Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 338 The End of the Lyndon Johnson Era
"At the Leipzig Trade Fair in East Germany, China launched its own chess AI, Crimson, a move seen as a challenge to America's IBM. At the launch event, the Chinese side claimed to be far ahead of IBM. Some conservative newspapers believe that the professor played a role similar to Julius Rosenberg, providing China with key technologies."

With the election approaching, and perhaps knowing he had no chance of winning, Lyndon Johnson has been making increasingly frequent trips to Redstone Base and Cape Canaveral Launch Complex.

Lyndon Johnson would only come to the moon for iconic occasions like America's first manned moon landing.

Now, almost every time a GPS satellite is launched, Lyndon Johnson has to be there in person to watch. Even if there's no satellite launch, if he's going to Washington for a campaign speech, he'll still make a trip there, stay for a day, and then return to Washington.

So much so that White House reporters privately complained that since Lyndon Johnson loves going to NASA so much, why doesn't he switch places with the professor? He could become NASA administrator and the professor could come to the White House as president; that would generate more buzz.

A Washington, D.C. newspaper reported the story as follows: "According to sources within the White House, Lyndon Johnson has given up hope of winning the election and is increasingly treasuring his remaining time in the White House and the opportunity to communicate with some of the world's brightest minds. This is the fundamental reason for his recent frequent appearances at NASA."

In the public canteen of the Redstone Base, the television was broadcasting the news, which happened to mention the great power of China's deep red at the Leipzig Trade Fair in Europe across the ocean.

Lin Ran was also mentioned, but that's normal. Whenever the media mentions Lin Ran, they'll definitely bring him up. It's like nobody's watching if they don't mention the professor.

Lin Ran had the illusion that he was a buzzword of this era, just like in the later era of self-media, where everyone had to use some buzzwords to gain traffic.

Car reviewers have to compare their products to Tesla; phone reviewers have to bring up Apple at their product launches; and phone-related social media creators have to bring up Xiaomi and Huawei.

Lin Ran understands that everyone is well-versed in traffic generation in the era of self-media, but it's only the 1960s now, so why is the media already using it as a hot topic?

Lin Ran looked at Lyndon Johnson sitting across from him and gave a helpless, bitter smile: "Mr. President, this is absolutely slander!"

Lyndon Johnson nodded and said, "Of course, that's obviously slander, Professor. You've been so dedicated and tireless in your work for America's space program, you'd be saying, 'I've devoted myself to it until my dying breath' in Chinese terms."

Because of Lin Ran, many political figures in Washington can speak a few words of Chinese.

Lyndon Johnson continued, "Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you really want to provide technology to China, you should provide aerospace-related technology, since the Chinese don't even have a single satellite."

Impossible, absolutely impossible! The conservative media's imagination is running wild, Lyndon Johnson thought.

Lin Ran smiled. He thought to himself that the president still trusted him, but he wondered if the next Nixon would trust him as much as the previous two.

Although he had done Nixon a favor, it wasn't just Nixon; Kissinger was also involved.

However, it's not a big problem. As a German Jew, Lin Ran has a natural advantage over her.

He then thought, if he really publicly admitted to being Jewish, and then went to China, wouldn't Kissinger be in big trouble?
Lyndon Johnson continued, "However, if what the media reports are true, China's progress in the computer field has indeed exceeded our expectations."

"Crimson employs a 32-bit word length architecture, which is comparable to the 32-bit design of the IBM System/360 Model 85. This facilitates the processing of complex data. I speculate that China encodes each position as an 8-bit sub-force type + 8-bit color + auxiliary bits, with a data path width of 32 bits. The parallel bus design allows for the simultaneous processing of multiple register operations, improving computational throughput."

Compared to our BESM-6's 24-bit word length, Crimson is more advanced in terms of bit width, and its custom bus is optimized for low-power operation.

“The Crimson Central Processing Unit is based on discrete logic circuits and may have borrowed from our Minsk-32 design, but incorporates their own silicon gate integration.”

The clock frequency is estimated to be between 3 and 5 MHz. By observing the host hum and response delay, it can be inferred that complex instructions such as multiplication or floating-point operations can be executed per cycle. The processor contains 16 general-purpose registers, each 32 bits, for storing intermediate states of the game, which supports parallel evaluation of the algorithm at the hardware level.

During the live demonstration, the processor showed no significant malfunctions under high load, indicating that its reliability has reached industrial-grade levels and that it has strong anti-interference capabilities. The Chinese side's claim that its processor speed is comparable to that of the Model 85 is not unfounded.

"On the hardware level, China's Crimson has shown remarkable progress, with its silicon transistor integration density far exceeding that of our BESM-6 in 1965. This is expected to be due to technological breakthroughs in the production of silicon components and the technological cooperation between East Germany and China in the field of optics over the past three years."

