Courtyard Houses: The Great Masters of a Nation Hidden Within

The leader walked up to the computer, reached out to touch the monitor, and then withdrew his hand.

He turned to Gao Jianguo and asked, "Can I touch this thing?"

Gao Jianguo nodded: "The monitor is fine, feel free to touch it."

The leader placed his hand on it and gently touched it, his eyes filled with the same excitement and satisfaction as a child touching something delicious for the first time.

He quickly withdrew his hand and stood there looking at the whole machine; just looking at it made him quite happy.

Not long after, the leader composed himself, turned around, grasped Gao Jianguo's hands with both of his, and shook them vigorously twice: "Comrade Jianguo, I thank you on behalf of many people."

Who exactly are these "many people"? No need to spell it out, those who need to know will know.

Gao Jianguo replied, "You're too kind, sir. I just did what I could."

He didn't try too hard to be modest; he had put the whole thing together by himself, and being too polite would just make it seem fake.

As they were talking, someone else came in from outside.

After the militiamen finished their inspection at the gate, they led the person inside.

The people who came were the technical leaders of the Twelfth Ministry of Machine Building—the director of the Computing Institute, and the chief engineer.

When these two received the notice from the ministry and saw the urgent document forwarded by the 17th Ministry of Machinery Industry, their minds went blank and they were completely dumbfounded. They cursed in their hearts that this matter was probably a hoax.

An all-transistor computer? You're kidding.

Our institute has gathered everyone we could find across the country, and hundreds of top talents have been working tirelessly to this day, yet we still haven't completely perfected the vacuum tube version.

You're telling me that someone in the 17th Ministry of Machine Building single-handedly built an all-electric crystal computer? And casually assembled this whole bunch of seemingly complex gadgets along the way?

Even when you're bragging, there have to be some basic rules. This is impossible.

It's impossible, but there's nothing we can do; Gao Jianguo has cheated.

Despite his complaints, seeing that the leaders from the 17th Ministry of Machine Building had rushed over overnight, he couldn't refuse to go either.

Regardless of the outcome, the Institute of Computing Technology has to save face.

Anyway, the department sent a car, so I might as well go. Staying up all night isn't a life-threatening thing. Everyone stays up a few nights when work is busy, so what's there to be afraid of?

With the thought that "I don't believe it anyway, but we can't be impolite," the two got into the car and headed towards the courtyard house.

As luck would have it, most of the people at the Institute of Computing lived in the same compound, and one bus trip was all it took to pick them both up.

When they entered the house, the two thought they would just take a quick look around, make an appearance, and then leave.

There were layers upon layers of guards. After a brief introduction, the two stepped into the south room.

Upon seeing the head of that transistor computer, the two men froze on the spot, their eyes glued to it.

Handicrafts, authentic handicrafts.

The two were unclear about the standards that artists used to refer to for handicrafts.

But in their eyes, this pile of things was a work of art, an industrial work of art with no embellishment whatsoever, the most advanced kind of electronic industrial work of art.

On the way here, all the mockery, disbelief, nonsense, and a little bit of sarcasm between the two of them vanished the moment they saw the little thing in the house, disappearing completely like smoke.

The leader seemed to understand the upheaval in their hearts, or perhaps he himself had gone through the shock and joy, so he didn't call out to them. He just stood quietly to the side, watching the two of them staring blankly at the system, their minds wandering off somewhere else.

After a long while, the two turned around, their voices barely containing their excitement: "Engineer Gao, can you tell us about it?"

Gao Jianguo then took out his handwritten complete set of instructions and explained them to them one by one.

As they listened, their emotions rose like climbing stairs, one step at a time, until they reached the very top.

These two are the top figures in the domestic computer industry.

The director and chief engineer saw things much more deeply than the leaders of the 17th Ministry of Machine Building.

They knew very well how heavy the weight was in Gao Jianguo's creation.

Visual input and output—just this one feature alone would benefit every existing computer in the country.

That self-contained framework, capable of continuous development, is the path forward.

A fully autonomous machine instruction set, coupled with a corresponding vocabulary language—writing programs with vocabulary is far more convenient than using machine code.

Even after programming, you still need to punch holes, and the efficiency of compilation is much higher than that of machine code.

Not to mention the already running loop monitoring program, and the integrated development environment that combines a code text editor, a compiler, and commonly used mathematical toolkits.

