Courtyard Houses: The Great Masters of a Nation Hidden Within

The cursor jumped forward in a halting manner, with letters and numbers landing steadily on the monitor screen one after another.

This thing should be called a monitor now.

"aabbcc1234567890"

With all the basic inputs and outputs working, Gao Jianguo mentally gave himself a thumbs up.

He built this BIOS entirely using the lowest level of machine language, piling up binary instructions line by line, which took a lot of effort.

The compilation was a great help, but the step of converting the compilation to binary instructions relied entirely on him manually looking up the table. If the system hadn't enhanced his brain so much, he wouldn't have been able to handle this task alone in such a short time.

Why not use a compiler to do this?

The reason is too simple—this thing doesn't even exist yet, and everyone's eagerly waiting for him to make it up.

Without a BIOS, a computer cannot compile and edit programs, which is as logically contradictory as the chicken-and-egg dilemma.

Going from zero to one is a tough road.

Next up are the compilation and editing programs, the basic working environment for loop monitoring, and a text editor.

With these three things in place, a transistor computer can be used relatively smoothly.

Regarding text editors, Gao Jianguo plans to create something similar to vi.

vi is widely used in Unix/Linux. It is a pure command-line text editor that can only process characters. It has no control over fonts or complex paragraph formatting.

Back when he was in school in his previous life, he felt that many of the operations in vi were utterly anti-human.

But that was precisely the early days of computers, when the systems were too primitive and rudimentary, forcing a compromise.

For example, in modern times, you can simply click the mouse to select an area and copy it with Ctrl+C, but in vi, you have to use the arrow keys and command combinations to do the same thing.

Because when vi was first created, there weren't even mice.

But even this thing, in a plain text interface, is already the best editor.

In 1959, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it had no rivals.

When Gao Jianguo was learning programming languages ​​in his previous life, he once wrote a simple vi-like editor on a whim.

Because of this, he was spotted by his advisor and joined the research group right after finishing his sophomore year.

With his brain enhanced by the system, he remembered every single detail.

Fortunately, the 8008 was highly compatible with the coding language he had learned at the time, so writing a VI-like program wouldn't take too much effort.

The compiler for compiling speech is simpler to set up.

Strictly speaking, each instruction in a programming language is a mnemonic for the binary instructions of the underlying machine language, and they basically correspond one-to-one.

In principle, achieving this is not much different from looking up a table.

Gao Jianguo is quite satisfied with the results he has achieved recently.

He waved his hand and put the whole set into the storage room.

This treasure must not be shown to anyone right now.

Outside the south-facing window, a figure had been huddled there for quite some time.

The sound of "beep beep beep. tap. tap" came from inside the house, and the figure's expression changed several times.

After Gao Jianguo opened the south door and entered the living room, the figure quietly retreated into the courtyard.

The next morning, Gao Jianguo was hunched over his desk, writing furiously; revising the project management document was taking up too much time.

Someone I hadn't seen in a long time came to my door.

Lin Jianguo, his classmate, and he had always had a good relationship. After graduation, he entered the research institute under the Twelfth Ministry of Machine Building.

Gao Jianguo was both surprised and delighted.

"Jianguo, what brings you here?"

Lin Jianguo got straight to the point.

"I'll get straight to the point; I'm here today to learn from you."

Gao Jianguo didn't find it strange; it was perfectly normal for classmates to ask each other for help.

The two chatted about things that happened after they started working before Lin Jianguo brought up the issue.

"Jianguo, your steel rolling mill has a lot of high-temperature environments, right?"

Gao Jianguo nodded.

"There are quite a few. Why are you asking?"

"You must have some tricks up your sleeve when it comes to cooling down, right?"

"Cooling down? Cooling down what? Steel plates?" Lin Jianguo's question seemed nonsensical, so Gao Jianguo could only answer with what he knew best.

Lin Jianguo's work requires confidentiality, so he can't reveal everything.

After thinking for a while, he organized his thoughts and described the situation to Gao Jianguo in the clearest possible terms.

"For a relatively small device, the price should be lower than the surrounding area, the lower the better."

This still didn't tell the whole story, so Gao Jianguo had no choice but to keep asking.

Liquid cooling?

"No, it's not suitable for immersion. And even if we use heatsinks, the total weight of the liquid cooling system will be too heavy."

"Is it cold?"

"No, it won't drop below the ambient temperature." As Lin Jianguo answered this, he was thinking that although the wind was strong, it would not only fail to lower the temperature, but would also cause aerodynamic heating.

Liquid nitrogen?

"It's expensive, doesn't last long, and has poor reliability."

"Semiconductor..." No, this can't be allowed to pop out.

This thing only came out around 1960. Besides, the hot end of the semiconductor chip needs to be cooled, so this is just like Leonardo da Vinci's solar-powered flashlight, completely useless.

Gao Jianguo composed himself and tentatively continued to ask.

"Small size and light weight?"

"Yes, it also needs to be highly reliable, energy-efficient, and durable for storage."

"Storage duration? How long can it be stored? Is it intended for reuse?"

"Save it for several years, then just save it all at once."

"Used consistently?"

"move."

These conditions, when put together, sound familiar... what is that?

Gao Jianguo carefully checked the current year and then thought about the fact that he had entered the Twelfth Ministry of Machinery Industry Research Institute. Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind—he guessed what the other party wanted.

No wonder they couldn't say it outright.

Cooling of the infrared seeker head of the air-to-air infrared air-to-air combat missile!

Gao Jianguo, a military enthusiast, has a very clear understanding of the basics of domestically produced air-to-air missiles.

Let's not even talk about the Raiden 1; it's a copy of its big brother, the K5M, which itself is practically useless.

In 1958, a US Navy AIM-9B Sidewinder infrared air-to-air missile, shot down by a fighter jet from across the strait, was found on the coast. It was basically intact.

Domestic organizations attempted to replicate the mapping, but unfortunately, their technical foundation was too weak, and the attempt failed.

The Raiden 2, which was developed six or seven years later by copying its big brother K-13, is interesting because the K-13 was able to come out, which is inseparable from the "Rattlesnake" missile mentioned above.

The trouble Lin Jianguo and his group have been causing is probably all about this.

Lead sulfide infrared seekers have poor sensitivity and cannot detect infrared signals, so they need to be cooled to create a temperature difference.

Let alone 1959, even if it was Raiden 2 copied in 1967 or 1968, the same problem would still exist, just not as serious.

To completely solve this problem, we'll have to wait until the improved version of the Raiden 2B, which started development seven or eight years ago.

He guessed correctly, but Gao Jianguo couldn't utter a single word.

He pretended to have been thinking about it for a while before he spoke.

"The requirements you're making have absolutely nothing to do with the cooling conditions our factory uses."

Just as disappointment appeared on Lin Jianguo's face, Gao Jianguo added another sentence.

"However, I do know a way."

Lin Jianguo suddenly became alert.

"What method?"

"For compressed air, if you're aiming for high reliability and long storage life, go for compressed nitrogen."

Lin Jianguo, who had just been happy, became dejected again.

"Aren't you still using an air blower to cool the surface? What's the difference between that and using a fan to cool it down?"

Gao Jianguo pulled out a piece of paper.

"Hehe, you've got it all wrong. Just do as I say, and you can't go wrong."

After saying that, Gao Jianguo lay down on the paper and started writing and drawing.