Professional assessments show that the machine has an MTBF of approximately 500 hours, making it suitable for continuous demonstrations. However, its heat dissipation design still has shortcomings. Under prolonged operation, the host temperature can rise to 50°C, which may lead to transistor drift.

Compared to the thin-film memory and cache of the IBM System/360 Model 85, the Crimson One is comparable in both speed and capacity.

"Compared to Crimson, the software China showcased this time, called Spreadsheet, is more practical. After personally testing it, I believe it can play a significant role in data processing-related work such as finance, statistics, and resource scheduling. The software requires limited scheduling resources, and our computer performance can support its operation. I suggest that we develop similar software first and provide it for domestic use."

"China's progress has not only exceeded our expectations, but even those of East German computer experts. This has not only enhanced the reputation of the Socialism camp in the field of AI, but also exposed the lag in our intelligence."

Recommendation: 1. Immediately negotiate with the Chinese side for technical exchange and to acquire specific technologies;
2. Accelerate hardware upgrades for the ES EVM series, targeting 32-bit word length and 512K memory;

3. Launch a similar system at the next Moscow Expo to counter IBM and remind allies that we still hold a technological lead.

The appearance of Crimson was not just a storm, but also had a very real impact, as detailed reports were received by Moscow on the very evening of the Leipzig Trade Fair.

Kosygin then arranged for senior engineers from the Computer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences to go there, and this group of experts arrived in Leipzig on the third day.

The above is a telegram sent back to Moscow by Ivan Petrovich Kovalev, the expert leading the team.

When Kosygin received the telegram, he was very anxious. Was this still the China we knew?

He summoned Boris Babeyan, a computer expert who remained in the country and the director of the Lebedev Institute for Precision Machinery and Computer Engineering, nicknamed the father of Soviet supercomputers.

At this time, Boris was only in his thirties and had already become the director. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he served as the director of architecture for Intel's Software and Solutions Group.

Kosygin handed over the report on the table. "Comrade Babeyan, this is a report from Comrade Kovalev from Leipzig."

Boris took it and became engrossed in reading it.

The experts of this era are all excellent at drawing.

Therefore, Kovalev's report not only included text but also diagrams, including his predictions of the Deep Red architecture, the graphical interface of Deep Red 1, and spreadsheets, all of which were illustrated with diagrams.

Boris watched while pondering the situation.

About ten minutes later, Boris looked up and said, "Comrade Kosygin, China's progress has far exceeded our expectations. According to the report, they are at least five years ahead of us, at the very least."

If we consider large-scale production, product stability, and technological reserves, the timeframe might be even longer.

Boris's throat was dry; he could hardly believe that his Chinese counterparts had achieved such a breakthrough.

During the honeymoon period of the 1950s, China sent talents from all walks of life to the Soviet Union for study and exchange. According to relevant statistics, from 50 to 1965, about 16000 Chinese students and interns went to the Soviet Union for study and exchange, and the computer field was no exception.

At that time, the preparatory students for studying in the Soviet Union were to study at the Yenching Russian Language Institute for a year. Their major for studying abroad was determined during their language studies, and they were directly taught by Soviet and Russian teachers. On May Fourth Youth Day in 1956, the principal of the Russian Language Institute announced that 100 students would be selected from the preparatory students to study electronic computers in the Soviet Union, but 80 students actually went.

Before their departure, Professor Hua Luogeng from the Preparatory Office of the Chinese Academy of Sciences gave them a speech. Boris vividly remembered these young people from China; they studied diligently, buried themselves in their books every day, rarely went out to play with their classmates, and greatly admired the computers possessed by the Soviet Union. Whenever given the opportunity to practice, they would vie to get on the computers.

That's all the impression I have.

You say it's excellent? Boris didn't even realize it. It was this group of Chinese who, after returning to China, created a product that rivaled America's and was at least a generation ahead of the Soviet Union ten years later.

Boris was still thinking about which of the Chinese students who came to the Lebedev Institute of Precision Machinery and Computer Engineering were the most outstanding, who might be involved in the research and development and manufacturing of Crimson One, and how he could find out as much technical secret as possible when he wrote to them later.

What Boris couldn't have guessed was that the people he could directly contact were definitely not involved in the project, and those who were involved could only be Chinese staff members.

“Comrade Babeyan, it’s like this: the Chinese side has expressed their willingness to cooperate with us on technology, but the price is East Germany’s lithography equipment technology. They hope to reach a technology exchange agreement.” Kosygin stared into Boris’s eyes, putting immense psychological pressure on him.

"Please evaluate this from a professional perspective. Is this deal necessary for us? If China acquires East Germany's lithography technology, are there any ways we can subsequently restrict them?" Kosygin then asked.

