Reborn Tokyo Golden Age

Because of Jobs' paranoid aesthetics, not only the mainframe of the Mac, but also the keyboard and mouse are all beige.

In addition, the Mac does not have a cooling fan, which is another evidence of Jobs' arbitrariness and stubbornness.

He thinks the fan makes the computer louder and is also very unsightly.

But Macs don't have fans to cool them down, causing a lot of component failures.

The media dubbed it the "Beige Toaster" for this, a moniker that obviously didn't help boost the product's popularity.

The 512K memory can't save this shortcoming. After all, consumers don't have enough memory to choose a version with large memory, but the lack of a fan is a flaw in the design.

Because of its attractive appearance and the advantages of a graphical system, Mac sold very well in the first half of the year.

But as people gradually realized its limitations, sales slowly dwindled.

Sales of Macs have dropped below 20,000 a month since August.

From the initial monthly sales of 50,000 units to the current less than 20,000 units, this is almost a cliff-like decline.

"Exquisite appearance, but useless!"

"$2,945! The most expensive Apple brand toaster in the United States!"

"128K memory is the most failed choice of Jobs, and 512K memory is his most correct choice.

Because it is the 512K version that saves the current Mac, otherwise the Mac will repeat the mistakes of the Lisa series. "

"Snap" threw the newspaper in his hand on the sofa, and Jobs was shivering!

Anger is anger, but Jobs also knew that if something was not done, the Mac would really be over.

At the beginning of the design, he expected to sell 1 million Macs in the first year.

But let alone 1 million now, even 40% of the expected goal has not been achieved.

According to the current sales trend, Mac may not be able to sell 10,000 units a month in two months.

Think about Apple's investment in the Mac project, the research and development cost is 50 million, and the publicity cost is also 50 million.

With a high cost of 100 million US dollars and continuous investment, if the sales volume cannot be maintained, it is still unclear whether it will be profitable.

In addition, Lisa and Mac failed twice in a row, and the blow to Apple's reputation will also be fatal.

This is even more important than whether it is profitable, think about it if people lose confidence in Apple

Jobs suddenly felt a wave of fear, which was the last thing he wanted to see.

At this time, the figure of a person slowly appeared in his mind, and Jobs immediately picked up the phone without hesitation.

"Bai Chuan, it's me."

"Steve, can't you fix your habit of calling in the middle of the night?"

"Sorry buddy, but I'm in a hurry. I've been having some issues with Macs lately, have you heard?"

"Yes, I heard a little bit."

"So listen buddy, I need your advice right now. How can Mac turn around?"

Jobs is now very grateful that he listened to Bai Chuanfeng's suggestion and released an additional 512K Mac version.

Otherwise, the current Mac must be more difficult.

Bai Chuanfeng was a little hesitant. He actually didn't want to ask about this matter.

Jobs' arrogant attitude last time was still fresh in his memory.

"Man, the Mac can't go down. If the Mac goes down, not only does Apple lose a lot, SIC doesn't do any good."

As if guessing his hesitation, Jobs began to try his best to persuade Bai Chuanfeng to realize the connection between them.

"Also, I'm sorry for what happened last time.

And as long as you give a reasonable method, Apple will continue to purchase SIC chips, and the price will remain the same. "

Well, the last sentence convinced Bai Chuanfeng, this is the attitude of asking for help.

“Steve, put yourself in the shoes of others. Look at what consumers are complaining about, so what can we improve?

Facts have proved that 512K memory is not the optimal solution. If you want to run the Mac graphics system smoothly, you need at least 1MB of memory.

The same is true for heat dissipation. Mac needs to add a fan, and implement this design as soon as possible.

No matter how much time it takes, at least consumers need to understand our attitude. "

"manner?"

"Yeah, like the announcement that a fanned version of the Mac is being developed, and a larger memory configuration.

In short, we need to move, instead of sitting still or letting consumers misunderstand Apple's attitude. "

"Okay, I will consider it, thank you for your suggestion."

After hanging up the phone, Jobs hesitated.

He who has always been conceited, when did he bow his head to consumers.

And he thinks that the suggestion given by Bai Chuanfeng is probably based on the perspective of the neon enterprise.

Neon and Beimi are obviously two completely different markets.

Some hesitant Jobs decided to start from a marketing perspective.

In the next month, Apple stepped up public relations efforts in public opinion announcements, advertising and bringing goods into battle.

It was too late, however, and the "beige toaster" moniker spread even more than the Mac's name.

Mac sales have fallen below 10,000 units in the latest month of sales.

In desperation, he remembered Bai Chuanfeng's advice back then.

But it is too late to improve at this time, and the cycle will not catch up anyway.

Under multiple pressures, he did a poor and unruly approach.

Jobs decided to install a Mac emulation program on last year's Lisa computer in stock and sell it as a new product, calling it the "Mac XL."

The very expensive Lisa sold last year has 1MB of memory and also has a fan.

