Siheyuan: The Era of Struggle

Chapter 175 Big Brother's Technology Tree is Wrong
In order to prevent himself from getting sick due to idleness, Yang Ning decided to move back to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

No matter what, Yang Ning can still find something to do here.

He couldn't go to the data processing institute for the time being. Although he knew his situation this time, Yang Fengyu still asked him not to come recently and would let him go back to work after the National Day in a few days.

If he really can't sit still, he can do something else.

"Yang Ning, have you been restless lately?"

Looking at Mr. Hua who was sitting in front of him with a smile on his face, Yang Ning suddenly felt helpless.

I don’t know who leaked his situation. Many people came to see him during this period.

First, Professor Dong took me to my alma mater to attend a few classes, and then I was taken by President Guo to visit the University of Science and Technology of China, where I was teased by Mr. Qian and others who were teaching there.

Yang Ning was so embarrassed today that he had made up his mind that even if he died of boredom or jumped off the building and died, it would not be considered as going out.

Unfortunately, what was supposed to come finally came. If he didn't go out, then they would come to him on their own. How could Yang Ning not let them in?
"Mr. Hua, are you here to laugh at me too?" Yang Ning poured a cup of tea for Mr. Hua, sat down and smiled bitterly.

"Haha~"

Mr. Hua always has a smiling face, which makes Yang Ning feel very friendly.

After hearing what Yang Ning said, he laughed and said, "How can this be a joke?"

"You know what they say about you?"

"What else can you say? You're just saying I'm being pretentious!" Yang Ning said with a self-deprecating smile.

"Who said that? Anyone who says that is not ideologically conscious enough."

"You are not being pretentious at all. Everyone says that you are working so hard for the construction and you have no time to rest!"

When Mr. Hua heard Yang Ning's self-deprecation, his eyes widened and he spoke seriously.

"Well? Since you have nothing else to do now, shouldn't you go to the Computer Research Institute?"

At this point, Mr. Hua looked at Yang Ning with an aggrieved look on his face: "What's wrong with you, kid? You usually visit other institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, why don't you come to our place?"

"What? Are you afraid that the computer we developed will take your job? Do you dislike computer research so much?"

Hearing what Mr. Hua said, Yang Ning waved his hands repeatedly: "How could that be? I wish you could develop a better computer so that I can have an easier time."

Yang Ning couldn't tell him that he was a little scared of computers, right? After all, it was that thing that brought him here.

"In that case, since you have nothing to do now, come with me to the Computer Research Institute."

"Since the 104 machine was produced, we decided to develop our own digital general-purpose computer."

"It's not like the 103 and 104 machines where we have the templates of Big Brother for reference. We have to research everything ourselves."

"How's it going? Are you going?"

After saying this, Old Hua stared at Yang Ning with burning eyes, "Let's see how you can refuse this time."

"You're already blocking my house, how can I not go?"

Yang Ning said helplessly.

"That's right. Our place is not a place where people are eaten. If you have nothing to do, you can come over to our place and take a look around."

Mr. Hua is actually quite helpless now. The research of this computer has reached a critical stage, but he didn't expect that the theoretical research of the Institute of Atomic Research was completed. In order to produce our nuclear weapons as soon as possible, not only did the higher-ups transfer a large part of the people from the Institute of Atomic Research, but also some people from their Institute of Mathematics.

Do you really think that once we have the theoretical research and data, the production of atomic bombs will be a piece of cake? The specific production process still involves calculation problems.

But computer research had also reached the final critical stage, so Mr. Hua found Yang Ning, who was suffering from illness due to being idle.

Following Professor Hua to the Computer Research Institute, Yang Ning also saw Professor Xia.

After learning about their current research progress from them, Yang Ning had a rough idea of their research.

The computer they are developing now is similar to the historical 107 computer, which is also a vacuum tube computer.

But looking at the huge processor and the densely packed circuits, Yang Ning couldn't help but feel his scalp tingling.

"It should feel more sour and pleasurable to be hit by this thing, right?" he couldn't help but think.

So, Yang Ning just stood far away, and even if someone encountered a problem while demonstrating it to him, he would never get close to this unfinished computer.

"What's wrong?" Noticing that Yang Ning was acting strange, Old Hua walked over and asked in confusion.

Of course Yang Ning couldn't say that he had a psychological trauma, so he touched his chin and thought for a while, then asked the professor.

"I remember that foreign countries already have transistors. Compared with vacuum tubes, transistors are much better in terms of size, energy consumption and reliability."

"Since we are going to redesign a computer, why not consider transistors?"

"Transistors are better than vacuum tubes? And they can be used in computers?"

After hearing what Yang Ning said, not only Mr. Hua, but also other people in the Computer Research Institute looked at Yang Ning with suspicion.

"Yang Ning, where did you get this information?" Professor Xia looked at Yang Ning puzzledly and asked.

When Yang Ning saw their expressions, he realized that he had accidentally revealed the plot.

At this time, our computer technology was influenced by Big Brother, and we still scoffed at transistors.

Because when transistor technology first appeared, Big Brother also tried to make it. The end result was that Big Brother found that the performance of transistors was not as good as the mature vacuum tubes, and even if Big Brother fought a nuclear war with the Eagle Sauce, this thing would not be as reliable as the vacuum tubes.

The first product made by Bell Labs, which invented the transistor, was actually a hearing aid.

So Big Brother started to look down on transistors, jokingly saying that nothing decent could be made with them, and so he devoted himself to the development of vacuum tube technology.

As a result, the semiconductor technology tree of Big Brother went astray. By the time it realized its mistake and wanted to turn around more than a decade later, it had already been left behind by Western countries.

Although the United States had already built a transistor computer a few years ago, due to technical problems with transistors, it still needed to mix and match with vacuum tubes.

It seems that it was only after the breakthrough in transistor technology this year that IBM decided to develop an all-transistor computer.

It’s no wonder that Mr. Hua and Professor Xia reacted so strongly after hearing Yang Ning’s words.

"I saw this in a technology magazine. It said that the United States has made a breakthrough in transistor technology, and a company there has begun to develop all-transistor computing."

Of course, Yang Ning was not making this up. In this era, although these foreign magazines were difficult for ordinary people to access, it was not difficult for Yang Ning and his team to get them.

Professor Xia and his colleagues were concentrating on researching vacuum tube computers at the time and did not pay attention to reports on this topic.

But Yang Ning had indeed seen a report on this in a magazine. After all, IBM is a company and it has to advertise all over the world.

(End of this chapter)