Chapter 300: Do me a favor

After Tommy contacted Susan and told her to make an appointment with her mentor Rice, he ended his morning run, washed up, and went to WinStar Company in Silicon Valley with Jason to experience the latest AmigaOS on the computer in the conference room. Jason , Susie and Jay Miner, the founder of AmigaOS, who was as big as a brown bear, sat across from Tommy, with a Compaq laptop open in front of each other.

This thing is equipped with an Intel 386 chip, a display resolution of up to 640*480, 4MB of memory, a 60M hard drive, and a 2.5-inch floppy disk drive. If you cancel the floppy drive, you can upgrade the hard drive to 120 MB. It supports battery power. After closing the screen, It's as thick as a briefcase stuffed with documents.

This is Compaq’s flagship laptop that was launched last year. The lowest configuration is priced at US$5,399. If it is upgraded to the top configuration and is equipped with accessories such as a docking station and a spare battery, the price will quickly soar to US$11,999.

Only real business people who often need to travel and do work on the plane are willing to buy this kind of thing. When ordinary people hear that a docking station costs as much as 999 US dollars, they think this thing is just like those luxury products. Yachts, like private jets, offer little opportunity for intimate contact.

"The operation can be simpler." Tommy looked away from the screen and looked at the three of them: "What is the selling point of AmigaOS? It is its name. It is as considerate as the user's girlfriend. It is the main selling point of Microsoft Windows 2.0 now. It is fully functional, and their system is filled as much as possible with software that users had to pay for before, such as drawing software, document software and even programming software. A white-collar worker who works on computers only needs to buy a set of Windows and install it on his computer. , there is no need to pay extra for other software, and a lot of work can be done completely by relying on the existing software in the computer. The feature that we want to distinguish from Windows is that we give users considerate fool-level operations. Microsoft's user group is Those who know how to operate computers, and our user positioning is very simple, they are the real fools in the world, who know nothing about computer systems, just like those idiots who bought a TV back then and needed help from the salesperson to search for TV station signals. Facts have proved that, Once these groups develop usage habits, unless the brand owner commits suicide, they will basically not change their habits and accept new things."

Listening to Tommy talking about the features of Windows and AmigaOS, several people kept nodding. As for Apple's operating system System6, it was completely ignored by those present and was not even mentioned.

The main reason why its presence is so low is that after Steve Jobs left, various problems arose in Apple’s business strategic layout. The System 6 operating system is as bad as shit. It claims to have the best sense of art and color in the world. In fact, it is indeed colorful, but Apart from color, there is nothing to offer. I want everything, but there are restrictions on everything. There are also many retarded designs that can be called anti-humanity.

For example, in Windows, AmigaOS or other niche operating systems, there is a recycle bin or trash can function, but the name is slightly different, but the working principle is the same, that is, throwing useless files into it, and it is considerate. Add a restore function. If users delete some files to the trash can but regret it soon, they can use the restore function to get the files back from it, just like how they treat garbage in the trash can in real life.

However, the operation of the Apple System 6 system is that after the user deletes the file and throws it into the trash can, as long as he closes the folder where the deleted file was originally located and returns to the desktop, the trash can will be automatically emptied, and there is no need for professionals to carry out data processing. If you restore it, it is completely impossible to recover, and the data restoration service charges at Apple computer sales stores are astronomical, and they are charged according to the file size.

With this idiotic design alone, Apple directly increased the market share of Microsoft systems by eight percentage points.

 Bill Gates always smiles from ear to ear when talking about market share in public, and he doesn’t forget to praise Apple’s excellent system.

Jobs said in an interview that he had never considered returning to Apple, and the development of System 6 had nothing to do with him. He had been focusing on launching the new company's NEXT computer and operating system.

Only people with obsessive-compulsive disorder who like colors will pay the bill, because it allows users to assign colors to each icon, which is a prototype of a customized desktop. Other than that, it has no highlights. It is precisely because of two consecutive design failures on the operating system that it Windows has been able to encroach on Apple's computer market in the past few years since Jobs left. Although it still maintains a certain market share due to the reputation and user habits established when Jobs was in office, it has already opened up a big gap with Windows.

