So Xiao Tian and his team of software elites headed to central Shandong, carrying bags full of their livelihood tools: two laptops and a tablet for each person.
This equipment is far superior to the world's top programmers.
In their words, one machine is used for coding, one for running code, and the tablet is used to find bugs.
If your brain isn't enough, use a computer to make up for it.
It took Xiaotian's team about six hours to reach central Shandong. It's better to use a chartered plane; it saves them from having to transfer and wasting a lot of time on the way back.
This is a process of hardware and software integration. Mini programs can run smoothly, but programs slightly larger than 1MB will lag, and programs larger than 3MB will basically freeze.
With the development of technology, hardware is constantly improving, and software is keeping pace, resulting in larger files. For example, newly emerging image processing software tends to be larger.
The program itself is small, only a few hundred kilobytes, but with the images it exceeds 1 megabyte, and it's also very memory-intensive.
As soon as you run it and put in an image, it will lag so badly that you'll question your existence without any repairs. When you finally manage to use the function keys, it will either prompt that there is not enough memory or that the chip is overheating due to long standby time. Just by listening to the fan whirring, you can tell that the chip is working like crazy.
Running at high power consumption for extended periods is bound to cause it to burn out.
"Boss, no offense, but photo editing programs are very demanding on hardware. Ours is really terrible. Why don't you talk to the hardware team and ask them to change the design? Anyway, it's not in mass production yet, so there's still time," Xiao Tian said.
"Is it as easy as you say? Show me how to fix it. Hurry up and think of a solution," Xing Baohua said.
"When this software was ported, it ran perfectly on the 386 chip. Although there were some minor lags, it was still able to run." Xiao Tian's words were so hurtful that Xing Baohua was speechless with anger.
He'd be thrilled if his team could create a chip comparable to the 386. Even if the 286 copy has many flaws, it might work well for ripping people off, but it shouldn't rip off users!
Brands shouldn't be ruined. Just like when someone tried to attack a certain ASUS laptop series, claiming that the series had design flaws, poor heat dissipation, and was prone to causing burns.
As a result, the ASUS series didn't burn anyone; one user even said it was really warm to put in bed. This is a user's experience shared on Tianya Forum.
In the past, heat dissipation was standard practice for laptops, so there's no need to criticize anyone. But now, Loongson processors don't have heat dissipation issues; they just won't run even if you put them in ice.
The decision to finalize the Loongson chip was a last resort. The actual operation of this product is similar to that of chips from the 1970s. In other words, it can run well with 8-bit chips, but it is a challenge to run 32-bit programs.
Therefore, it cannot be compared with Intel chips or Windows system programs by definition.
The software needs to be tailored to the chip's performance; Xiao Tian just hasn't quite grasped that yet.
The software was simply ported over using the old approach, without proper optimization.
Think about Apple products. They have low-end hardware and use the operating system to optimize programs, so why are they so expensive? Because the operating system is expensive!
Make all the software work in harmony with their system.
Xing Baohua would be incredibly grateful if he could acquire a professional chip design team.
It's not possible now, it's a matter of the times. Think about the future, many chip companies are using the ARM architecture. Qualcomm's Snapdragon is great, and others are using it too.
There are many things that cannot be bypassed, and the cost of bypassing them is too high.
You can squeeze the resources out of Xiaotian's team and make the software work with Loongson.
The software team, along with several engineers from the Rice Labs hardware team, began various tests on the software and chip performance.
Regarding memory, Xiaotian suggested upgrading the original low-end 64K memory to 128K.
The high-end configuration starts directly from 256K.
Xing Baohua also wanted to, but what about the cost?
According to Xing Baohua, the high-end configuration should start with 128K.
What a cheap machine! These programmers are used to high-end machines. Don't they realize that the ones the company provides are not the same as the ones they buy themselves?
We need to take into account the consumer's level. Student computers may not be a viable option, but the elite market is still the main market. Newly hired employees who need a computer may buy one or a laptop for work.
The price is too high, and people can't afford it. If we give them a mid-range or lower-priced option, Xing Baohua confidently says that this market share would be a monopoly.
Compared to other 32-bit chips, it's more than half the price and still comes with a brand new device. Who wouldn't be tempted?
Xing Baohua kept nagging Xiao Tian about the concept of cheap phones, which almost drove Xiao Tian to the brink of collapse.
Reducing file size means cutting features; with all sorts of compression, the file size remains the same.
If you cut the price in half, you can't cut the software price in half as well, or it will still be usable.
And believe it or not, it really is like that.
For example, the mobile app "Xiuxiu" has many features removed, only allowing you to perform simple image processing. It can't compare to the feature-rich Adobe Photoshop (PS).
“You get what you pay for, cut features! Cut all the features from the software, just keep the essential ones,” Xing Baohua said to Xiao Tianna.
This is no less difficult than building a new software from scratch. Is this what they call porting?
"Hurry up and get it done. Once it's done, I'll give you a vacation and I'll even attend your wedding."
"What kind of wedding?" Xiao Tian asked, looking up at Xing Baohua.
"Your wedding with Geng Rui?"
"..." Xiao Tian stared at Xing Baohua with wide eyes. His mind was burning like a dragon's heart!
Swallowing hard, he said to Xing Baohua, "No, I just want a vacation to take Geng Rui back so my parents and friends can meet me. I have a girlfriend. I didn't say I wanted to use the vacation to go back and get married!"
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