CD-ROMs and CD-ROMs are facing an awkward situation, things are nice, but they don't seem to be used.

This is also the reason why users and the media have questioned it, after all, you blew it so loudly at the beginning, only to find that it is far from as good as you imagined.

But to say that it is useless, it is not enough, many companies have a high evaluation of optical drives.

Because they often have a lot of data to store, the disk is too small to fit a few files.

HDDs, on the other hand, are too expensive and bulky.

As a result, many companies still keep data storage rooms, with rows of filing cabinets and dusty file bags, which are the original storage methods that are widely used today.

But now with a CD-ROM disc is different, a 12cm disc can fit 150,000 sheets of 16-carat paper into the contents.

There is no doubt that this is definitely a boon for companies with large file storage needs, and many companies have expressed their intention to purchase after Amway from IBM.

The business optical drives shipped to Beimi this time will basically be installed on mainframes and business-compatible machines.

Even the pressing of CD-ROM discs, Shirakawa Electric has received orders from many companies.

After all, with an optical drive, you can only fully play its role by burning your own data into a disc.

The content of the data that needs to be burned will be pressed by Shirakawa Electric's optical disc factory.

The same is true here for Neon, where the purchase of optical drives is basically a public utility.

The disc suppression orders of these departments were basically divided between Sony and Shirakawa Electric.

As a new technology, it is often used by institutions with special needs.

However, although the demand for optical drives by ordinary users is not so strong, the commercial optical drives shipped this time still brought a large profit to Shirakawa Electric.

Because of its high selling price, this batch of North Rice alone can bring a profit of $6.7 million to Shirakawa Electric.

The two-speed optical drive costs $600, and there is a profit of $450 after various costs.

The quadruple speed drive costs $1,300, and its net profit is as high as $1,000.

This is indeed a huge profit, even if the use of optical drives is still very limited, but the profit makes up for the lack of shipments.

The commercial application of optical drives has just started, and although the evaluation on the mainframe is good, the feedback from ordinary users cannot be ignored.

"Our recordable disc format, when will it be solved?"

Shirakawa Kaede put down the newspaper in his hand and looked at the people below.

At this moment, the conference room is full of decision-makers from Shirakawa Electric, from the manufacturing department to the design department.

However, because the evaluation of the optical drive in the market is not high, everyone's face is not very good-looking.

Hearing Shirakawa Kaede's question, Heitaro Nakajima was the first to answer.

"The CD-R format is jointly developed with Sony and Philips, and it is expected to be standardized and commercialized next year.

As for the rewritable CD-RW format, it's a little slower, but it's not too late. ”

A large part of the dissatisfaction of users today is due to the fact that individuals do not have access to the storage space of optical discs.

This is equivalent to a girl with white flowers in front of her, but when you touch it with your hand, hey~ there is a layer of glass in the middle.

Therefore, although the floppy disk has a small capacity, it is so popular because it has a erase function.

Before the advent of recordable discs, there is still a long way to go to popularize the application of optical drives.

Of course, if the development of computers can support multimedia format playback, optical drives will also usher in explosive growth.

However, instead of expecting Microsoft to develop a Windows system as soon as possible, it is better to put more effort into itself.

"This year's desktop CD player development plan adds a task.

We need a device that can read and parse CD-ROM data. ”

After Shirakawa Kaede put down the pen in his hand, he gave the order very firmly.

"Eh" Nakajima Heitaro was stunned for a moment, and then his frown loosened slightly, "Shirakawa-san, what do you mean...?" ”

"Since today's computers don't support video playback, let's do it ourselves.

CD-ROM players need to be able to play music or videos just like video tape players.

Nakajima-san, is there a problem with this from a technical point of view? ”

The technical progress of burning discs, Shirakawa Kaede has no way to solve it.

But to get the most out of CD-ROM, it's not impossible.

understood his plan, and everyone's eyes lit up.

Heitaro Nakajima immediately took over the task, "There is no problem at all, and our CD player will be available as scheduled in October." ”

In addition to video tapes, there are also LD disc players on the market. Its principle is similar to that of a CD, and it can be used as a reference for the design of Shirakawa Electric.

Therefore, in terms of technical difficulty, there is no problem with the visualization of CD-ROM.

"In addition to CD drives, we also need a large number of video materials as a content distribution library.

All of the previous movies were pressed into discs, so that users could have content to watch.

Shochiku, Toho, and Toei also went to contact there, as well as TV dramas from major TV stations, which are the best content distributors for DVD players.

By the way, especially in the daily life, you should focus on it. ”

"Daylive?" The crowd looked puzzled.

(End of chapter)