Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 93 Five Months in a Hurry

It turns out that when a person concentrates on doing something, he cannot feel the passage of time.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the studio officially started working. Suddenly, Ethan felt very hungry.

Turning his head, he realized that it was already noon. He called the pizza shop near his home and asked them to deliver two pizzas. After a simple lunch, he threw himself into work and worked until dark.

Then he discovered...

I drew fifteen map sketches myself and then converted them into 0101 computer code!

If this kind of work attitude had happened in Ethan's previous life, it would have been unthinkable!
After all, in an era without room for promotion, no matter how much workers work, they are just helping their boss buy a house or a car. When tomorrow's life can be seen at a glance, learning to slack off in the workplace can be regarded as mastering the art of life.

But now...

No matter how much or how little you work, it’s all yours!

If you still can't muster up the energy and work hard under such circumstances, then you really deserve not to make any money!
However, although this state of turning a deaf ear to what is happening outside can improve work efficiency, it can also cause people to ignore many things. For example, when it was November 30th and Thomas and Linda appeared in front of him with a cake, he realized belatedly that today was his birthday.

"Happy Birthday Ethan—"

Thomas gave Ethan a big hug and handed him a gift.

"Happy Birthday Ethan—"

Linda was no exception, and while holding up the cake, she smiled and said, "Oh Ethan, I know you don't like cream, so I made a fruit cake for you, with a chiffon cake base and kiwi, strawberry and mango on top. I hope you like it."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Ethan was very surprised by the appearance of the two.

Even more surprised than him were Evelyn and Woz.

"Today is your birthday?"

The fat little Wozniacki's eyes widened.

"Oh my god! Brother! Why didn't you tell me earlier? I haven't even prepared a gift for you!"

Evelin, on the other hand, looked embarrassed and spread her hands, saying, “Ethan, I’m sorry, I forgot about this…”

Ethan smiled and waved his hands, "Oh come on, I actually forgot about it myself."

What Ethan said was the truth. He hadn't celebrated his birthday for many years.

In my previous life, when I was away from home, all I received were blessings from the phone, but in this life...

Who would remember the birthday of the original owner of the body?

However, since the sound of celebration had already begun, Ethan would not spoil the fun. He invited Thomas and Linda to dinner at his home, and then took the initiative to go out to buy ingredients. Not only that, to make it more lively, he asked Wozniak to call his girlfriend and Jobs, and asked Evelyn to see if Barbara and the others had time. Although it was a bit inappropriate to give such a short notice, the unexpected surprise was actually more interesting.

Because the 30th was a weekend, everyone was very considerate. That night, a group of people gathered at Ethan's house to celebrate his birthday. Even though the dishes were not rich, many of them were prepared by Thomas and Linda, and the props for the celebration were not in place, except for the old-fashioned activities such as singing birthday songs and blowing out candles, there were no other arrangements. However, the atmosphere of the gathering made Ethan very happy.

And with the end of November, the whole year of 1975 also came to an end.

When December came, Ethan did two things.

The first is that Professor Barbara Babcock’s case collection is finally available.

Since Ethan had promised the other party that he would buy the case collection and donate it to the school, when he got the news, he asked two administrators in the company to handle the matter. He asked Damio Dean to buy 29.99 copies at a price of US$, and then packaged them together with some case reports written by the other party. He asked Julis Noble to contact the schools and libraries on the West Coast to donate copies as a basis.

When he spent three hundred thousand just to have Barbara's books in the library of the West Coast school, the wizard who got the news immediately called to thank him. At the same time, she also brought Ethan good news -

"Ethan, the discussion on the revision of the Copyright Protection Act has ended. Next year, the Federation will revise the Copyright Protection Act to clearly distinguish between the copyright protection clauses for companies and individuals. I have read the final draft and it is in your best interest to register the copyright in the name of the company. So, after the provisional patent application for Snake Game expires, you can directly register the copyright in the name of Destiny Game."

"Oh thanks, Barbara, I love that news," Ethan thanked with a smile.

The second thing is Christmas.

