In later generations, when many people regarded VR (virtual reality) as a future technology, Duan Yunqu was surprised to find that at the CES conference in 1986, NASA's VIVED prototype was very similar to the Oculus Rift. The VIVED prototype had two 2.7-inch monochrome LCD screens for information, surround sound support, and the ability to perform voice commands and actions for $2,000 at the time. This set of equipment is relatively high-grade even now, so in Duan Yun's opinion, this equipment has surpassed an era!

However, in general, NASA launched this product as a concept technology product, and there was no large-scale commercial production and sales, and there were only a few very simple software in the entire booth, which was far from the effect of a rear-view VR game, so although people felt novel, no one thought that this technology had any commercial value.

For Duan Yun, this technology is also too advanced, and even in later generations, VR technology is not a very successful commodity, and sales are far from being comparable to products such as repeater recorders.

After going around the entire exhibition hall for half a circle, Duan Yun finally stopped in front of Toshiba's booth in Japan.

Toshiba's tape recorder production technology is absolutely first-class in the world, if you can import the production line from their factory, I think the tape recorder products produced will sell well...... at this time.

Wu Hui, the interpreter who accompanied Duan Yun to the exhibition, was one of the first students to study abroad in the United States, and he was currently studying at a university in California, USA, and worked as a translator in Wang Shi's Hong Kong office during his internship.

In addition to the different scholarship mechanisms of American universities from other study abroad countries, the policies for part-time internships and future employment are also very different from those of other study abroad countries. All universities in the U.S. strongly encourage students to find relevant internships that match their majors during their studies, which is an opportunity that universities in other study abroad countries do not offer.

Therefore, Wu Hui relied on his good English proficiency and identity as an international student to serve as an interpreter for some leaders and businessmen in China who went abroad, and this was his first time in Las Vegas.

Wu Hui has a quick mind and is familiar with the customs of the United States, and he also learned that Duan Yun is a very famous big boss of a private enterprise in China, and he is generous, so Wu Hui is very respectful to Duan Yun.

"That was a thing of the past...... Duan Yun smiled when he heard this, and then said: "Now that domestic tape recorders are not selling, I came to the United States this time to see if there are any new business opportunities." ”

"That's a pity, but I've heard that our domestic development is quite fast, and now many small commodities in American supermarkets are produced in our country, and we couldn't see them before. Wu Hui said.

"Those are all primary ......products that don't have much technical content," Duan Yun pursed his lips, turned to Wu Hui and asked, "Then will you return to China after graduating from university in the United States?" ”

"This ......"

"Okay, needless to say, I see. Duan Yun smiled when he heard this.

In fact, for these public students in the 80s, coming to the United States is like entering another world, where both the working environment and the salary are far higher than those in China, and the gap can reach an astonishing 100 times.

At the beginning, when it was proposed to send students to study abroad, some people raised objections, believing that it would be difficult for these people to return to China once they went abroad, so a large number of young talents were wasted.

However, he believes that it is not only necessary to send foreign students abroad, but also to propose: "To send thousands of places, not just 10 or 8, we must do everything possible to speed up the pace, and the road should be wider and wider." ”

In addition, former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recorded in his recollections that he was very surprised by the practice of sending Chinese students to the United States, and sent China's smartest children to the United States.

It is said that *** also said internally that one of the 10 international students can come back is a victory, but the rate of Liu Xuecheng's return to China was indeed very low, and most of them chose foreign countries with better working and living environment and salary conditions.

So it is natural that Wu Hui does not want to return to China.

At Toshiba's booth, in addition to their flagship product tape recorder, there were some of the company's latest product technologies and electronic components.

Among them, a small chip called "Flash" attracted Duan Yun's attention.

The flash here does not refer to the flash software used by Flash, but a flash memory chip based on EEPROM technology invented by Toshiba Corporation of Japan.

Before the advent of flash memory, which was used to store large amounts of data, it was necessary to use tape floppy disks and hard disks, and many companies struggled to devise a solid-state alternative, with the first memory chips appearing in the 70s, PROM chips.

But at that time, the price of this model 5300 PROM chip in 1971 was 500 yuan, and the storage capacity was only 128 bytes!

Later, Israeli engineers invented a computer memory chip that can retain data even after power failure, which is the so-called EPROM chip.

This kind of chip can only be erased by strong ultraviolet irradiation, and the transparent window of the silicon wafer can be seen through the top of the package, and the EPROM chip can be erased and written repeatedly, which solves the drawbacks that the PROM chip developed in the early 70s can only be written once, but this chip also needs to seal the window with opaque stickers and tape after writing the data, so as not to be damaged by the surrounding ultraviolet radiation, and it is not convenient to use.

At present, the chip called "Flash" on the Toshiba showcase uses an EEPROM chip that can be electrically illustrated, and this chip is the memory chip used in the early domestic walkman!

In fact, in 1980, Toshiba's Fuji Wei Masaoka hired four engineers and started a semi-secret project to develop a memory chip that could store large amounts of data and make it affordable for users.

Fuji Viatsuoka's team came up with an improved version of the EEPROM, in which the memory unit consisted of a single transistor, and at the time, conventional EEPROMs required two transistors per memory cell, a small price difference that had a huge impact.

But when this discovery was successful, Fujio Masuoka's boss told him that the invention would not be put into production, and he forgot about it.

However, Fujio Masuoka will not give up this invention easily, in 1984, he brought his memory chip drawings to the IEEE International Electronic Devices Conference in San Francisco, which attracted the attention of Intel, and then in 1988, Intel launched a 256K chip, which can be used in automotive computers and other devices, bringing a new business for Intel.

This prompted Toshiba to decide to market Fujio Masuoka's invention, which was a success in 1989 when the first NAND was released to the market in bulk, and it was a good success.

But now, in 1986, Toshiba brought this flash memory product to CES as a sample to showcase Toshiba's electronic technology.

Judging from the performance of this sample, this flash chip only has a storage capacity of 2 KB.

However, for Duan Yun, 2 KB of storage is enough to be a repeater only, and 2 KB should be enough to store a few complete English audio sentences.

The next moment, Duan Yun came to the representative of Toshiba's manufacturer.