King of Technology: A Fresh Start in 1983

Su Wanqing reached out and took the ugly, monstrous "Chinese character card" covered in wires from Chen Jianghe's hand, and looked at Zhou Qidong.

"Section Chief Zhou, these are project team assets, I'm taking them!"

After saying that, he stuffed it into the instrument case without even looking at it.

She then glanced at Sun Yuanchao, her gaze icy.

"As for you!"

Su Wanqing's voice was not loud, but it clearly reached the ears of everyone present.

"If we had spent less time chasing rumors and more time studying technology, we probably wouldn't have remained at this level for so many years."

These words, spoken by Su Wanqing, instantly drained all color from Sun Yuanchao's face.

His lips trembled, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Zhou Qidong glared at Sun Yuanchao and left with Engineer Li.

Sun Yuanchao also slunk away.

Only Chen Jianghe and Su Wanqing remained at the laboratory entrance.

Chen Jianghe's throat was a little dry: "Engineer Su... thank you..."

Su Wanqing looked at him: "Jiang He, the waste chip you used is 2764, which has a limited number of erase cycles and cannot produce a stable Chinese character card."

"You're looking at a 15-dot matrix font, the effect is rough... there are also industry standards and manufacturing processes involved, how can this be resolved?"

"These poorly made Chinese character cards, once plugged into a PC, can cause anything from screen glitches and system crashes to burning out the motherboard."

Chen Jianghe's face instantly turned red.

"but,"

Su Wanqing changed the subject, her tone carrying an indescribable power.

"You dare to start with forty-eight yuan and try to move a mountain of gold? I admire your do-or-die spirit!"

She said slowly, "Technology can be copied. But courage and ambition cannot be copied."

"Jiang He, think long-term."

"With just this little bit of scrap metal, you're at best a middleman in Zhongguancun."

She turned and walked out, leaving behind her last two sentences without looking back.

"If you really want to do this... take advantage of Sunday and go to the Zhongguancun electronics market... to test the waters!"

"But remember, don't sell the circuit boards! Sell your ideas and your courage!"

Selling ideas and courage?!

In an instant, that simple wired Chinese character card lost all its appeal in Chen Jianghe's mind.

Su Wanqing, this "golden touch," not only sees through his struggles and ambitions.

And... it opened another door for him!

...

Sunday morning.

Chen Jianghe walked along the route from the Summer Palace to Baishiqiao, weaving through the bustling crowds.

Zhongguancun in the 80s was the birthplace of China's science and technology system reform and private science and technology entrepreneurship.

Along the streets, there are many low-rise buildings or simple shops converted from residential bungalows.

It was filled with all kinds of electronic components, small electronic products and computer accessories.

The store was bustling with people, including university faculty and students, researchers, and out-of-town buyers…

A shop with a sign that read "Imported Technology, High Speed ​​and Stability" was crowded with people.

The shop owner, spitting as he spoke, exclaimed: "Exclusive Chinese character card, imported chip, IBM certified! 680! Only 3 yuan for in-stock items!"

A small stall next to it advertised "Genuine chips salvaged from disassembled devices, guaranteed authentic and usable!"

Several people who looked like technicians were picking and choosing, haggling over prices.

In the corner, a stall selling bootleg cassette tapes displayed a few salvaged chips and several boxes of floppy disks, and surprisingly, quite a few people had gathered around it.

...

When Chen Jianghe reached the Huangzhuang intersection, he saw a shop with a sign that read "Chaohui Electronics Service Department".

Standing outside the door was a man in a suit, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a lean build, slightly dark skin, and slicked-back hair.

The logo on the suit cuff and the Orient watch on his wrist were particularly eye-catching in the sunlight.

Speaking with a heavy southern accent, he chatted and laughed with the visitors from time to time.

Chen Jianghe listened for a while...

Just as he was about to step forward, he heard the phone ring inside the house, and the man in the suit turned around and went into the store.

Chen Jianghe took a deep breath, composed himself, and walked straight toward the shop.

Just as he reached the door, he was stopped by a seemingly lazy man: "Young man, what's up?"

"I want to talk to your boss about a business deal."

The man looked him up and down, lingering for a moment on his yellowed white shirt, blue trousers, and black cloth shoes.

He scoffed, "The boss's busy right now. Do you have stock or a price?"

Chen Jianghe ignored his disdain and straightened his back: "I have the goods and the price! It's about the Chinese character cards! A big deal!"

He emphasized the word "Hanka" very much.

Perhaps it was the reputation of the "Chinese character card" that made the difference.

Perhaps it was Chen Jianghe's overly "serious" gaze that made the man find it somewhat interesting.

He shouted into the shop, "Brother Hui! This kid at the door says there's a big deal on Chinese character cards!"

The man in the suit walked to the door upon hearing the sound.

He squinted, revealing a shrewdness and curiosity unique to Southerners that were hard to fathom.

He waved his hand, signaling Chen Jianghe to go inside.

A faint smile played at the corners of his lips.

"Young man, your attire... doesn't seem like you have a 'Chinese character card'?"

He got straight to the point, his tone scrutinizing.

"I'm a technician at the research institute."

Chen Jianghe took out his work ID and waved it in front of the man in the suit.

"Boss, I don't sell Chinese character cards."

"Oh?" The man in the suit raised an eyebrow. "So what do you want to sell? Didn't you say you had a big deal on Chinese character cards?"

"I'm selling an idea! A way to cut the cost of a Chinese character card in half, double the speed, and maximize stability!"

Chen Jianghe stopped beating around the bush, lowered his voice, and with a burning gaze, directly threw out the bait!

The smile on the man in the suit vanished instantly!

His gaze was fixed intently on Chen Jianghe.

"My name is Zhong Chaohui. Go ask around in Zhongguancun. If you dare to lie to me, you can forget about wearing this outfit back home!"

Chung Chiu-fai's voice was not loud, but it carried a cold, oppressive quality.

Chen Jianghe's heart started pounding!

He wasn't afraid!

Instead, I think there's a chance!

A gamble involving fate has begun!

He immediately took out a stack of manuscripts filled with densely packed '0's and '1's from his canvas satchel.

There are also a few hand-drawn circuit diagrams that I did while staying up all night.

"Mr. Chung, please take a look!"

Chen Jianghe spoke rapidly, combining the manuscript with illustrations.

"Most Chinese character cards on the market either use expensive imported dedicated chips or are made up of a large number of low-speed components..."

"High power consumption, slow speed, high cost, and prone to damaging the motherboard!"

"My approach is different! I don't use dedicated chips; I only use the general-purpose 74 series!"

"The key lies here... the address decoding and character buffer management logic!"

"I used dual-layer dynamic addressing, combined with a pre-decoding buffer, to effectively replace dedicated logic gates, achieving efficiency close to that of dedicated chips!"

"In terms of firmware, I optimized the font retrieval algorithm and adopted bit-mapped skip compression storage, which significantly reduces the capacity requirements of the EPROM chip!"

"In this way, the overall performance of the solution will be improved by at least 100%, while key power consumption and cost can be reduced by two-thirds!"

"And then, combined with my hardware-software joint parity checking approach..."

Chen Jianghe pointed to a block on the manuscript, "It can correct errors in real time during data flow, greatly reducing the risk of motherboard burnout!"

"Its stability far surpasses that of those domestically produced Chinese character cards on the market!"