Rebirth of the Tech Madman

phone-reading

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In the context of the rapid development of the IT industry dominated by microcomputers, the annual developer conference in spring and autumn is not a public relations activity that involves people or gangs. It is full of gold and has become the most influential in the industry at this stage. Technology event.

Its content covers a wide range, ranging from a specific technical realization to an industry standard. The final result can even influence various standardization organizations in the United States and even the international level. It can be said that the power is increasing day by day.

Compared with the turmoil caused by the debate and game of competition at the macro level, most technical elites are more obsessed with the sense of accomplishment that can be brought about by the functional application of micro-level technology.

This autumn developer conference, centered on the 32 architecture of the four generations of Fangyuan personal computers under development, further introduced the various technical results achieved to the participants.

Although IBM is aware of the importance of openness to personal computers, the actual operation is only reflected in the expansion slots on the IBM-PC motherboard, and the unintentional uncontrolled tide of IBM-PC compatible computers. In this way, Huan gathered people in the industry to introduce and promote third-party development before the product was launched.

In fact, in high-end fields such as Fangyuan workstations and Fangyuan servers, Tang Huan also conducts research and development in a “closed-door” approach similar to IBM for technical secrecy considerations, but his attitude towards Fangyuan personal computers appears to be very open. And radical, which attracted a large number of third-party developers to join in.

Among these attendees, there are many large companies. The new technologies adopted by Gein Fangyuan's personal computers are often extended from the advanced technologies of Fangyuan workstations and Fangyuan servers, which can be said to contain a lot of valuable opportunities.

For example, the theme of today's conference—the display subsystem of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer—is destined to stir up the industry's structure again. Tang Huan's appearance shows this point.

The entire Fangyuan computer product line has a unified display standard called VideoGraphicsStandard—video graphics standard or VGS. Among them, the Fangyuan graphics workstation has the highest specifications, while the third-generation Fangyuan personal computers use VGS version 2.0, which supports the highest resolution of 640×480. The number of colors is 16 kinds.

The display subsystem specifications of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer have been upgraded to VGS version 2.5, and 640×480 has become the standard resolution. Through the color index table, the number of supported display colors has reached 256.

The most basic beneficiaries of this hardware enhancement are applications such as word processing.

On the 640×480 standard resolution screen of VGS2.5, the text mode supports the display of 80×25 or 40×25 letters and numbers; for the block area of ​​each character, 16 foreground colors and 8 background colors can be selected; The character itself can also be set to blink or not.

Features like this support. When the text content is displayed, there are more abundant means.

Tang Huan personally put on the battle. After introducing the features of VGS2.5, I demonstrated it on the slideshow software PowerPresenter. The audience in the audience can directly see the operation result on the big screen.

The personal computer used in the demonstration is a third-generation Fangyuan personal computer, but the graphics card is a new product that fully supports VGS2.5. This smooth transition can only be provided by the Fangyuan computer system, which can break down the entire complex R&D plan into The easier-to-operate modules also make it easier for third-party developers to build development and testing platforms in a timely manner.

The index number of VGS2.5 reaches 256 color tables, which is not fixed. This is also a strong point compared to other types of personal computers such as IBM-PC. The latter can only display a fixed number of colors such as red, green, blue, black, white, and yellow. A group of 256 colors can be designated as any color.

The reason is that VGS2.5 uses 6 binary bits to represent each channel of red, green, and blue, that is, each has 2 to the 6th power equal to 64 combinations, and the three primary colors are further combined to form 64×64×64=262144 colors . The 256 colors of the color table can be selected among the 262,144 colors.

In order to vividly illustrate the power of this palette, Tang Huan used the bitmap program that comes with the operating system to demonstrate and pointed out some programming skills that are useful for game screen effects.

After the introduction of this stage, everyone in the audience raised their own questions in the most popular interactive session.

Tang Huan could not answer them one by one. Seeing that there are so many people who care about graphical user interface operating systems, he made a comment.

"The graphical user interface is the general trend in the development of personal computer operating systems. This is already the consensus of the industry. But I don’t know if you have thought about it. What are the essential elements of a graphical user interface operating system that is practical in terms of function and cost? I think, Cooperative multitasking, memory protection and other features are indispensable. Judging from the current level of IT industry development, it is clear that everyone is not ready. Those pioneers that have emerged are good examples. ."

Although Tang Huan didn't name his surname, everyone in the audience naturally thought of Apple's Lisa computer and MAC. The former supports advanced features such as multi-tasking, but its operating efficiency is low and cannot attract users to spend $10,000 to buy; the latter does not support multi-tasking, and it does not even support hard drives. The price has dropped to a quarter, but the operating efficiency The same is not satisfactory.

"Tang, it is said that Zheru's R&D center already has a graphical user interface operating system prototype. I don't know when it will be shown to the public? Or do you think that when a practical graphical user interface operating system will be available on a large scale? "The participants asked enthusiastically.

"We are indeed also developing a graphical user interface operating system." After Tang Huan avoided the first question, he quickly moved to the second question. "As for when a practical graphical user interface operating system will become popular, I think it depends. When will the microprocessor manufacturer be able to provide a sufficiently powerful CPU."

Speaking of this, Tang Huan raised his finger to the Logo on the big screen, "Four generations of Fangyuan personal computers started the era of 32-bit personal computers. It is only the first step. The next step is to popularize practical graphical user interface operating systems because of the 32-bit architecture. Provides more computing performance."

