America 1978: Starting with Hand-Crushed Chips

In search of tools, Tang Mu left the basement.

The first floor is a workshop converted from a garage, with many tools placed on an L-shaped workbench.

Stepping outside, the roller shutter door was covered in graffiti, and a sign hung at the door that read "We can fix anything" in both Chinese and English.

"No. 104 Beichun Street..." Tang Mu glanced at the address.

The house was at the end of the street, surrounded by abandoned factories, with a few small houses and garages scattered around, looking like a festering sore in Los Angeles, neglected and abandoned.

The area in the distance was much more lively, but with people of all ethnicities coming and going, the streets appeared somewhat dilapidated.

Tang Mu had no time for sentimentality. He grabbed a soldering iron and diagonal pliers from the workbench, turned around, and went back to the basement.

"It's been a long time since I've done this kind of work..." He thought to himself with a self-deprecating laugh, but his hands didn't stop.

The arcade machine's structure was very simple, and Tang Mu understood it at a glance.

Sure enough, the varistor at the power input terminal was burnt black.

Since there were no matching parts, he used diagonal pliers to cut off the burnt resistor, and then used a soldering iron to forcefully short-circuit a thin copper wire to the fuse.

"Forget about circuit breaker protection." Although this doesn't align with Tang Mu's previous life's philosophy of leaving redundancy in all designs and seems a bit crude, the most important thing right now is to solve the problem.

"Simply shorting it won't work. If the voltage is still wrong, it'll explode this time." His gaze shifted to the transformer.

In those days, voltage converters were not yet widespread. If you wanted to change the input voltage, you either had to replace the transformer or rewind the coil, but the materials on hand were obviously insufficient for either.

Fortunately, he knew that in order to unify the global supply chain, Taito had actually reserved taps for different voltages on the primary coils of these transformers, but the products manufactured in Japan were connected to the 100V pins by default.

Tang Mu resoldered the original pins to the 120V side and tried to plug in the power.

"First power-on test."

A hissing sound was heard, followed by a flash of orange light at the tail of the picture tube, and then the screen lit up, indicating that the voltage adaptation was complete.

But the game I imagined didn't appear; the screen was filled with gibberish, a jumbled mix of geometric shapes and Japanese characters.

"It doesn't seem that simple. The vibrations from the long-distance sea transport have also caused problems with the memory modules."

Tang Mu was very patient. He unplugged the power and removed the back panel again.

My gaze swept over the row of through-hole memory modules on the motherboard, and one of them was clearly bent out of place.

Tang Mu removed the memory stick, restored it, and then rummaged through drawers to find a hard eraser. He vigorously rubbed the oxidized gold contacts until the copper luster was revealed.

He then pressed hard into the slot.

"Click".

The back panel was reinstalled, and a second power-on test was conducted.

A high-frequency electrical hum sounded, and after the monitors warmed up, the pixelated aliens lined up neatly.

"DUT DUT DUT..."

Hearing the pleasant standby sound, Tang Mu's lips curled into a slight smile.

"Welcome to Earth, aliens."

In just a short time while repairing the equipment, Tang Mu felt his body was starting to feel weak.

He sat down on the mattress to catch his breath and pondered his next move.

"The machine is finished. We can either sell it directly or not. Right now, the acceptance in the US market is not high. I estimate it can sell for $1000 to $1500. We can pay off the Blood Hand Gang's debts first."

"Either use this game console to make money, it's a chicken-and-egg situation..."

Without much hesitation, Tang Mu chose the latter.

Selling it directly for money would be like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. When other gangs come knocking to collect their debts, he still won't have the money to pay, and he won't even know who to sell it to.

Making money with this arcade machine isn't so easy. It's such a big arcade machine, and it doesn't have legs. It must weigh at least three or four hundred pounds.

He tried to push it, but the machine didn't budge.

How could someone with such a small frame possibly move it? Let alone going out, it would be a struggle to even get it to the first floor.