Although Pac-Man was in a critical period of development and Ethan did not want to celebrate any festivals, as it was an annual celebration day in North America, Ethan could not go against the mainstream voice of society. Therefore, when the festival was approaching, he gave the company employees a holiday in the usual way, and sent Wozniacki, a guy with a father, a mother and relatives, back home, and also told him to come back to work after the New Year in January.

On Christmas Eve, Ethan did not work overtime, but went back to Thomas and Linda's home with Evelyn. He had a big meal with the two old people, and then the family gathered in front of the TV to watch "It's a Wonderful Life", which had been rerun for many years.

This is an inspirational movie. It tells the story of a protagonist who has lost faith in life and is about to commit suicide as Christmas is approaching. Upon hearing the news, God sends angels to earth in an attempt to save his believers from the water and fire.

After experiencing a series of setbacks, the protagonist regained his courage and faced all the difficulties in life with a smile.

Because of its religious theological color, this movie has received very high reviews in North America.

Although Ethan was not very interested in this kind of gospel story, he still read it with gusto. When the midnight bell rang, Ethan, who was entering Christmas, also said happy holidays to his friends based on the list he had prepared in advance.

As for why Ethan wanted to complicate simple things?
Very simple!
Because people like Jobs, Wozniak, Barbara, and Chuck Petrus can receive blessings at Christmas.

But people like Spielberg, Ralph Baer, ​​they just celebrate Hanukkah.

When this kind of differentiation occurs, special cases can only be treated specially.

And when Ethan maintained the relationships around him, he felt for the first time that email was truly a great invention.

Because you can send group messages with just a click of the mouse, it is much more efficient than making a phone call!
Just as he was sighing that he would have to go through this tedious greeting for many years to come, the tightly closed door was suddenly pushed open from the outside. He turned his head and saw, wow! Evelin actually came in like a thief!
"What are you doing?" Ethan was a little confused.

Evelin jumped to his side and said, “Let’s go back.”

"What?" Ethan didn't understand.

"Let's go back and write code..." Evelyn said, "It's so boring staying at home! We might as well go back and write code!"

"I feel like watching movies and TV is a waste of time. How can it be as interesting as making games?"

"And I'm almost done writing the code for the first ghost. I really want to see it running!"

What the hell!

Ethan was shocked!

He never imagined that there would be workaholics in the world who would voluntarily work overtime on New Year's Day?

Do you think watching movies is a waste of time?
Do you feel uncomfortable if you don’t write code?
What is this ghost?

but……

Ethan was only surprised for a second, then he jumped up from the bed, "Okay, let's go."

Yes, he is feeling very uncomfortable now.

Because I have free time! Maybe it's because of God's blessing.

On the second day after they returned home, which was December 26th, Evelyn successfully completed the red ghost's chasing code.

When the yellow Pac-Man on the monitor connected to APPLE 1 ran wildly in the maze and the red figure of the ghost followed closely behind, the inseparable chase made Ethan and Evelyn very happy.

Especially when they discovered that no matter how the yellow Pac-man ran, the red ghost would chase him at the shortest distance instead of rigidly moving forward along the same path, the two hugged each other and celebrated the birth of an AI.

"Oh Evelyn—we did it, didn't we?" Ethan exclaimed.

"I think it is!"

Evelyn laughed. "If nothing else, at least my algorithm works fine in Map No. 1!"

Ethan was very excited about Xiaohong's success in Map No. 1.

Since he has finished all 255 maps, he then transformed himself into Foxconn's No. 255 quality inspector, driving the yellow Pac-Man through the maps to test the performance of Little Red in different maps.

Although he also discovered many bugs in the process;

For example, when encountering a long maze passage, if Pac-Man is too far ahead and has already drilled out of the passage at the other end, while Red has just entered or has only entered a quarter of it, this guy may retreat from the passage due to the algorithm's nearest principle, giving the player a feeling of "I have a God's perspective";

But this kind of bug that can be modified cannot affect his excitement at all.

You know, what he is making now is one of the most awesome pixel games in his previous life!
Being able to imitate an appearance is already a success!
The subsequent repairs are no problem at all!
When Wozniacki came back from the holiday, the fat guy was stunned by the progress of their work...