Tang Huan then smiled slightly. "I understand everyone's expectations for the graphical user interface operating system. In fact, this does not affect our development of graphical user interface applications, the Shell program of FeeDOS, and office software such as spreadsheet CGrid, word processing WordEasy, and PowerPoint PowerPresenter. Both provide a mouse-driven graphical user interface."

"Development is too difficult. For some software projects, the gains outweigh the losses." The programmers in the audience began to complain. "For example, when we are making a game, we naturally have to focus on the game itself. We can't give up everything on the graphical user interface."

"Four generations of Fangyuan personal computers will provide you with a framework that makes it easier to develop graphical user interface programs." Tang Huan tapped the keyboard a few times, and the content of the slides changed accordingly. "Including a more powerful BIOS and an operating system level. The software package. However, this topic will be introduced by others. What I want to say next is related to the development of electronic games on Fangyuan’s personal computer platform."

"VGS2.5 defines how to convert the digital video signal inside the host and the analog video signal of the display. For programs like video games, it just adds a better visual effect display platform. But it happens inside the host. The processing of digital video data still relies heavily on the CPU to calculate."

"If you can provide an acceleration mechanism to reduce the burden on the CPU, so that it has more resources to process game AI, then I believe the game experience will be even higher."

"This acceleration mechanism is implemented on the Fangyuan graphics workstation through the hardware-based 2D accelerated graphics card and the software-based OpenGraphicsLibrary—the open graphics library or OpenGL."

"The 2D accelerated graphics card can directly implement graphics such as drawing squares, straight lines, and circles by hardware. As well as functions such as area filling and block image transmission; OpenGL defines a cross-programming language, cross-platform application program interface specification for generating two-dimensional Image. It is similar to floating-point arithmetic. Although it can be implemented entirely in software, hardware acceleration can only exert its full power."

"With the maturity of this acceleration mechanism, we are now ready to introduce it to the Fangyuan personal computer platform. It will bring revolutionary convenience to the development of electronic games."

Tang Huan was talking on the stage, and everyone in the audience listened attentively, and occasionally a thought flashed in the gaps, "The four generations of Fangyuan personal computers with the help of these high-end technologies seem to really open an era. ."

Tang Huan is not like IBM, in order to distinguish between the high, middle and low end of the product and let the research and development of personal computer products be constrained. No matter who is missing, the earth will not be wrong. You rest on your laurels. Others will naturally look at the opportunity to exceed it, so it is better to take the initiative in your own hands.

What's more, in the microcomputer era, there are also many methods for dividing the high, middle and low end of products, and operations can be performed on indicators such as operating frequency, cache size, and parallel line width.

Therefore, Tang Huan never worried that this practice would lift a rock and hit him in the foot, robbing each other's jobs from within his family.

When the topic of VGS2.5 and 2D acceleration was almost introduced, Tang Huan picked up the remote control and clicked it. The projector he occupied gave up the big screen, and the staff began to prepare to play a promotional video.

I have to mention that Tang Huan's complete set of solutions for the modern office automation system has basically been accomplished.

For hardware, laser printers, dot matrix printers, inkjet printers, scanners, modems, digital fax machines, projectors, etc., software, spreadsheets, word processing, slides, databases, etc. are all available. Naturally, financial resources are also rolling in.

Watching Tang Huan use a mouse and a remote control on the stage, he completed a lot of routine operations. It was so chic that it was beyond description. Many people in the audience were drooling with envy and involuntarily turned back to mobilize the company. The idea of ​​purchasing a set of office automation equipment of this type. When the meeting comes, it must be handsome.

Soon, as the background music sounded, everyone's messy thoughts were swept away by the majestic and atmospheric melody. The distant sound of the trumpet at the beginning seemed to present a picture of history swallowing mountains and rivers before their eyes.

Under the instruction of Tang Huan, this song "Heroes of Dawn" was scored by Hu Weili, played by the Xiangjiang Orchestra and the Xiangjiang Chinese Orchestra. UU Reading www.uukanshu.com Xiangjiang Academy of Performing Arts Chorus was completed together, and then authorized to EA, As the background music of the heavyweight historical simulation Three Kingdoms strategy game "Three Kingdoms".

Compared with this magnificent "Dawn of Heroes", although the promotional film of "Three Kingdoms" is excellent, Tang Huan is not satisfied. He knows that this is because of his high vision due to his information asymmetry advantage. Because of this, there is no problem with finding fault with the subordinates.

The hot screening of "The Phantom of the Tomb: The Wrath of the Dragon Emperor" made many people recognize the scene of the flames in the propaganda film, which is ancient China, and the accompanying introduction made them understand that this is the magnificent Three Kingdoms in Chinese history. era.

Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Sun Quan, the heroes came together; One Lu Er Zhao, Three Dian Wei, Four Passes, Five Horses and Six Zhang Fei, the famous generals are like clouds; coupled with the strategic planning of Zhuge Liang and other advisers, laid a natural and strong foundation for the game.

After the promo video was over, Tang Huan smiled and said: "EA’s latest game "Three Kingdoms" supports both the second-generation Xiaobawang game console and the third-generation and above Fangyuan personal computers. In the short film, the Fangyuan personal computer is running the game screen. It was achieved by the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer with a graphics card that supports VGS2.5 and 2D acceleration."

"It should be seen that the image quality of "Three Kingdoms" is very good. This is the result of hardware acceleration. The CPU with reduced burden can execute more interesting game AI, so the playability of "Three Kingdoms" is also very high."

"COMDEX, "Three Kingdoms" and 2D accelerated graphics cards will be officially launched in a few days. If you are interested, you can personally experience the phased new technological achievements of these four-generation Fangyuan personal computers." (To be continued.)

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