Just as he was at his wit's end, Tang Mu suddenly heard cursing coming from next door.

He remembered that in the original owner's memories, there was an old soldier named Lei living next door, and the original owner had even tried to borrow money from him.

After closing the game console again, Tang Mu went outside to check on the situation.

"Damn American-made, damn it! It's all a fucking pile of scrap metal!" Ray cursed loudly.

He looked to be in his forties or fifties, wearing a dirty vest, holding a bottle of cheap whiskey, and kicking his Ford pickup truck.

Tang Mu noticed that Lei had lost one eye and was wearing a dirty eye patch, indicating that he must have been injured on the battlefield.

The Ford F100 in front of him was belching black smoke.

Tang Mu carefully examined Lei's over 200-pound, 1.9-meter-tall frame, and immediately had an idea. He moved closer to him.

Seeing Tang Mu approach, Lei glared at him and said, "Get lost, Tommy! Don't think I'll lend you that 500 yuan. I'm about to pawn this beat-up car!"

In the original owner's memories, the war destroyed everything Lei had. He lived in this dirty and chaotic industrial area simply because no one here cared that he was a drunkard.

He usually does moving work and is considered one of the more respectable people in this area.

Ray is different from ordinary white people; he doesn't discriminate against Chinese people too much. In this godforsaken place, everyone is trash abandoned by society; no one is more noble than anyone else.

On the contrary, the pain of war made him harbor a deeper hatred for the white nobles who had abandoned him.

"Calm down, Lei, don't get agitated," Tang Mu said, raising his hands to reassure him.

Looking at Tommy in front of him, who seemed different from usual, with his eyes no longer darting around but instead showing calmness, Ray was stunned for a moment, then took two more gulps of wine.

Seeing that he had calmed down a bit, Tang Mu continued, "Lei, perhaps your old buddy needs some help."

Unexpectedly, Ray burst into laughter: "Tommy, don't tell me you can fix this. Others may not know what's going on at your repair shop, but do you think I don't know?"

"Even your deadbeat father who ran away might not be able to fix it, how could you possibly help?"

He looked at the thin child in front of him with disdain.

"Give it a try, it's never a bad thing to try." Tang Mu approached with a flathead screwdriver.

Although Lei didn't believe it, he still stepped aside halfway. He wanted to see if this little monkey had drunk the wrong medicine or if he really had some skills.

Tang Mu opened the hood and looked inside. A wave of heat hit him, but thankfully the temperature wasn't too high.

The engine was panting heavily and wouldn't start, emitting black smoke. The reason was probably due to incorrect ignition timing.

Older Ford cars didn't have complicated computer boards; they relied entirely on mechanical mechanisms for support.

After fiddling around for a while, he discovered that the problem might be due to worn contacts, resulting in excessive gaps and severely delayed ignition.

He took out a screwdriver and inserted it into the gap, while his other hand groped around in the scalding heat, finding the fine-tuning screw by feel and adjusting it counterclockwise by fifteen degrees.

Lei was somewhat surprised by his professional and skillful movements. Where did this little monkey learn his skills?

For Tang Mu, in his previous life he was a person who liked to do research, and many mechanical designs were simple and easy to understand, and they were all pretty much the same after seeing them so many times.

Anyone can fix something by spending just a little time reading the instruction manual.

"Lei, start the engine." The hood slammed shut, and Tang Mu gestured for Lei to get in the car.

Ray was still a little skeptical. The car was fixed so quickly? If he'd called a repair shop, they'd at least charge him fifty dollars and leave the car sitting there for two days.

He got into the car, cursing and swearing, and turned the key.

"boom!"

The engine responded quickly, emitting a powerful roar that was completely different from its previous sound.

Lei was taken aback. His old car hadn't been running smoothly all year, as if it had finally been relieved of a long-standing constipation.

"Knock knock." Tang Mu knocked on the car door with a screwdriver.

"Lei, do me a favor when you have some free time."