Despite Kosygin's euphemism, Boris quickly understood what he meant.

To put it bluntly, it's because they're afraid China will break free from Soviet control. Hard control is better than soft control, and soft control is better than no control at all.

Soviet Russia discovered that among its allies, only China was an indestructible, unyielding force.

Boris is an expert, and he tends to think about problems primarily through a purely rational lens.

Kosygin, however, said wistfully, "Nothing lasts forever. What if one day China is no longer our ally?"

Boris said, "Of course, Comrade Kosygin, that is indeed possible, but the problem is that we need to catch up now; this technology is too important for Soviet Russia."

Its applications are so wide that it can fundamentally improve our operational efficiency.

This also gives us an opportunity, an opportunity to catch up with America.

I've thought about why our computer industry has lagged behind America's pace. It's because we have limited talent in this area and haven't been able to effectively integrate resources from across Eastern Europe and Moscow.

Our forces are scattered across Kyiv, East Berlin, Prague, and Yenching; our resources are too dispersed.

We need to reassemble ourselves to have any chance of catching up.

I suggest that we should establish a large computer company to operate the Crimson One equipment imported from China, to integrate the power of the entire socialist camp, and to build it into a company that is no less than IBM. The Crimson Giant is a good name.

To put it more bluntly, this is using East Germany's resources to exchange for Moscow's interests.

Kosygin's eyes narrowed. "Okay, I understand."

At the Leipzig Trade Fair, China's Crimson brand secured orders for 50 units, primarily from European countries, including Eastern and Western Europe.

Western European countries initially thought China wouldn't sell, but after learning that it would, they placed orders despite their reluctance once they knew the price.

On the one hand, IBM's supply could not meet the demand in Western Europe, and on the other hand, computer companies in France and England wanted to dismantle China's Crimson One.

The final average price per unit was $480 million, and the sales revenue generated by Crimson One alone exceeded $2 million, not including subsequent maintenance services.

On the closing day, the front page headline of the Leipzig local newspaper read: "The 1968 Leipzig Autumn Trade Fair Concludes Successfully, with Crimson Shining Throughout."

For several days in a row, official Chinese reports have been praising Crimson's incredible success, claiming that this single product alone has sold $2 million, more than all of its other products combined.

People counted on their fingers how many zeros there were, and then sighed that they still needed to study math and science to better contribute to the country.

Meanwhile, American media also reported on Crimson, but few media outlets believed that Crimson could truly rival Deep Blue, and few Americans believed that Crimson One could far surpass IBM's Model 85.
However, Chinese spreadsheets were published in Silicon Valley tech magazines, inspiring many entrepreneurs to get started right in their garages, with copying becoming an urgent priority.

"This is a knock-off of freedom, a knock-off of democracy," America's entrepreneurs defended themselves after launching the app.

There is another important reason why the American media did not report on it: the election results are about to be announced.

The Democratic nominee Lyndon Johnson and the Republican nominee Richard Nixon are about to determine who will win the White House.

This is what everyone is concerned about.

After Hoover's assassination, Lyndon Johnson's approval rating plummeted. His support, which had been boosted by the Vietnam War ceasefire, collapsed again. By October, the gap between his poll numbers and Nixon's had reached double digits, or more than 10 percentage points.

This was enough to break down Lyndon Johnson's defenses, and if it weren't for the sake of the Democratic Party, he would have even wanted to surrender outright.

November 5th is the presidential election day. On election day, candidates usually stop conducting public campaign activities and instead focus on internal coordination and media interaction.

Nixon and Johnson's teams each set up election galas at their respective headquarters, gathering supporters, staff, media, and families, with the focus on live-streaming election coverage on television networks.

Nixon’s campaign headquarters were located at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

Johnson's campaign headquarters was at the Area Resort in Texas, where the atmosphere was noticeably more somber compared to Nixon's campaign site.

Texas is not only the hometown of Lyndon Johnson, but for a long time it was also a blue state, a stronghold of the Democratic Party, until after 1980 when it slowly turned from a blue state to a red state.

In the Democratic Party's stronghold, in his hometown, Lyndon Johnson could only slightly alleviate his inner anxiety.

The scene was lively yet tense, filled with the sounds of discussion and television broadcasts, shrouded in smoke, and with ample food and drinks available.

As night fell and the atmosphere grew somber, many of Lyndon Johnson's supporters at the scene watched the vote results from state to state on television and realized that defeat was inevitable.

Lyndon Johnson first hugged his wife, then shook hands with each member of his staff in the room, saying things like "thank you for your hard work," before finally preparing to go out and give his final speech to his supporters.

As he left, he glanced at the room number 257 in his rest room, and Lyndon Johnson shook his head with a wry smile, thinking, "Professor, it seems your metaphysics can't save me this time either."

(End of this chapter)