Chapter 6: Personal Computers (×) Electronic Games (√)

Yes, Ethan did it on purpose.

Because what he referred to as the Altair 8800 (牛郎星8800) was the world's first microcomputer. It made its debut in the magazine "Popular Electronics" on January 1, 1975.

Since it was a commercial product, the design drawings of the Altair 8800 were not published in "Popular Electronics," making it challenging to replicate unless one had the skills and creativity of a wild Iron Man.

That's why Ethan's seemingly rhetorical question was actually provoking trouble.

After dodging the precious crab shell thrown by Evelyn, and facing his furious sister, he raised his hands and surrendered.

"Alright! Alright! Alright! I was just joking..."

Ethan's surrender earned him a roll of the eyes from Evelyn. Faced with this guy who had been teasing her like a politician with thick skin, the girl felt a bit helpless.

With a slight smirk, she said, "Ethan, I can't recreate something like Altair 8800 because its key aspect lies not in drawing circuits and soldering but in the input and output of binary data."

"If you only want me to replicate its circuit, I can buy a machine, dissect it, and study it. It should cost around five hundred dollars, and in a few days, I should be able to figure out how Edward Roberts soldered the motherboard, embedded memory chips, and drew lines on the board to establish the circuit connections between CPU, RAM, and ROM."

"But when it comes to data transmission, it's definitely not something I can mimic in a short time. How to compress their size requires some research time."

Evelyn spoke the truth.

Before the birth of operating systems, all computers were controlled using command prompts, in simpler terms, computer language. And now, the most widely used language in the industry is FORTRAN.

As the world's first officially promoted high-level language, FORTRAN has been widely used in numerical, scientific, and engineering computing fields. However, due to its high level of specialization, it's challenging for ordinary people without a foundation to learn.

Therefore, to better popularize programming knowledge among the masses and help university students use computers more effectively, BASIC, a beginner-friendly symbolic instruction code, emerged. Because it is easy to understand, covering most needs with just seventeen statements, it quickly moved out of campuses and into society, becoming the preferred language for beginners learning programming.

Altair 8800 used a simplified version of BASIC.

As for the software developers?

Most people of this era are unaware.

But Ethan Jones, who has lived in America for many years, knows it's a team.

Two of them are named Paul Allen and Bill Gates.

Microsoft's first step into the world was to transplant the BASIC language to the world's first personal computer.

Of course, this may sound simple, but it's quite troublesome because the personal computers of that era had very small memory. So, compressing and optimizing to reserve enough space for the machine to function properly were the challenges.

Under Paul Allen's expertise, the BASIC they created for Altair 8800 was only 4KB in size.

For true geniuses, this might not be difficult, but for ordinary folks, it posed a significant challenge. After all, not everyone could afford a $250,000 computer, and not everyone could sit in front of a computer coding whenever they pleased.

Because Ethan knew how difficult this was, he didn't insist when Evelyn admitted she couldn't handle it.

He clapped his hands and said, "Okay, let's switch gears then. Do you know about 'Pong'? Can you make an arcade game like that?"

"'Pong'?" Evelyn thought for a second and then nodded. "Sure."

Then she added, realizing, "You're not thinking of making electronic games, are you?"

"Bingo! Congratulations, but no extra points!" Ethan snapped his fingers, laughing. "I do want to make games because I've got a lot of ideas in my head."

Yes! Ethan found that with the long return cycles in the financial investment field and the software programming barriers in the personal computer industry, the electronic game industry, where everyone copied everyone, became his preferred target for making money!

No choice, the game market of this era is still a desert, right?

With ideas, you can make money.

Although he hadn't ventured into this industry in his previous life, it didn't matter, right?

Because he played games way too much!

In his past life, the contents stored in the libraries of Steam, PS, Xbox, and NS were all his treasures!

Since the 1990s, playing "Black Tide" on the home computer, to playing "It Takes Two" with his girlfriend after work twenty years later, those were beautiful memories in his life!

And now...

Memories can turn into money?

This is simply the most wonderful thing in the world!

Evelyn didn't know why Ethan was so excited, but she knew her little brother must have some crazy idea.

At the same time, she was a bit worried. "Ethan! Your inspiration isn't coming from Milowa, right?"

"If you're planning to retaliate against them for firing you by copying Milowa's games... then I can't help you! Absolutely not!"

"How could it be! Do I look like that kind of person?" Ethan was a bit upset.

"You do. You're the kind of guy who holds a grudge, even though you look polite." Evelyn said seriously.

"???" Ethan was a bit speechless. He didn't expect to be perceived that way by Evelyn.

"I really didn't copy Milowa." Ethan emphasized.

However, his words received no response.

Evelyn still looked at him with a skeptical gaze.

In this situation, Ethan shrugged helplessly, not knowing how to explain. "Evelyn! You just said you'd help me. You can't go back on your word!"

"..." Evelyn was stunned for a moment.

The next second, she shook her head helplessly. "Yeah~Yeah~Yeah~"

Ethan's playful tactics made Evelyn feel like she was back in the past.

A few years ago, when she was playing with various fun things for "Popular Electronics," Ethan used to pester her to make toys. Although she found Ethan annoying at the time, she realized...

Okay, Evelyn thought briefly and found that Ethan always managed to succeed by acting spoiled whenever he pestered her.

"Are you planning to tell me your ideas orally, or do you have a complete proposal?" Since Ethan started acting spoiled, Evelyn wanted to evaluate the seriousness of the matter by discerning his inspiration.

And her question made Ethan happy.

"Of course, I have a complete plan."

"Wait for me; I'll go get it from my room."

Ethan's cautious behavior surprised Evelyn.

In her opinion, Ethan's idea of making games must have been a hot-blooded impulse after being fired by Milowa today. However, she didn't expect this guy to have a complete plan.

When Ethan brought over three pages of papers assembled into a file, Evelyn was even more astonished.

Although the paper was a bit worn, with stains at the bottom and lots of scribbles, the content inside was clear and complete.

On the first page, Ethan explained his game concept—

This is a game with no victory, only failure.

The second page summarized the gameplay of the

game—

Players would control an object with a specific length, continuously moving on a bounded plane, using its head to collide with constantly appearing light points on the plane to grow. The game ends when it touches the boundary or itself.

The third page depicted a game interface—

On it, Ethan drew a snake.

That's right!

Ethan wanted to create—

"Snake Game"!

Note: Regarding the story about Bill Gates and Paul Allen writing BASIC for Altair 8800, it's quite interesting. Their version is that since there was no prototype machine at that time, they created a simulator on a DEC PDP-10, a popular computer in universities, to simulate Altair. Then, it took them about a month to develop a BASIC interpreter. However, when a documentary crew interviewed the personnel at Harvard University, who managed the lab equipment, they claimed to be unaware of this and rarely saw them using the machine. They even suggested that Bill Gates and Paul Allen might have used machines from MIT. When the crew went to MIT, the lab records also showed no sign of them. So, how these two seemingly godlike figures developed a BASIC interpreter without a machine is known only to Bill Gates, as Paul Allen has passed away.