Indeed, in the minds of these two, what they were seeing was a fully functional and reliable integrated development environment.

When Gao Jianguo mentioned a "minimalist integrated development environment," they automatically dropped the word "minimalist."

Minimalism? Bullshit. You call this minimalism? Then what about the system we're using now?

This huge pile of things, some of which I'd never even dared to dream of, was now truly standing right in front of me.

The two even had a thought pop into their minds—"Hey, Senior Engineer, come on, take my seat."

When Gao Jianguo started demonstrating the program and "nihao, shijie!" popped up on the screen, the two, who were experiencing this scene for the first time, said something that made Gao Jianguo feel like he had returned to his past life.

The director spoke up: "From now on, anyone studying computer science in China will have to learn this program."

The chief engineer continued, "Yes, the exam still needs to be taken. When was the first time this was mentioned? Oh, right, what's today? Write it down, write it down, this is a very important matter."

Gao Jianguo chuckled. "Alright, on behalf of all future computer science students, thank you two for delivering such easy questions!"

What? I'm the one who started this question? Never mind then.

Gao Jianguo opened the computational speed benchmark test program he had prepared, and the two of them waited anxiously for the program to finish running.

When they saw the last line of test results, the two of them were stunned—it really was comparable to, or even slightly better than, the best vacuum tube amplifier currently available in China.

Although each has its own strengths in overall performance due to its word length, not every operation requires more than 30 bits of word length.

With proper programming, this machine can still run 32-bit word length operations. It's a bit slow, but it's still much better than a long line of people waiting for a machine.

With this in mind, the chief engineer posed a crucial question: "What is the cost of the components?"

There was no mention of working hours. In this industry, you worry about technology first, then about component costs; what does working hours even matter?

Gao Jianguo mentally calculated that each transistor cost around twenty yuan, and with over six thousand transistors, plus other miscellaneous items, he gave a figure that nearly knocked the three of them off: "It would cost between 15 and 17 yuan."

"How much?" all three voices asked in unison.

Gao Jianguo repeated it again.

The scene fell silent for a long while.

How much would a similar domestically produced second-generation vacuum tube computer cost? 200 million.

And that doesn't even include operating costs—this thing in front of me looks much more energy-efficient than that one.

The director grabbed Gao Jianguo by the shoulder: "Mass production, let's get it done right now. From now on, you're one of our computational institute's people."

A leader from the 17th Ministry of Machinery Industry coughed softly beside him.

Comrade, don't go too far.

Upon hearing this, the director hurriedly added awkwardly, "Just borrowing it for a while, haha."

The leader then turned to Gao Jianguo and asked, "This money isn't something you can afford all by yourself, is it? Are you facing any difficulties?"

Upon hearing this, Gao Jianguo felt like he'd found a pillow when he was sleepy.

Once the matter reaches the ears of leaders at this level, the rest is basically settled.

He smiled sheepishly and then pulled out his usual rhetoric again: "My girlfriend's family has some money and is quite supportive of me doing these things, hehe~~~~~~".

The three people present: "Hmm?", you're pretty good, kid.

Gao Jianguo added a few more words: "My girlfriend's father was a shareholder of the Third Steel Rolling Mill before the joint venture. His surname is Lou. People don't know what I'm doing all day, but because I'm somewhat well-known in the factory, they believe that what I'm doing is all good for the country and the people. He has contributed a lot to my personal scientific research."

The leaders of the 17th Ministry of Machine Building, knowing who Lou Xiao'e's father was, laughed heartily: "Him? He supported the War of Resistance against Japan in his early years. Now you've taken advantage of him again, adding fuel to the fire of building a new society. Hahaha, you've found a worthwhile partner."

With the support of leaders, the director, the chief engineer, Deputy Factory Director Li, and Director Chen, the story of Lou's father's brilliant plan to secure the country but losing both his daughter and his army spread far and wide.

The leader then asked about Gao Jianguo's health: "You're welding so many components all by yourself, it must be tiring, right? You still need to take care of your health."

Gao Jianguo shook his head: "Not tired at all. I tinkered with a little gadget that makes soldering things fast and easy."

The three people next to him stared straight at him.

Are you never going to stop? In the meantime of working on big things, you still find time to tinker with small inventions?