Rebirth of America, this is my time

Yes, Ethan did it on purpose.

Because the Altair 8800 (Altair 8800) he was referring to was the world's first microcomputer. It met the public on January 1, 1975, and the magazine Popular Electronics was its first platform.

Since it is a commercial product, Popular Electronics did not publish the design drawings of Altair 8800 this time. Therefore, unless you have the hands-on ability and creative ability like Wild Iron Man, it will be difficult to imitate it.

Because of this, Ethan's knowing questions were actually asking for a beating.

And after he dodged the Dungeness crab shell thrown by Evelin, facing the murderous sister, he raised his hands and took the initiative to admit defeat.

Alright! Alright! Alright! I was just joking...

Ethan's resignation made Evelin roll her eyes. Faced with this guy who was always irritating her nerves and was as thick-skinned as a politician, the girl was a little helpless.

He curled his lips and said: Ethan, I can't make something like the Altair 8800, because its core key is not the drawing and welding of the circuit, but the input and output of binary data.

If you just want me to copy its circuit, I can buy a machine to take it apart and study it. It's about five hundred dollars, right? In just a few days, I should be able to figure out how Edward Roberts soldered the motherboard, how To embed the memory chip, he drew several wire slots on the motherboard for data storage and thereby established circuit connections between the CPU, RAM and ROM.

But data transmission cannot be imitated in a short time. How to compress their size will require a certain amount of research time.

Evelin told the truth.

Before the operating system was born, all computers were controlled by instructions. To put it more simply, it was computer language. Now, the most used one in the industry is FORTRAN.

As the first high-level language to be officially promoted and used in the world, FORTRAN has been widely used in the fields of numerical, scientific and engineering calculations. However, due to its strong professionalism, it will be very difficult for ordinary people without basic knowledge to learn it.

Therefore, in order to better popularize programming knowledge to the public and allow college students to better use computers, BASIC, a universal symbolic instruction code for beginners, came into being. Because it is easy to understand, it can be covered in seventeen statements. Most of the demand, so soon after its birth, it went out of the campus and entered the society, becoming the first choice language for beginners to learn programming.

Altair 8800 uses a simplified version of BASIC.

As for who is the software writer?

Most people in this era don't know.

But Ethan Jones, who has lived in America for many years, has long known that it is a team.

One of them is Paul Allen and the other is Bill Gates.

Juhard's first step into the world was to transplant the BASIC language into the world's first personal computer.

Of course, this kind of thing may be easy to say, but it is very troublesome to do, because personal computers in this era have very small memory. Therefore, in order to reserve enough space for the machine, how to compress and optimize is the difficulty.

Under the guidance of Paul Allen, the BASIC they made for the Altair 8800 was only 4KB in size.

For real masters, this thing may not be difficult to make, but for ordinary guys, it is still very difficult. After all, not everyone can afford a home worth 250,000 US dollars. Regarding computers, not everyone can sit in front of the computer and write code when they have nothing to do.

It is precisely because Ethan knows that this thing is difficult, so when Evelin said that he couldn't handle it, Ethan didn't force it.

He clapped his hands and said, Okay, let's make something else. You know Pong, right? Can you make this kind of arcade machine?

Pong?

Evelin just thought for a second and nodded.

Can.

Then, she reacted and said: You don't want to play video games, right?

Bingo! Congratulations on your correct answer, but no points!

Ethan snapped his fingers and said with a smile: I just want to play games because I have a lot of ideas in my head.

Yes! After Ethan discovered that the return cycle in the financial investment field was too long, and that the personal computer industry had barriers to software programming, the video game industry, where everyone copied, became his first choice for making money!

There is no way, who makes the game market in this era still a desert?

If you have an idea, you can make money.

Although he had never been involved in this industry in his previous life, it doesn't matter, right?

Because he plays too many games!

In his previous life, the content in the content storage libraries of Steam, PS, Xbox and NS were all his lifeblood!

Starting in the 1990s, he read the English-Chinese dictionary and played Black Tide on his home computer. More than 20 years later, he held a controller and played It Takes Tow with his girlfriend after work. This experience has become the most vivid experience in his life. beautiful memories!

And now...

Can memories be realized?

This special code is simply the most wonderful thing in the world!

Evelin didn't know why Ethan was so happy, but she knew that her brother must have some evil ideas.

At the same time, she was a little worried, Ethan! Your inspiration doesn't come from Mi Luohua, right?

If you want to take revenge for the fact that they fired you by copying Milohua's game...then there is no way I can help you! Absolutely impossible!

How is that possible! Do I look like that kind of person? Ethan was a little unhappy.

Like. You are the kind of guy who always takes revenge, even though you look so polite. Evelin said seriously.

???

Ethan was a little speechless, he didn't expect that he would look like this in Evelin's eyes.

I really didn't plagiarize Mi Luohua.

Ethan emphasized.

However, his words received no response.

Evelin still looked at him with suspicion.

Such a situation made Ethan spread his hands. Not knowing how to explain it, he acted rogue, Evelin! You just said you would do it for me! You can't keep your word!

“…” Evelin was stunned for a moment.

The next second she shook her head helplessly, Yeah~Yeah~Yeah~

Ethan's shameless tricks made Evelin feel like she had gone back to the past.

A few years ago, when she was tinkering with all kinds of fun things in Popular Electronics, this was how Ethan pestered her to make toys. Although she felt that Ethan was annoying at the time,...

Well, Evelin thought about it briefly and found that Ethan could succeed with her every time by cheating.

Then are you going to dictate your thoughts to me, or do you have a complete plan?

Now that Ethan started cheating, Evelin wanted to assess the seriousness of the matter by identifying inspiration.

And her question made Ethan happy.

Of course there is a complete plan.

Wait for me, I'll go back to the bedroom to get it.

Evelin was a little surprised by Ethan's cautious approach.

In her opinion, Ethan's idea of ​​letting her play games must have come from his passion after being kicked by Milohua today, but she didn't expect that this guy actually had a plan.

And when Ethan brought over the three-page document, Evelin was even more shocked.

Although the paper is a bit worn, there are many stains at the footer, and the text on it has been scrawled and altered, the content inside is complete and clear.

Ethan used the first piece of paper to explain his game concept——

This is a game where there is no victory, only failure.

The second page even summarizes how the game is played——

The player will control an object with a specific length and constantly moving on a bounded plane, and use the head to hit the light spots that constantly appear in the plane, allowing it to grow. The game will not end until it touches the border or itself. .

On the third page is a game interface——

On it, Ethan drew a snake.

That's right!

What Ethan wants to do is——

Snake Game!

Note: ① It is actually very interesting about Bill Gates and Paul Allen writing BASIC for Altair8800. The two of them said that since there was no prototype at the time, they created an emulator on a DEC PDP-10, which was a popular computer in universities at the time, to simulate the Altair, and then spent about a month , developed a BASIC interpreter. But when we were filming a documentary on them in 1994, something interesting happened. When the reporter interviewed Harvard University, the person who managed the laboratory equipment at Harvard University said he didn't know about it, and said that he didn't often see them using machines at that time. He also said that Bill Gates and Paul Allen may have used MIT machines, but when the reporter went to MIT, they were not included in the MIT laboratory entry and exit records, so how did these two people get there? Like the gods, who developed the BASIC interpreter without a machine, only Bill Gates should know about it now. After all, Paul Allen has passed away.