"Oh! Sxxt! You guys actually finished with Xiao Hong?"

"Oh! No! Have you finished the test?"

"Dxxn! Don't you guys take a break?"

"Time is money, my friend!" Ethan was in a good mood and started cosplaying as a goblin from World of Warcraft.

“If we don’t speed up, how can we make money?”

Woz was stunned when he heard these words.

Evelyn punched Ethan, then smiled and said to Wozniacki, "Oh, Stephen, it's mainly because the development of Pac-Man is so interesting. It's different from those boring jobs. It brings us happiness, so... we are addicted..."

Wozniak could accept this explanation.

After seeing Ethan and Evelyn's rapid development progress, he became motivated, rolled up his sleeves and swore to heaven that he would develop the AI ​​code for Xiaocheng, the wandering ghost, within a week.

When the technical bigwigs showed the spirit of rather die than live in disgrace, the development of "Pac-Man" also entered a period of high-speed operation.

On January 1976, 1, the first version of the chasing code for the little orange ghost written by Wozniak was officially completed.

On January 1976, 1, Ethan controlled Pac-Man and spent four days running the orange ghost's code on all 19 maps.

On January 1976, 1, the first version of the ambush code for the Pink Ghost written by Evelyn was completed.

The next day, the 25th, everyone had a rest. Because it was Evelyn's birthday, Ethan accompanied her to Anaheim.

The next day, continue working.

On January 1976, 1, Ethan controlled Pac-Man and was blocked by the red and pink ghosts on 29 maps for four days.

On February 1976, 2, the containment code written by Wozniak was officially finalized, and the most difficult little blue ghost finally came out.

On February 1976, 2, Ethan controlled Pac-Man and was beaten to the ground by Red, Pink, Blue, and Orange in 24 maps.

And in this final concentrated test, they also discovered endless bugs.

For example, because the behavior patterns of Little Pink and Little Blue are somewhat similar, the former ambushes on the player's route, and the latter cooperates with Little Red to encircle the player, so when they encounter some simple terrain, the path feedback they show is the same.

If it is a single channel, there is no problem, but if there is a three-way intersection, the abnormal path feedback may turn the artificial intelligence into an artificial idiot, and forcibly give a road without problems to the player.

So something had to be changed here. Evelyn decided to add a judgment for Xiaofen, which was to give priority to the path where the companions were not.

For another example, Xiao Cheng's algorithm is to roam and station unconsciously, and will only chase when the player appears in his area.

At this time, if the player sticks to the judgment edge, he can easily play with Xiaocheng.

When Ethan performed the operations of "Hey, I'm in", "Hey, I'm out", "Hey, I'm in again", "Hey, I'm out again" in the game, Xiaocheng's feedback in the game became a stupid behavior of jumping left and right with "move forward and chase", "stop and stop", "move forward and chase", and "stop and stop".

When Xiao Cheng was teased by Ethan like a Husky, Evelyn was amazed at Ethan's imagination, and Wozniacki...

The little fat boy can't sit still anymore!
He couldn't stand the fact that the AI ​​he wrote had become mentally retarded!
He immediately decided to add another algorithm to Xiaocheng. If a player appears multiple times in Xiaocheng's range detection within a short period of time, such as within five seconds, it will go into a rampage state and chase like crazy like Xiaohong.

Only when the player escapes its detection range and stays away for ten seconds will the little orange return to nature.

Once these omissions were pointed out one by one, related modifications were also put on the agenda.

Then came rounds of endless testing.

On March 1976, 3, Ethan finished level 20 at the normal difficulty level. The WIN that suddenly popped up told them a fact...

After five months...

The Pac-Man project has finally been successfully developed!

And when they spent five days to successfully build the circuit board embedded with the game CPU and put it into the arcade shell with yellow Pac-Man and four ghosts painted on it...

The world's first Pac-Man arcade machine was born!

"It's done!"

Ethan put his hands on his hips and looked at the game interface flashing with five-color light with emotion.

"Next..."

"That means announcing your existence to the world..."

Ethan patted Pac-Man.

A look of joy on his face.

(End of this chapter)