RoleplayNovel Chapter 49 Being half a step ahead is genius, being a full step ahead is madness.
Chapter 49 Being half a step ahead is genius, being a full step ahead is madness.
Hearing Carmack's somewhat anxious shouts from behind, Lin Lixin remained outwardly calm, but inwardly he was already laughing.
That's right, that's how they climbed up the hook.
He turned his head back, feigning confusion.
Carmack had already jumped up from the sofa, his hands constantly twisting the hem of his clothes.
"You said you're an employee of GAMENOVA?"
"No, I'm not," Lin Lixin shook his head. "I'm the boss."
"..."
Carmack rarely showed such a frustrated expression, as if he had swallowed a dead fly, looking extremely uncomfortable.
"You developed both Metal Gear Solid and Street Fighter?"
"Yes, so what?"
"Ahem..." Carmack looked a little embarrassed and scratched his head.
This future gaming industry leader has escaped from youth home several times, but never went anywhere else; his destinations were always arcades in Kansas.
That's why the staff at the Children's Home are already very familiar with the place.
If Carmack sneaks out again, going to the arcade is the sure way to catch him.
This clever little devil, taking advantage of the arcade manager's inattention, secretly dismantled the arcade machine cover multiple times and crawled inside to study the structure of the baseboard.
Carmack had already thoroughly studied the two recent hits, Metal Gear Solid and Street Fighter.
Although Carmack was an arrogant man, his respect for technology was genuine.
Even someone as arrogant as him had to admit that the utilization of hardware performance in Metal Gear Solid was simply exaggerated; not a single bit of performance was wasted.
Street Fighter is strong in every aspect, from hardware to software, it is full of the developers' ingenuity.
He had long harbored the idea of visiting the other party to exchange skills.
But to his surprise, when he finally stood in front of him, he made a series of sarcastic remarks.
This is truly like showing off one's limited skills before an expert...
"Lin, I want to join GAMENOVA! I want to make games too!"
"You?" Lin Lixin looked Carmack up and down, a doubtful expression on his face. "Forget it, I don't think it's appropriate."
"Why?!" Carmack exclaimed, as if he had been greatly insulted. "My skills are no worse than anyone else's! Even if you fire them all and replace them with me, it won't make a difference."
"First of all, our company is not a daycare center."
Lin Lixin held down the agitated Carmack, telling him not to breathe on him.
"Have a high school dropout come to work for me? Sorry, I don't want to be sued in federal court by your guardian."
"Secondly, our company is not lacking in talent."
"Perhaps your skills are indeed good, but it's impossible for you to replace them."
"Third, your personality is indeed a bit out of touch. Development is a team effort, and a 'genius' who doesn't understand human relationships is of no value to me."
Lin Lixin made a quotation mark gesture with his hand.
Looking at Carmack, who was about to become withdrawn from his own rant, Lin Lixin stopped at the right moment and switched to a helpless and gentle expression.
"Forget it, you're still just a kid. Everyone's been a bit wild when they were young."
Lin Lixin pointed to the pile of things on the table.
"I'll process the paperwork for your early release later. Once you get back, you can finish this project and let's see how it goes."
"Also, you have to go back to school. If you can't even get into the University of Kansas, it just proves you're a weirdo who only excels in one subject."
The staff at the juvenile detention center had no idea what had gotten into Lin Lixin, a successful man, that made him travel all the way from California just to bail out a kid who hadn't even graduated high school.
Even Carmack's parents couldn't understand it.
However, Lin Lixin was in a great mood.
……
When Lin Lixin returned to California, travel-worn and exhausted, the matter he had asked Sam to handle had also been resolved.
Next to his C64 was a sturdy plastic box.
This is a floppy disk drive, the core device used for reading and writing floppy disks.
Unlike Lin Lixin's surprise, Sam seemed quite depressed.
"Are you really going to add this thing to NovaBox? A full floppy disk drive?!"
Sam could understand why Lin Lixin was pursuing floppy disks.
Unlike EPROMs, which cost tens of dollars for only 64KB of capacity, a single 3.5-inch floppy disk with a capacity of up to 1MB can be priced as low as around $5.
Aside from being significantly slower than EPROM in terms of read and write speed, floppy disks can be said to have no drawbacks.
However, the fact that floppy disks themselves have no drawbacks does not mean that using floppy disk drives on home computers is without its drawbacks.
Sam picked up a piece of scrap paper with his earlier rough cost estimate on it. At the bottom, in the blank space, he had written a large "Over $100!!" in red pen.
"The original hardware cost of NovaBox was already very high, and the cost of a floppy disk drive is over one hundred dollars! That's almost the same as the price of our other hardware."
"We can recoup that cost through gaming, Sam. We need its capacity and write speed."
When software development has reached its limit, the bottleneck that prevents games from becoming more sophisticated becomes hardware.
Only with greater capacity can he be allowed to create those classic IPs.
The write function is an essential capability that home computers absolutely cannot lack.
Nintendo's decision to release a disk drive peripheral for the Famicom in 86 was a clear foresight by its president, Hiroshi Yamauchi.
This peripheral, which sold out repeatedly, truly gave the FC, which had already reached its peak, a second spring.
Many masterpieces were made possible by the enormous capacity of the DISK-SYSTEM after its creation.
To promote this somewhat expensive new peripheral, Nintendo enlisted the help of Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary game developer, to create the world's first video game using a floppy disk.
It is also the world's first video game with a true save function.
It is one of the pioneers of RPG games, and remains one of the three major national RPGs in Japan to this day.
Its name is The Legend of Zelda.
"In addition, we also need to design a special 'floppy disk fax machine'."
Lin Lixin casually picked up a floppy disk and glanced at it.
"Players can use a fax machine to upload their game scores to GAMENOVA. Of course, the fax machine only needs to be set up in a game store that sells game cartridges."
There are just too many things we can work on with this technology.
Hiroshi Yamauchi's ideas about disk drives were simply outlandish, and his exaggerated foresight made Lin Lixin wonder if he was a time traveler.
According to records, Hiroshi Yamauchi even had a telephone network plan at the time.
He planned to install a communication port on the disk drive that could connect to a telephone line for remotely downloading video games to floppy disks and giving the Famicom the ability to play online.
If it weren't for the rapid advancements in storage media technology, the capacity and price of various types of storage would have been drastically reduced.
The widespread adoption of technologies such as battery-powered archiving finally brought the floppy disk era of the Famicom to a regrettable end.
Lin Lixin found it hard to imagine what the timeline would have looked like if Hiroshi Yamauchi had actually carried out his amazing plan.
Of course, Lin Lixin himself has no intention of getting involved in this technology.
Being half a step ahead is genius; being a full step ahead is madness.
His biggest advantage now is that he seized the opportunity presented by the disk drive trend more than a year in advance.