Live Stream 1980: Netizens Teach Me How to Make a Rocket by Hand

Questions and criticisms arose one after another.

Everyone here is an expert; who doesn't know that CNC systems require high-end components?

Foreign companies like Techtronic Industries and Dongemens use dedicated industrial chips, which have long been based on 16-bit systems.

Using this pile of junk for high-precision work?

Isn't this just ridiculous?

"I want to use something good, even if it's just Intel's 8086."

Lin Xi placed her hands on the table, her gaze icy.

"But it's clearly written on the COCOM embargo list."

"High-performance chips with 16 bits or more, whether for civilian or military use, are strictly prohibited from entering China."

"We can't get it."

"Even if we could get our hands on it, the black market price would be astronomical, making mass production impossible."

The meeting room fell silent, save for sighs.

"So, we need to try a different approach."

Lin Xi turned around and drew a circle on the blackboard.

"Western CNC systems are bloated like pigs."

Lin Xi picked up the eraser and vigorously erased the area around the circle, leaving only a dot in the center.

What we're going to do is create a 'microkernel'.

"Cut out unnecessary interrupt requests and modules."

"I won't let this Z80 do anything else."

"Just make it do two things: position feedback and error correction."

"It's like concentrating all your strength on the tip of a needle."

Lin Xi's voice echoed in the conference room:

"We're going to squeeze every last drop of juice out of this 8-bit chip!"

The engineers looked at each other in bewilderment.

Although I think Lin Xi's words make sense.

But the technological gap cannot be bridged by passion alone.

"Manager Lin, it's theoretically feasible."

The expert pushed up his glasses and said with a wry smile,

"But there is one fatal flaw—floating-point arithmetic."

"CNC machine tools need to move in circular arcs, which involves a large number of trigonometric functions and square root calculations."

"The Z80 does not have a floating-point coprocessor."

"It gets stuck when it encounters decimals."

"It's like asking a primary school student to calculate pi in their head; they won't be able to."

This is a dead end.

Unless the chip is replaced, this is a physical barrier.

The meeting room fell silent once again.

Jiang Jun and Zhao Qiang also frowned; this was a fatal flaw that couldn't be ignored.

Just then.

"Crunch."

A crisp sound of chewing a candy rang out in the quiet corner, sounding particularly jarring.

Everyone's eyes turned to that direction.

Liu Xiaodong was chewing on a White Rabbit candy, holding up a sheet of paper covered in drawings.

"that……"

The boy blinked, looking completely innocent.

"Why bother with floating-point operations? Wouldn't it be fine as long as we don't use floating-point operations?"

The expert was both amused and exasperated:

"Kid, how do you calculate coordinates without using floating-point operations? How do you move along an arc?"

"Look it up in the table."

Liu Xiaodong said matter-of-factly.

He jumped off the chair and slowly walked to the blackboard.

creak-

The chalk made a teeth-grinding sound as it scratched on the blackboard.

As Liu Xiaodong wrote, he mumbled indistinctly:

"We first preprocess all the circular paths into 20,000 coordinate points."

"Store all these points into memory."

"When the machine tool is about to start, the CPU doesn't need to calculate sin and cos; it can directly 'look up the dictionary' in memory."

Brush brush!

Lines of extremely concise bitwise operation formulas appeared on the blackboard.

"This transforms complex multiplication and division into simple addition, subtraction, and bit shifting operations."

"The Z80 can't handle multiplication, it can only handle displacement."

Finally, Liu Xiaodong put a period at the end of the formula.

He dusted off his hands with chalk dust, turned around, and looked at the dumbfounded crowd.

"This is called... trading space for time."

The expert stared intently at the algorithm on the blackboard, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.

What kind of divine thinking is this?

But everyone here is an expert; they can tell at a glance—

This method actually works!

Not only does it work, but it also avoids all the complicated mathematical calculations.

This directly reduced the difficulty to a level that the Z80 could handle!

"genius……"

The expert's lips trembled as he looked at the little kid who was still peeling his second candy.

"That's what genius is..."

Jiang Jun and Zhao Qiang exchanged a glance and both saw the fear in each other's eyes.

Where did Lin Xi find such a prodigy?

Is this even a human brain?

Lin Xi watched this scene with a slight smile on her lips.

This is the basic operation of embedded development in later generations.

But in 1981, this was the divine skill of dimensional reduction!

The few lines of code on the blackboard were ridiculously concise.

It stunned everyone present.

The Z80 chip uses a lookup table method, trading space for time.

This logic is absolutely brilliant.

Jiang Jun stared intently at the blackboard, his eyes practically spitting fire.

As a former key member of the Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, he knew all too well what this meant.

This means that Red Star Technology has bypassed the Western blockade on high-performance chips.

Even with inexpensive civilian-grade chips, it is still possible to achieve industrial-grade control precision!

"Manager Lin!"

Jiang Jun turned around abruptly, his voice trembling slightly with excitement.

"Both the hardware and software logic are working."

"Should our next step be to directly implement five-axis linkage?"

"This is a vital national asset!"

Give me some time.

"Even if I, Jiang Jun, give my life..."

"We also need to develop high-precision grating rulers!"

Zhao Qiang also cracked his knuckles, his face filled with fanaticism:

"Yes, Manager Lin."

"I used to dream of touching those high-end items."

"Now we have the manpower, the money, and the resources, let's do it!"

The air in the conference room seemed to ignite.

Everyone's eyes gleamed with longing for the crown jewel of industry.

That's what makes these tech fanatics so endearing.

Give them a way out, and they'll dare to run into a brick wall.

however.

"Tap, tap."

Lin Xi tapped the table lightly with her knuckles.

The crisp sound interrupted everyone's excitement.

He did not follow the crowd's lead.

Instead, he turned around, picked up the blackboard eraser, and wiped away a corner of the blackboard.

Then he forcefully wrote down a new code name:

【Red Star M1 CNC Retrofit Kit】

"Five-axis linkage?"

"That's a powerful weapon for foreigners to see in the future, not a meal ticket for us now."

Lin Xi threw away the chalk and dusted off her hands.

He walked to the window and pointed to the several dark green machines that were broken down in the workshop outside.

"Our first task is not to build new machine tools."

"Instead, modify them—"

"Those C620 ordinary lathes."

Ga?

The air froze instantly.

In the conference room, the fervor on Jiang Jun's face quickly cooled.

Instead, there was an incredulous astonishment.

"Manager Lin, you're not joking, are you?"

Jiang Jun stood up and pointed out the window:

"That's a C620!"

"It's all manual, and the precision depends entirely on the worker's feel and experience."

"That's technology from the 1950s!"

"We now have the world's most advanced servo motors and ingenious algorithms."

"You want us to... to become repairmen?"

Several engineers who had been poached from large state-owned factories nearby couldn't help but whisper among themselves.

"This is like using an anti-aircraft gun to kill a mosquito."

"Yeah, we get such good treatment, eating braised pork, and this is what we get in return?"

"That's so unambitious..."

This feeling is normal.

Who in the tech field doesn't want to create the most cutting-edge products?

Who would want to wallow in that pile of sludge and mess with those old guys that are about to be scrapped?

Only He Zhenhua, the "head housekeeper" who had been sitting in the corner, remained silent.

He gently stroked his chin with his only remaining right hand.

His gaze shifted back and forth between the old machine tools and Lin Xi.

It seemed like I had grasped something, but I wasn't sure.