"Tommy, I have a question. Jason and I have also talked about this question. Suppose I am an ordinary person who has no computer knowledge at all before. I buy a computer with the AmigaOS system inside. It does look better than Other systems are simpler and easier to use, but there are no exciting games in them. You have always refused us to add more fun built-in games on the grounds of refusing to be bloated. So, why should I choose to go home from get off work and open it instead of sitting down with a bottle of beer? Watching movies in front of the TV in the living room, what can this computer do for me?" Jay Miner looked at Tommy and asked seriously.

This issue has actually been discussed internally many times. As the developer of AmigaOS, Jay Miner has always insisted on his view that if you want to bring AmigaOS into ordinary households, you must consider adding sufficiently attractive playability. .

But Tommy has always refused to allow them to build more fun mini-games.

Tommy looked at Jay and said with certainty: "Bring him the whole world."

Seeing that Jay didn't respond, Tommy pointed at the computer screen:

"On the Amiga in front of you, there is a browser application developed by the World Wide Web Information Resources Retrieval Office of the Linear Accelerator Center of Stanford University, code-named Midas, which is Monopoly. Opening this program will not make you a real person. Monopoly, if you open this app, it means you will become a rich man in the spiritual world. Now, you can try to open it."

"I've used this thing before. The search function of hypertext links is quite good, but I don't think ordinary people are interested in these academic..." Although Jason dropped out of school, he is still a student at Stanford University. There are several references to Stanford University's name. He has tried all the new achievements made by computer software, hardware and Internet institutions for the first time.

At this time, he opened the web browser icon in a familiar manner, and said firmly that ordinary people would use this thing to read various university documents.

He is not unfamiliar with this application. The software produced by Stanford University, after opening the window page, will list the link addresses of various universities connected to the Stanford University network, allowing people to easily click to reach the relevant pages of the university network they want to visit. It is no longer necessary to deliberately remember the IP addresses or network domain names of those universities as before.

But the window page that pops up now is completely different from the interface he used to check information when he was developing it. This browser has been set up with a new loading page. There are no links to various universities, but network addresses of various categories, like A text version of the sightseeing map, which tells the user where to go if you like reading novels, watching news, discussing games, discussing sports, knowing celebrity gossip, wanting to know TV program listings, and liking to show love. Jason even saw a category in the corner for heterosexual dating. The first website was called Pimp... Can I make friends of the opposite **** on Pimp?

Jason casually clicked on the address of a game category, and the page jumped to a simple message discussion board. It was like a page program used by some universities to discuss a certain issue. There were already many discussions about well-known games in it. .

"This is what I said, see the world. I asked Suzy to help me conduct a survey in her phone BBS, and then sorted out twenty-four classified sites of public interest. The browser application belongs to Stanford, but twenty The four websites do not belong to Stanford. They are also the first batch of public websites on the commercial Internet in the world. According to statistics from the Internet Association for Assigned Numbers, including Europe, there are currently only more than fifty websites on the entire planet, except for our two. Fourteen, the rest are all scientific research institutions or academic organizations. These websites are not those telephone BBSs that are very regional and require you to remember various numbers and queue up to log in. As long as your country has an Internet node Once you are connected to the Internet, as long as you open this browser, you can enter these website forums and leave messages and chat with people all over the world who have the same hobbies as you."

Jason looked carefully at the links to these twenty-four websites. At this moment, in his eyes, these hypertext links were twenty-four well-known Internet brands in the future. As long as users cultivate good user habits, just like people are always used to shopping at Wal-Mart, On the Internet, they will also be accustomed to only going to the websites they provide to ask for the information they want.

 “You can’t be the only owner of these websites, right?” Jason looked at Tommy worriedly.

Although Tommy has revised the supplementary provisions of the Communications Law, if it is too ugly, antitrust will come sooner or later.

“I myself don’t know who these websites belong to. They may belong to Indian chiefs, some alumni of ONE or SDD, or even my maid. In short, I am sure they do not belong to me. I only have the right to decide how they should be used. It’s just an image that appears in front of everyone.” Tommy said to Jason.

Seeing Jason stopped talking, Tommy continued:

"The second built-in software I insist on is MCI-Mail. You should be very familiar with it. It is a paid email software. What I mean is that as long as users purchase our AmigaOS, they can get MCI-Mail's free email for one year, as well as a free email for two years. Delivery fee for ten emails.”

