"Monthly sales are tens of thousands? Is it true or false?"

Carter looked at the big suitcase on Rick's desk with some suspicion.

According to Rick, it was only launched two years ago. Isn't this about the same time as IBM's first personal PC? Its sales of 250,000 units a year have shocked my mother for a whole year.

If this thing sells tens of thousands per month, how can it leave a mark in the future?!

In this era, it is not easy to compete with IBM on the sales side!

"Why are you lying to me?! To be honest, I was actually shocked by this data, but it is indeed true!"

"Even if the monthly sales volume is 10,000 units, each unit sells for about 1,700 U.S. dollars, which means monthly sales of 17 million U.S. dollars! In less than half a year, sales will exceed 100 million dollars?!"

Silently mentally calculating the sales potential of this Osborne, Carter was shocked:

"Have you checked their interest rate?"

"I don't know the details, but I asked someone to learn some things. At least in the area of ​​software, their costs are extremely low! They basically find some small software companies and buy them outright. I can't estimate the total cost.

Ten million”

"In addition, to be honest, the materials used in this computer are not good. I don't know much about the chips, but I remember I heard you say that IBM's computers can now use MB as a unit for storage.

, but its memory size is still only 64kb”

"Then I guess the chip is not very good. Can you let me dismantle the computer?"

"Take it apart. I bought it as a sample for research. It just so happens that you can take it apart and let me take a look. In this regard, I recently gained some knowledge on a surprise basis, but it shouldn't be comparable to yours. Remember to give it to me when you take it apart.

Just talk about it!”

As if by magic, he took out a tool box from under the table. Rick shut down the computer without feeling distressed, and then pushed the tool box in front of Carter.

"Are there any classes tomorrow morning? Are you sure it's time to leave now?"

Opening the box and taking out a screwdriver, Carter looked at the moonlight outside the window and hesitated.

"It's okay, the world is big and the career is the biggest! I have a class at 9:30 tomorrow, don't be in a hurry, hurry up and get started!"

"Okay, I don't have class tomorrow morning anyway, just think about it."

After all, Carter was not polite.

If he were his roommate and his family was average, Carter might hesitate. After all, this was an object that someone bought with real money, but for such an old boy with a rice-shaped flag,

You're welcome!

"Oh, this thing, even though it is small, it has all the internal organs! It even has a disc reader?!"

Looking around the Osborne computer, while looking for the place to cut, Carter also carefully looked at the condition and general structure of the thing.

A five-inch mini screen is embedded in the center of the computer. On both sides are designs similar to the previous CVD disc reading ports. The open "lid" part has a keyboard embedded on it.

Although this design is incomparable with later generations of notebook computers, in this era, PCs with such a high degree of integration really allowed Carter to find some new inspirations.

"Sure enough, it's a CRT screen! When I first saw this long-butt chassis, I had a guess, but it's not a big problem. Nowadays, most monitors use CRT screens." …

After removing the casing, Carter immediately noticed the components extending from behind the small screen. The electron gun and deflection coil, these two standard components of CRT monitors, instantly made Carter recognize its origin.

"CRT screen? Is there any explanation for this?"

"There is no explanation. The simple summary is that this display technology is relatively low-cost, but you have also seen the shortcomings, not to mention the image rendering effect. At least, it is not suitable for use on this kind of portable computer, it takes up too much space!"

"Okay, I'll take some notes."

As a novice among computer novices, Rick's record is concise and shocking: CRT takes up a lot of space and costs little; if the space is to be reduced, the production cost will increase. Separate applications on different product lines can be considered.

"I almost figured it out, this thing is weird! Really, weird!"

When the hour hand of the wall clock on the wall pointed to two o'clock, Carter looked at the Osborne computer display with a faint blue light and admired it sincerely.

Yes, it is indeed admirable!

"This guy named Adam Osborne may not be very good, but his business direction is very correct! In terms of hardware, the shrinkage is an exaggeration!"

"The chip, Zilog's Z80, is basically an A-grade Intel 8080 chip. You know, Intel 8086 has been out for many years, and this is still an 8-bit old chip. The computing power is completely incomparable with the latest one."

“But it’s enough! It’s enough to meet general daily office needs! Moreover, Zilog Z80 is also cheap! It is more than half cheaper than the genuine 8080, and this chip is considered to be a very, very large one in the market.

The chip production line is sufficient, and if you purchase it on a large scale, it won't cost much, especially since I noticed that this is a chip manufactured by Mostek. It is not a chip directly produced by Zilog."

"This means that the cost will be lower?"

"It's hard to say. Zilog has two foundries in the United States, namely Syek and SGS in Europe. I heard that there are also foundries in Japan. It seems to be Sony or which one. I can't remember the details. Normally.

It is said that the foundry is only responsible for production, and the selling price is still determined by Zilog, but it’s hard to say.”

The lifespan of the Z80 is too long. As a chip that appeared on the market in the 1970s, it seems that Nintendo's red and white consoles use this chip. It stands to reason that such a large-scale

Application, if Japan only has Z80 OEM, then theoretically speaking, it doesn’t matter whether it is Nintendo or any other company.

If they want to use the Z80 chip, they have to pay Zilog. But think about the Japanese game consoles that will almost dominate the entire East Asia and even the world in the future. With such a huge volume, the Japanese people can honestly buy every game console.

Do you pay Zilog for all chips?

Carter doesn’t believe it! He doesn’t believe it at all!

This is not racial prejudice, but any qualified businessman must find a way to reduce costs. If it can be applied on a large scale in its own products, either the price of this chip is unimaginably low; or it is a Japanese OEM.

After obtaining the power of foundry, it also obtained the power of distribution, or in other words, the power to freely improve and dispose of the chip.

It is equivalent to obtaining technical authorization!

Only in this way can costs be kept down!

"But for now, I can be sure that this thing is not expensive! It's even cheaper than I originally thought, purchasing AMD chips! And in terms of the system, hehehe CP/M, it's the same."

"The boss of this CP/M DRI, Kiri Dell, is a fool. He personally released a tiger that could eat him! Maybe at some point, this company will fall into my hands.
Chapter completed!