Do you see that this does not completely solve the shortcomings?

However, a scam is a scam, and what Jobs did made Apple's internal employees feel contemptuous.

His technical consultant, Joanna Hoffman, resigned and left after persuading him to no avail.

However, the paranoid Jobs not only continued with his plan, but also made repeated foolish tricks in the subsequent series of advertising and marketing.

This also paved the way for his Waterloo career next year, of course, this is something to come.

After Bai Chuanfeng gave advice on Mac at Neon, he continued to devote himself to his career.

In August and September, Shirakawa Electric, Sony, Philips, Panasonic and other audio brands have worked hard for more than a year on the CD rewritable format, which is finally officially commercialized.

Among them, CD-R is a one-time recording disc. As the name implies, after the disc factory produces a blank disc, the user is allowed to perform a single write operation.

The contents of the written disc can be read repeatedly, similar to CD-ROM.

The production cost of this format is the lowest, because there is no need for a mold to press the content, and the cost of a single CD-R blank disc is less than 10 yen.

As for another CD-RW that can be read and written many times, its performance is similar to that of a floppy disk.

Users can modify the content on the CD many times according to their needs until the disk is scrapped.

Of course, whether it is CD-R or CD-RW, they all need a supporting disc burner to use.

However, CD burners are much more expensive, even more expensive than CD players.

For example, the price of the recorders launched by these companies at the same time is basically maintained at around 400,000 yen.

This is the price agreed upon by everyone after discussion.

The optical disc recorder burns uneven pits on the blank disc by laser, so as to replace the "0" and "1" of digital information.

So every time it is used, the disk surface will be damaged once.

Compared with the steel mold pressing of CD-ROM, CD-RW can only be used for about 3~10 years at most.

But this service life is enough for ordinary users.

Moreover, the current optical disc recorders are generally larger and more expensive, and most of the users are shops or enterprises.

As for the general public, it may take another two years. When the cost of the recorder comes down, it is time to consider buying it.

But even so, the emergence of recordable CDs has greatly promoted the popularity of CDs.

Because this means that the content of 700MB can indeed be controlled by everyone.

It doesn't matter if you can't afford a recorder. Convenience stores offer recording services, which are very cheap for a few hundred yen at a time.

Now copying large files does not require a floppy disk to be turned upside down dozens of times.

A disc can be done easily, which is a qualitative leap compared to before.

Because of their appearance, the popularity of CD-ROM has been greatly accelerated.

The data formats between discs have a certain degree of versatility, and they can communicate with each other with the help of recorders.

This is the reason why CD-ROMs became popular. Of course, the current popularity is still far from that of later generations.

If you really want the disc to become rotten, you have to wait for the computer to work hard.

In addition, the process of burning and transferring content between discs may also involve copyright issues.

Of course, this has little to do with Shirakawa Electric for the time being, but Sony has been actively promoting various copyright protection measures.

After all, it has a pillar business such as Sony Music, so it can't be ignored.

As for the SAOND record under Shirakawa Holdings, its volume is still small at this time, and the impact is not great.

Handheld ODS, recordable discs, etc. have come out one after another, and Shirakawa Electric has completed more than half of its goal for this year.

If there is no accident, the rest of the electronic dictionaries can be launched around October.

However, when Shirakawa Electric launched a new format for CDs, Nintendo and Sega also launched their own handhelds.

Without exception, although their appearance is not the same as ODS.

But whether it is the screen or the design concept, it is similar to ODS.

For things like STN screens, in addition to SIC, display manufacturers such as Sharp and Panasonic have also begun to launch similar products.

The subtle parameters may be different, but the general performance is within a similar range.

Now that ODS has proven the feasibility of this screen, there is no reason for Nintendo and Sega not to use it.

With the gems from ODS first, they can just copy them.

However, perhaps because the development cycle is relatively fast, the two handhelds are slightly inferior in fluency.

Moreover, most of the platform games they hold are transplants such as "Donkey Kong", "Mario" or "Three-player Mahjong".

As for platform exclusives, apart from Nintendo having a brand new Mario series, there are no others at all.

Tsk, this is the enthusiasm for ODS.

Fortunately for Nintendo, after all, he has his own game development team, and there are more than one.

As long as the content is added in the follow-up, this so-called GW Pocket may not be unable to share some markets.

As for Sega's Game Gaer, if it still takes the route of SG-1000 transplantation, it is estimated that the fate of the latter will be a little hanging.

Without sufficient preparation, if you embark on an arms race-like competition, the final result will not be too good.

Of course, because the threats of these two companies have been greatly reduced, Bai Chuanfeng has not paid much attention to their information.

Time came to October in a blink of an eye, and the Bai Chuanfeng family was preparing to go back to Akita.

The first birthday of Xiao Qingkong and Xiao Yasheng is approaching, and it is time to hold a ceremony by taking this opportunity.