The Grandmother in the Siheyuan

Chapter 234 Patriots

It is said that the engine of Rolls-Royce has been negotiated. This time, Mr. Ma plans to hold a meeting to sort things out again. The previous shortcomings need to be corrected, and then he will start building the second prototype.

As soon as he arrived at the Shanghai Aircraft Design Institute, Liu Hua asked Mr. Ma to come to his office and personally made a cup of Dahongpao for Liu Hua.

"This tea is very rare. It was given to me by my leader." Mr. Ma said with a smile, "You have done a great service, otherwise I would not be willing to give you this tea."

"What great achievement?"

"It was your strategy that helped me negotiate the deal for the engine." Mr. Ma said with a smile, "I didn't expect there would be so many twists and turns here. Why do you have to mix so many messy things into a good deal?"

"I was just daydreaming." Liu Hua shook his head. "I read some books on this subject, so I knew some things that are not on the surface. I didn't expect that they would be useful."

"Who would have thought?" Mr. Ma shook his head and said, "It's an ordinary Rolls-Royce delegation, half of whom are not from Rolls-Royce, half are from John Country, and half are from the European Community. It's really a case of small demons having big winds and shallow ponds having many turtles."

"How can they not be cautious when doing business with us?" Liu Hua said disdainfully: "In history, they beat our defeated opponents to a pulp. Deep down, they are actually afraid of us."

"On the one hand, they look down on us, and on the other hand, they are afraid of us. These people are really strange." Mr. Ma said with a smile: "I listened to their report on the entire negotiation process. When they said that Airbus could enter our market first before Boeing, the people from the European Community were very excited. When they said that we would trip up Boeing, they were very excited."

"In essence, they are the descendants of a group of thieves. They don't have the slightest bit of civilization." Liu Hua said mockingly, "These people can't do anything except plunder. Although they are more developed now, they have been going downhill since they stopped plundering. Now they are just plundering in disguise and enjoying the dividends of the post-plundering period."

"Let's not talk about that anymore. Anyway, I know what these Westerners are like." Mr. Ma shook his head. "The engine came back very quickly, and we got a 40% discount on the price. These guys were clearing out their inventory and selling us some old engines in the warehouse. They asked for such a high price, which means we can't produce good engines now, otherwise I wouldn't be such a sucker."

"We have to do it now. Our engines can't support such a large aircraft."

The meeting was held the next day. All departments reported on their improvement work, except for the avionics department where Liu Hua worked, which remained silent. This was because the avionics department had already made great progress when the first prototype was made. It would be a fantasy to expect further progress in a short period of time.

It is estimated that the second prototype will take half a year. Now it is 1982, and Liu Hua feels that time is a bit tight, because he feels that the Y-10 project was cancelled in his previous life, probably at this point in time. Although there has been some progress now, the entire project team may still be shut down.

After the meeting, Liu Hua told Mr. Ma about his concerns. Mr. Ma fell into deep thought. He understood that Liu Hua's concerns were justified, but there was nothing he could do for the time being.

Only the leaders above can make the decision on this matter. Now the only way to influence the determination of those above is to come up with mature products.

Mr. Ma could only smile and comfort Liu Hua: "It doesn't matter, even if the whole project is cancelled, at least our results are good. We designed a new radar, have a new large forging press, and various new materials, which will also be helpful for our country's future aviation construction."

Liu Hua has not yet planned to change his career and go into aircraft engine design, but he plans to enter this industry in the future, but no longer as a simple scientific researcher, but as a businessman. But that is a story for the future.

After returning to Beijing, Liu Hua made a work plan. The first priority at the moment was to commercialize personal computers. His work had been basically completed, but how to commercialize it was still a problem. Currently, production could be achieved in the laboratory, but how to mass-produce it required the allocation of resources.

Liu Hua wrote a plan and handed it to the relevant leaders, which immediately attracted great attention. Personal computers, this rare thing, is just taking off in the West. We are not far behind, and it is time to catch up.

Therefore, under the arrangement of superiors, personal computers were mainly produced by Factory 798 and Beijing Dongfeng Television Factory, in cooperation with some other parts and electronics factories.

As the chief engineer, Liu Hua, with the help of his superiors, spent more than a month integrating resources and designing the production line.

Around the National Day in 1982, the first personal computer in our country officially began production.

Because the workers on the production line were all novices and had never produced computers before, after more than a week of running-in, the first personal computer finally rolled off the production line.

After being installed with the Linux operating system named Red Flag by Liu Hua, this computer was no different from the computer in his previous life except that it was simple and slow.

On the day when the new computer rolled off the production line, the superior leader specially attended the ceremony and, with a wave of his hand, gave the computer a brand name: Patriot.

Liu Hua chose this name with a bit of a spoof meaning, but other people don’t understand the meaning of this name, because the US Patriot anti-missile system will not be officially launched until next year.

So most people think that although this name is straightforward, it carries strong emotions.

The next day's front-page headline of the newspaper reported that my country's first personal computer had rolled off the production line and was officially released to the public.

After calculation, the price of this Patriot computer was 3,400 yuan, which was a luxury item in this era.

Liu Hua bought one for himself, and most of the other orders were from scientific research institutions. In the first six months after the Patriot computer was launched, Liu Hua was the only individual buyer.

Liu Hua later inquired and learned that the second individual buyer was a foreigner who bought the goods at the Friendship Store using foreign exchange coupons. He was a foreign affairs officer of the American army stationed in our country.

Because Factory 798 became the main production body of personal computers, the superiors decided to set up a personal computer research center in Factory 798. Four students from the first batch of students taught by Liu Hua were directly hired by Factory 798 and began a part-time work and study life.

Putting aside his work on personal computer research, Liu Hua took advantage of the situation to start his second work plan that he had set earlier: We must never fall behind others in semiconductors again.

(End of this chapter)