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Chapter 22 : Forcing Together 256KB
At the beginning of June, the sun blazed fiercely overhead.
Especially in California, where sunlight was abundant year-round, standing beneath the sun was downright miserable.
Yet despite that, a massive line still stretched outside GAMENOVA.
The tiny arcade was packed so tightly that not even water could pass through. If Lin Lixin hadn’t imposed a customer limit for safety reasons, the situation would’ve been even worse.
After two days of word-of-mouth spread, 1942 completely exploded in popularity.
Ŵеḃnоv̄ ѐ l .Е̊ n̄ ü m̌а̊
The players in the arcade had all discovered that the two seemingly ordinary machines were actually brand-new games.
On top of that, Lin Lixin had modified several additional cabinets, finally easing the queue times slightly.
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Outside the door, the somewhat overweight Gerald Lawson struggled to push through the crowd. The blazing sun had darkened his already naturally dark skin by several shades.
No matter how much he insisted he wasn’t cutting in line, nobody cared. One hotheaded young man nearly punched him before Lin Lixin finally squeezed his way out from inside to rescue him.
“Mr. Lawson, it’s too noisy here. Let’s find somewhere easier to talk.”
Lin Lixin himself was drenched in sweat from the current situation.
Е̊ n̂ um а̄ .і ď
The first batch of arcade machines had only just rolled off the production line this week, and the first sales contract with Meyer had only recently been signed.
This was the busiest period by far.
Poor Sam hadn’t had a single day off ever since they rented the arcade.
Thankfully, he was making nearly as much money as Lin Lixin, so he enjoyed every second of it.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Lin Lixin brought Gerald Lawson back to the apartment, finally giving them a quiet place to speak.
“Mr. Lin, nothing could be more convincing than your arcade. Fuck Atari!”
Е́ñ_ũ m̃_а . і d̄
Gerald seemed to have completely escaped the depression weighing him down before. His expression had regained some lightness.
As always, he cursed Atari first before pulling several documents and a clearly hand-soldered prototype board out of his briefcase.
“According to your requirements: a dual-processor architecture with one 16-bit CPU and one 8-bit CPU, 512KB of dedicated memory and VRAM, and the latest YM2151 audio chipset!”
Lin Lixin accepted the board with visible surprise.
As expected of an S-ranked electrical engineer.
In only half a month, Gerald had already produced a fully functional testing platform.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Integrating so many cutting-edge hardware components onto a single board wasn’t simply a matter of soldering them together.
The amount of tuning and compatibility work involved was terrifying.
Only someone like Gerald, an engineer who had once led the development of an entire home console could accomplish something like this.
Alongside the board, Gerald had also brought an entire bag of EPROM 27256 chips.
Each chip held 32KB of storage capacity and cost around fifty dollars apiece.
“Mr. Lawson, this…”
E num̀ ӓ
“Let’s go all in.”
Gerald smiled with complete relief.
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“Treat this as the final gamble of my life. If even your work can’t succeed, then maybe I was simply never destined for video games.”
After their previous conversation, Gerald had shut down VideoSoft completely.
He gathered every remaining cent of funding and used it to produce all of this.
For him, this was the final all-or-nothing bet of his life.
Е ňuṁ а̄.і̄d
Lin Lixin nodded solemnly and personally pulled over a chair for Gerald to sit.
Then he sat down at the desk himself.
Instead of immediately beginning development, he first took out eight 27256 EPROM chips from the box.
The arcade version of Contra from 1987 had a total capacity of 256KB.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
A single 32KB EPROM obviously couldn’t contain all of it.
Even if he somehow summoned Claude Shannon himself, it wouldn’t help.
Ѐ n̈ u m̂ а̇
But that didn’t mean he had no solution.
Lin Lixin grabbed Sam’s soldering iron along with a pile of random electronic scraps and immediately began assembling parts directly on the desk.
Gerald didn’t leave.
Instead, he quietly sat nearby watching him work, the shock in his eyes growing stronger and stronger.
“You’re planning to build your own expansion cartridge?”
Watching Lin Lixin weave jumper wires into a terrifying spiderweb of circuitry, Gerald finally couldn’t hold back any longer.
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“Mr. Lin… you’re not formally trained, are you?”
The techniques were just too bizarre.
It was like watching a veteran craftsman who had never received systematic education yet somehow accumulated decades of experience.
The more Gerald watched, the itchier his hands became.
The inner geek within him simply couldn’t endure it any longer.
He directly snatched the scattered components from Lin Lixin’s hands.
W е̂ b̄ ṅ о̄v̇_el̄ Ēń um̂.a
Ten minutes later, an incredibly neat and beautiful board sat before Lin Lixin.
[Ding!]
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[Inspired after observing a master’s techniques. Hardware Technology +3]
[Skill Acquired:]
[Wire Routing Expert]: Your jumper wire soldering becomes cleaner and more organized.
[Milestone Completed]: Produce a storage medium exceeding 64KB in capacity.
W е̌ bn о v е̊ĺ Ѐṅú mа̃
[Reward]: Hardware Technology +5
…
“Whew… Mr. Lawson truly is extraordinary.”
Lin Lixin wiped away sweat and praised him sincerely.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The 256KB storage chipset before them was practically a work of art.
It consisted of one control circuit and eight 32KB EPROM chips.
Ѐ n̆ ǔm а. і̊ d
The operating principle was elegantly clever.
The CPU would write a value from 0 to 7 into the control circuit, causing the expansion card to switch to a different chip accordingly.
In other words, only a single 32KB chip could be read at any given moment.
Such ingenious trickery was genuinely astonishing.
With this thing completed, the final barrier between him and Contra had finally been shattered.
One month passed in the blink of an eye.
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1984.06.29.
Lin Lixin completed all core development work for Contra, leaving only bug testing and final optimization.
And on that same day, another work was also released.
Los Angeles.
Inside a movie theater.
Sam hugged a bucket of popcorn excitedly as he stared at the massive poster on the wall.
Е́ ṅ ů m̊ӓ
“Unbelievable! We actually got the chance to attend the premiere of Conan the Destroyer!”
He knew Lin Lixin’s purpose for coming here wasn’t merely to watch a movie, but the rare experience still thrilled him.
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Over the past month, arcade sales had exploded throughout California.
Every single cabinet sold earned them over a thousand dollars in profit from Meyer.
Without exaggeration, Tetris and 1942 were now two hens laying golden eggs nonstop.
Lin Lixin had earned an absolute fortune.
Ѐ n̄ ů m̄ ӓ.і d
And as the investor who had recognized his talent early, Sam had also made a killing.
That massive influx of money finally gave them the capital necessary to reach people they previously could never have approached.
As they entered the screening hall, Lin Lixin’s gaze immediately locked onto the muscular figure seated in the front row.
Bulging muscles.
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Bronze skin with a faint reddish tone.
A body so massive that even his suit looked stretched to its limit.
Е̊n ǔm а̃
“So young…”
Lin Lixin couldn’t help sighing emotionally.
At this moment, Arnold Schwarzenegger was quietly speaking with someone beside him.
His face still carried youthful traces, far from the iconic “Governor” image that Lin Lixin remembered from the future.
(End of Chapter)
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