Chapter 35: A Game-Changing Design for the Industry
Chen Xiao returned home and opened the gift box sent by Shen Wei.
Inside the box was a Parker pen.
In 1999, water-based pens were not yet popular. High school students used fountain pens and ballpoint pens to write, but only fountain pens could be used to answer questions.
Most students used Hero brand pens or some miscellaneous brands, and few used Parker.
Parker was still considered a high-end brand in the hearts of students of this age, similar to LV and Gucci in the pen industry.
There was also a note in the gift box.
Shen Wei's delicate handwriting read: "As small as ink and blue and white, why fear the moment of youth."
This was intriguing.
It could be seen as encouragement for Chen Xiao not to worry if he hadn't passed the interview at Yenching University, as he had the ability and could aim for a higher stage.
It could also express Shen Wei's feelings for Chen Xiao.
As for whether it was a pun or not, Chen Xiao shouldn't speculate too much.
There was one more sentence below this typography: "I'll call you in time for the New Year."
After dinner that evening, the old Chen family sat in front of the TV watching the New Year's Day party.
At eleven o'clock, Lao Chen and Lin Hui went to bed early after watching the party.
Chen Qiang wouldn't work the next day, but he would also help Lin Hui set up a stall.
"Xiao Zi, aren't you sleeping yet?"
Chen Qiang was now quite satisfied with his son.
Chen Xiao said, "I'll watch TV for a while, you all go to sleep."
Lin Hui also said, "Let him watch for a while. The third year of high school is tough, and it's better to unwind."
Chen Qiang thought about it too and said, "You should go to bed earlier."
Chen Xiao said, "I'll go to sleep after watching a bit more."
At ten in the morning, when the time on the wall struck midnight, the landline phone at home rang.
Chen Xiao picked up the phone, and he could hear some nervous breathing on the other end.
Chen Xiao: "Hello?"
Shen Wei immediately recognized Chen Xiao's voice and whispered, "Chen Xiao, Happy New Year!"
Shen Wei's voice was soft and pleasant.
As soon as she heard his voice, she knew he was secretly making the call from the living room, behind his parents' back.
Chen Xiao smiled and said, "Shen Wei, Happy New Year!"
In the past few days on New Year's Day, Chen Xiao did two things.
One thing was adding a navigation page to the 11181 website.
The page displayed shortcut links to popular websites like Wangyi, Xinlang, and Sohu, so users wouldn't need to enter the addresses to visit these websites.
In 2000, there was no self-media yet, and netizens obtained information through these portals.
Chen Xiao also implemented some small measures to make the browser automatically set the homepage to 11181, so netizens could easily access their favorite websites through the navigation page.
The second thing was writing a visual desktop for the domestic version of the "Demagie" machine tool. This way, the machine tool could be connected to a monitor, and the complex mechanical button console was improved to allow workers to control the machine tool more skillfully and accurately.
CNC machines with monitors and simple buttons existed, but most of them were imported and costly.
Chen Xiao's improvement could make ADLINK's equipment one whole level higher than ordinary copycat equipment, and it could fully compete with foreign equipment.
The reason Chen Xiao did this was that Zhou Linghua was a little anxious at the moment.
He had been waiting for a serious accident to occur with Zhongjing Company's equipment, but he hadn't seen it happen yet.
Now, seeing Chen Xiao's improved equipment, Zhou Linghua felt relieved.
For this matter, on January 2nd, Zhou Linghua also drove over to pick up Chen Xiao, and the two went to meet Wang Xiang to discuss how to improve production.
Wang Xiang said, "The display is relatively simple. It's similar to the VCD display. We only need to add a module to the motherboard. The difficulty is the operating system."
Chen Xiao said, "In the past few days, I've written a simple operating system for CNC machine tools, and it can be flashed into the motherboard."
Chen Xiao then explained the design ideas of the system in detail and showed the results.
The system of CNC machine tools needed to be simple and clear, only telling workers what to click and input to control what.
Hearing Chen Xiao's design ideas, Zhou Linghua was amazed!
"This thing is good! We know that we make equipment! An excellent CNC machine tool employee is actually a technician, and it takes a long time to train. But with visual operation, the difficulty of training workers will be greatly reduced. The equipment is expensive!"
Zhou Linghua looked at Wang Xiang and said excitedly, "Director Wang, is there any problem with your production?"
Wang Xiang replied with a full mouth, "It's not a big problem. In fact, the main structure of the device has remained unchanged. The most difficult part is the operating system designed by Chen Xiao. If the operating system can be matched, then there will be no problem."
Zhou Linghua had brought a Lenovo Pentium 3 desktop to Chen Xiao today, which
Chen Xiao returned home and opened the gift box sent by Shen Wei.
Inside the box was a Parker pen.
In 1999, water-based pens were not yet popular. High school students used fountain pens and ballpoint pens to write, but only fountain pens could be used to answer questions.
Most students used Hero brand pens or some miscellaneous brands, and few used Parker.
Parker was still considered a high-end brand in the hearts of students of this age, similar to LV and Gucci in the pen industry.
There was also a note in the gift box.
Shen Wei's delicate handwriting read: "As small as ink and blue and white, why fear the moment of youth."
This was intriguing.
It could be seen as encouragement for Chen Xiao not to worry if he had not passed the interview at Yenching University. He had the ability and potential for a higher stage.
It could also express Shen Wei's feelings for Chen Xiao.
As for whether it was a pun or not, Chen Xiao shouldn't speculate too much.
There was one more sentence below this typography: "I'll call you in time for the New Year."
After dinner that evening, the old Chen family sat in front of the TV watching the New Year's Day party.
At eleven o'clock, Lao Chen and Lin Hui went to bed early after watching the party.
