They say the beginning is always the hardest.

Although Wujiang Company has initiated projects for operating systems, CPUs, and computer motherboards, no one has a clue how to develop them. They still need Zhao Ye to provide specific instructions from a strategic perspective.

Zhao Ye was also considering these issues at this time.

In the afternoon, he went to the operating system development team, gathered everyone together, and then held a short meeting.

After everyone sat down, Zhao Ye said in a very confident tone, "I'll say it here first, and you can bring up any good suggestions later. Let's brainstorm together."

First, it must be a graphical user interface (GUI) operating system. Apple already achieved this in 1983 with the Macintosh computer, which was a huge success. Second, we need to add rich and user-friendly features to the operating system, such as introducing a program manager—the Start menu. Compared to a file list, a program manager is more convenient and intuitive for managing programs!

"Then, we need to improve the CPU's memory management technology to support multitasking."

"We also need to develop a Control Panel as the center of system settings, including limited control over things like interface color themes and mouse dexterity."

"Support multimedia functions and develop music players and video players."

"Finally, there are some applications bundled with the system, such as 'WPS Office', 'WordPad', 'Calculator', 'Calendar', 'Games', etc."

"Oh, right, I'll add one more thing."

Zhao Ye suddenly thought of something, paused, and said, "As the saying goes, 'Helping others is helping yourself.' In order to help hardware manufacturers develop drivers and facilitate other software companies in designing applications for operating systems, we also need to develop a Software Development Kit (SDK) to create a system application ecosystem!"

After Zhao Ye finished speaking, everyone was stunned. They hadn't expected that developing an operating system would be so complicated. It seemed like he had already done a perfect job, and they didn't know what to add.

"Boss, are we developing an operating system based on the Intel x86 chip?" Qiu Bojun asked.

Software operation is based on hardware; hardware must come first before software operating systems can exist. That's why Qiu Bojun asked this question.

Zhao Ye knew that in 1985, Intel launched its first 32-bit microprocessor, the Intel-, and achieved great success.

Intel is a processor based on the x86 architecture.

Zhao Ye wanted to develop an operating system based on the CPU architecture developed by his own company, but his own CPU was still nowhere to be seen.

"For now, we'll focus on developing the x86 computer system. Once we've developed our own CPU, we'll release a completely new version of the operating system!" Zhao Ye said somewhat helplessly.

Upon hearing this, Qiu Bojun nodded, indicating that he understood.

"Boss, what instruction set is our company's CPU development team planning to develop?"

"Intel's CPUs are based on Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) and have many patents. Not only would they never license them to us, but even if they were willing, we would be several generations behind and it would be difficult to catch up in a short time. So I decided to take a different approach and develop a CPU based on Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC)."

ARM has not yet taken off. Last year, the British computer company Acorn officially launched the ARM project. It will not be until April next year that Acorn's chip foundry, VLSI, will produce the first ARM chip using the RISC instruction set, which is called Acorn RISC Machine.

Twenty days later, the world's first commercial RISC processor—ARM-1—successfully ran on an Acorn computer.

However, Acorn's development proceeded uneventfully. In 1990, ARM was founded through a collaboration between Acorn, Apple, and contract manufacturer VLSI, with only 12 engineers involved.

At this point, if Wujiang were to develop a CPU based on Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC), it would be entirely possible for them to surpass ARM, not to mention the existence of Zhao Ye, a major "bug".

In his previous life, Zhao Ye had conducted in-depth research on the ARM architecture.

Designing a chip that surpasses the current ARM architecture is not a difficult task.

The most difficult part is actually how to manufacture the chips.

Zhao Ye isn't omnipotent; he only has a basic understanding of chip manufacturing equipment and processes. He might be able to point out future trends to developers and save huge sums of money, but when it comes to specific research and development, it still depends on specialized talent…

From chip design to manufacturing, gaining domestic recognition is a long and arduous journey.

However, Zhao Ye wanted to give it a try.

Finding a way out for chips can drive the development of the entire domestic semiconductor industry.

For example, can ARM chips be used in computers? Absolutely. In 2021, the revolutionary power source for the MacBook Air was the ARM-based Apple M1 chip. This Apple MacBook Air was not only the best laptop Apple has ever made, but it also topped the list of best laptops in China in 2021.

In the 1980s, ARM chips may not have been as powerful as the Apple M1 chip.

However, Intel chips have only been around for a few years.

In addition, ARM chips can also be used in mobile phones, pagers, Famicom (FC) game consoles, BBK e-readers, electronic pets, and many other applications, making their range of applications very wide.

This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!