The three major telecommunications service providers in the United States have all launched paid email services. The annual fee for an email address is about thirty-five to fifty dollars, and the cost of an email is based on characters, which is fifty cents for every five hundred characters. It sounds like The price of email is not cheap, but compared to the cost of mailing and delivering physical letters, it is simply a bargain.

 In the United States, the cost of mailing a physical letter is about US$2. Don’t worry about the delivery speed. It is definitely slow enough. If you write a letter and ask the postman to deliver it to your neighbor in the same village, it will take him a week.

If you can't stand the ordinary speed, you can choose an expedited service. For example, if you want to write a love letter in New York and send it to your lover in Los Angeles, hoping that the lover will receive it the next day, the cost will jump to $9.

 The one-year email subscription fee is actually the price of four urgent physical letters.

"To cooperate with their interactions on various classified forum websites, they may need to have an email address on the Internet to keep in touch. Therefore, although the annual fee is waived, normally the email delivery fee will increase a lot because they want to chat privately. It was either an expensive long-distance call or a 50-cent, 500-character email,” Tommy said. Jay Miner opened the MCI-Mail software interface and then asked his own question: "Why don't we develop a communication software based on the Stanford University Supercomputer Application Center and build it into the system. This software is not difficult. Professor Winton led the students at Stanford to develop it, we just need to develop another similar one."

"Software development is not difficult. What is difficult is that we cannot offend MCI for the time being. If we launch a substitute in the current network environment, it will only make MCI another opponent of us." Tommy explained to Jay Miner Why not build your own email system to make money:

"Only after the Internet is truly perfected, we will consider launching similar instant messaging software. Otherwise, MCI will just arrange some tricks to get our Amiga girls into trouble. But don't worry, we have donated related information at Stanford University. Development work, when the time comes, I guarantee we will be the first..."

“Tommy, I have your phone number.” While Tommy was still talking to Jay, Sophia gently knocked on the door of the conference room twice and whispered to Tommy.

Tommy stood up and walked towards the door. As he walked, he said to Susie who had been silent: "Susie, think about how you can promote our Miss Amiga."

 Stepping out of the conference room, Tommy looked at Sophia: "A call from Susan?"

"No, it's Dennis." Sophia shook her head and gave Tommy a name that shocked him.

Hearing it was Dennis, Tommy immediately went back to the conference room: "I'm not interested in chatting with him. Let him pick a good day and call again, or write something on a greeting card and send it over."

“He said he has a million urgent issues to talk to you about, and it would be more difficult to call you from the country he is in than it would be for Germany to invade the Soviet Union.” Sophia covered the receiver of her mobile phone and faithfully conveyed what Dennis told her.

Tommy sighed: "Okay, burning question. When he said this sentence, I think it was basically like he wanted to ask me, Hey, Tommy, do you know how I can call an American response on the other side of the world? Will the call girls come to your house?”

As he spoke, he took the phone from Sophia's hand: "I'm Tommy, Dennis, tell me about your precious time."

"Brother, we are rich. We now have a big business of five million US dollars. As long as you agree to split the money equally between the two of us, I will share it with you." Dennis said excitedly on the phone.

Tommy responded weakly: "I'm not interested in this kind of small business."

"You mean all five million dollars belong to me? I know you are my most reliable brother, so I can give an extra share to Glenn. Originally, I planned to only give him one hundred thousand dollars. That's it. I'm still in Lebanon, but Something happened recently, and I was transferred to the southern region to be responsible for distributing leaflets, making radio broadcasts, etc., calling on the Lebanese to stand up bravely, help us foreigners fight with their compatriots, take bullets for us, and collect intelligence. We will give them money, food and freedom. Of course, in fact, we will give them nothing except some extremely unpalatable individual soldier rations and verbal promises. If there are any benefits, we have to digest them internally, you know..." Dennis rambled on.

Tommy immediately interrupted his tirade: "Get to the point, Dennis."