Chen Qiang didn't have to work the next day, but he would still help Lin Hui set up a stall.
"Xiao Zi, are you still not sleeping?"
Chen Qiang was now quite satisfied with his son.
Chen Xiao said, "I'll watch TV for a while, you all go to sleep."
Lin Hui also said, "Let him watch for a while. The third year of high school is tough, and it's better to unwind."
Chen Qiang thought about it too and said, "You should go to bed earlier."
Chen Xiao said, "I'll go to sleep after watching a bit more."
At ten in the morning, when the time on the wall struck midnight, the landline phone at home rang.
Chen Xiao picked up the phone, and he could hear some nervous breathing on the other end.
Chen Xiao: "Hello?"
Shen Wei immediately recognized Chen Xiao's voice and whispered, "Chen Xiao, Happy New Year!"
Shen Wei's voice was soft and pleasant.
As soon as she heard his voice, she knew he was secretly making the call from the living room, behind his parents' back.
Chen Xiao smiled and said, "Shen Wei, Happy New Year!"
In the past few days on New Year's Day, Chen Xiao did two things.
One thing was adding a navigation page to the 11181 website.
The page displayed shortcut links to popular websites like Wangyi, Xinlang, and Sohu, so users wouldn't need to enter the addresses to visit these websites.
In 2000, there was no self-media yet, and netizens obtained information through these portals.
Chen Xiao also implemented some small measures to make the browser automatically set the homepage to 11181, so netizens could easily access their favorite websites through the navigation page.
The second thing was writing a visual desktop for the domestic version of the "Demagie" machine tool. This way, the machine tool could be connected to a monitor, and the complex mechanical button console was improved to allow workers to control the machine tool more skillfully and accurately.
CNC machines with monitors and simple buttons existed, but most of them were imported and costly.
Chen Xiao's improvement could make ADLINK's equipment one whole level higher than ordinary copycat equipment, and it could fully compete with foreign equipment.
The reason Chen Xiao did this was that Zhou Linghua was a little anxious at the moment.
He had been waiting for a serious accident to occur with Zhongjing Company's equipment, but he hadn't seen it happen yet.
Now, seeing Chen Xiao's improved equipment, Zhou Linghua felt relieved.
For this matter, on January 2nd, Zhou Linghua also drove over to pick up Chen Xiao, and the two went to meet Wang Xiang to discuss how to improve production.
Wang Xiang said, "The display is relatively simple. It's similar to the VCD display. We only need to add a module to the motherboard. The difficulty is the operating system."
Chen Xiao said, "In the past few days, I've written a simple operating system for CNC machine tools, and it can be flashed into the motherboard."
Chen Xiao then explained the design ideas of the system in detail and showed the results.
The system of CNC machine tools needed to be simple and clear, only telling workers what to click and input to control what.
Hearing Chen Xiao's design ideas, Zhou Linghua was amazed!
"This thing is good! We know that we make equipment! An excellent CNC machine tool employee is actually a technician, and it takes a long time to train. But with visual operation, the difficulty of training workers will be greatly reduced. The equipment is expensive!"
Zhou Linghua looked at Wang Xiang and said excitedly, "Director Wang, is there any problem with your production?"
Wang Xiang replied with a full mouth, "It's not a big problem. In fact, the main structure of the device has remained unchanged. The most difficult part is the operating system designed by Chen Xiao. If the operating system can be matched, then there will be no problem."
Zhou Linghua had brought a Lenovo Pentium 3 desktop to Chen Xiao today, which was what Chen Xiao had asked for earlier.
Now that Chen Xiao was Zhou Linghua's God of Wealth, Zhou Linghua was naturally very accommodating.
Zhou Linghua looked at Chen Xiao and asked, "Brother Chen, are you sure about this?"
Chen Xiao said with certainty, "I've already designed the system here. It just needs to be flashed into the motherboard. There's no problem. We can build one and try it out soon."
Zhou Linghua nodded repeatedly and said, "If the trial is successful, this batch of devices with monitors and operating systems and the royalties for Brother Chen's example will be divided into 28%."
Zhou Linghua was well aware that if this batch of equipment could be produced, it would definitely disrupt the entire CNC machine tool industry.
ADLINK Equipment Co., Ltd. was likely to surpass the equipment factories in the north and the south and become the leader of domestic CNC machine tools, and even have the opportunity to compete with some second-tier foreign manufacturers.
Chen Xiao and Zhou Linghua bumped fists and said, "Deal!"
In the afternoon, Chen Xiao and Wang Xiang worked together to improve the motherboard structure to include the system visualization function, and then Chen Xiao flashed the system into it.
After handing over the latest motherboard codenamed LH-5V2.0 to Zhou Linghua, Chen Xiao said, "Mr. Zhou, take this back and give it a try. Ask the technician to replace the motherboard. These two interfaces are connected to the monitor, and the cables are also configured."
Zhou Linghua immediately took back the latest motherboard and the necessary cables.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, at the Linghua equipment factory.
Zhou Linghua immediately asked the technician to replace the motherboard and then connected a 17-inch computer monitor in the factory.
He powered it on.
The machine started beeping.
Immediately afterwards, a few large characters with white letters on a blue background were displayed on the screen—ADLINK LH-5V2.0 CNC.
Zhou Linghua's heart trembled.
After the boot interface, a simple and clear operation interface appeared.
The interface contained the basic operations of various CNC machine tools. The most incredible thing for the technicians was that the system could assemble the operation procedures and merge them together, allowing the machine tool to continuously complete a set of tasks.
In the past, this set of tasks had to be broken down one by one, and workers had to operate them slowly step by step.
The technicians were amazed!