"That's right, the great United States has a policy of just assistance, which started in 1984. If someone provides important intelligence of value or provides very valuable help, the U.S. State Department will give him a large cash reward. I am The South is responsible for promoting this policy with Glenn to the Lebanese people and encouraging them to provide intelligence. It sounds stupid, right, but I didn’t expect that there are really Lebanese fools who are willing to stand up and betray their compatriots for money." Dennis said quickly Quickly, introduce your situation as clearly as possible:

"Glenn is very familiar with him. They have dealt with him before in Beirut. The other party trusted Glenn and revealed to Glenn that he knew where a group of terrorists held hostages because he was responsible for delivering goods to the terrorists in that hiding place. Various supplies, he told Glenn the names of the nine hostages held there. I originally thought that the guy was just making it up casually, but Glenn carefully checked the rescue directory of the Justice Assistance Policy in Lebanon and found that the guy said Among the nine names, five people's names match those on the list, three Americans and two Israelis. The justice assistance policy has a clear price tag. If they can help the U.S. federal government rescue these people on the list, each person will be rewarded one hundred dollars. million, now there’s five, so I’m like we’re going to make five million, man!”

"Then you just go and earn this money. Why do you want to call me?" Tommy asked suspiciously: "All these years you only call me to spend money."

"Because the United States **** discriminates against military personnel, it stipulates that American military personnel cannot earn these bonuses. In other words, if I tell the federal government this information myself, the government will not give me a dime. They will tell me that this is mine. Obligation, but if you are an ordinary citizen, you can get the reward. Pam is also a soldier, so he cannot participate. The most suitable candidate can only be you, so I hope that you will call the State Department or the Pentagon to provide intelligence and cooperate with the informant. Prove the whereabouts of the hostages are true and claim those bonuses," Dennis said:

“That’s it, we’re just a phone call away…”

“I’ll think about it.” Tommy hung up the phone and threw the phone to Sophia: “Five million, do you want to make it? It’s better to believe his lies than to believe that SSD is a student organization that supports racial equality.”

As soon as Sophia answered it, the phone rang again. Tommy stroked his forehead: "If he meets Charles one day, he will definitely ask his father-in-law to help Dennis, the bastard, choose a powerful boss, and send someone to keep an eye on Dennis 24 hours a day." If he dares to leave his post without authorization, he will be killed with one shot..."

“It’s not Dennis, it’s Susan.” Sophia said to Tommy after getting through.

Tommy answered the phone: "Susan, did you enjoy chatting with your professor? What is she busy with... the hostage scandal? Someone mocked the president in the newspaper and the former CIA director couldn't even find out the news about the hostages? What hostages? …Are you kidding me? Shit~…I’ll hang up now and talk to you later.”

Tommy briefly listened to Susan's words, then immediately hung up the phone, and then called back Dennis' number. After Dennis answered the call, he asked: "You want to think about this for so long? You..."

"Dennis, you are the holy light in my life. Please help me check whether one of the nine hostages named by your informant is named Ricky Higgins, who works in the United Nations peacekeeping force." Tang Mi asked immediately without waiting for Dennis to complain.

Dennis flipped through the page and said, "Yes, the registration information for judicial assistance here also shows that this guy is from Kentucky and is a bad guy with a Marine Corps background."

"Are you sure?" Tommy's breathing stopped subconsciously when he heard Dennis say.

Dennis said with certainty: "It's absolutely true, this guy has a price tag of one million, which means that as long as he rescues this person, the United States will reward him with one million."

"I'm talking about whether there is definitely this person in the hiding place that your **** informant said, not on the reward list." Tommy said to Dennis dissatisfied: "Is there this person among the real hostages?"

"Informant? Glenn! Is your **** informant reliable? Reliable? Did you help smuggle his wife and children to Turkey? Help them smuggle him to Turkey? Sorry, I heard wrong. I didn't expect you to You are so kind, but I am also curious. After you have seen so many histories of your ancestors being trafficked, have you never thought of using the same means to retaliate against the world?" Dennis talked to Glenn over the phone, and then asked Tang Mi said:

“Glen said he was very reliable. He helped the guy send his wife and two children to Turkey to enjoy a stable life.”

"Continue to get more accurate information from the informant. Wait for my call. Don't be impulsive. Don't worry. Even if the U.S. federal government breaks its promise and doesn't give you the bonus, I will replenish it for you." After Tommy said that, he hung up the phone. Dial Susan's number again:

"Tell your teacher that her boss, the former director of the CIA, no longer has to worry about being laughed at in the newspapers and can't even find a living person. I can do her a small favor."

 (End of this chapter)