Chapter 32 Run, VCD!
Su Yuanshan brewed a cup of the newly introduced instant coffee for his uncle.
Uncle Zhang took a sip and frowned deeply. "Is this what office workers drink these days?"
"No, mainly because if I drink tea, I feel like I've already started living a middle-aged life," Su Yuanshan said, pushing over a box of cookies—strongly recommended by the snack-loving Xi Xiaoding. "Do you know what your sister said yesterday? She actually told me to start drinking goji berries for better vision and energy."
Pfft! Zhang Ke couldn't hold it in and sprayed coffee everywhere.
Su Yuanshan shrugged, grabbed a few napkins to clean up, tossed them into the trash, and sat beside his uncle, smiling. "Uncle, you didn't come this early just to visit your nephew, did you?"
For the past month, Uncle Zhang had been busy with the telecommunications company. Centered around the provincial capital, he had expanded into the eastern cities along the Han River, opening branches in three major cities.
He had also followed Su Yuanshan's advice: not just selling Zhongxin pagers but also carrying other brands. However, under the dominance of Zhongxin's unique Chinese-character pagers, even Motorola's English pagers had struggled to sell, even after price cuts.
"Just got word—Motorola's launching a Chinese pager next month. Pricing is still uncertain," Zhang Ke said seriously after setting down his coffee. "We're domestic. They're imported."
"Uncle, if even Wang Chaoxin isn't worried, why are you?" Su Yuanshan chuckled and reassured him. "Once we authorized the Chinese encoding, Wang started deploying in all Chinese-speaking regions. Plus, domestically, local production is naturally cheaper—no import tariffs."
Motorola wouldn't establish its Beijing office and Tianjin manufacturing plant until 1992.
For now, all their products were imports, whereas Yuanxin's BB machines were fully locally owned and had already been publicly showcased as a patriotic achievement.
It was Motorola who should be trembling with shame.
Uncle Zhang hesitated, then nodded. "Alright then... I'll trust you. Our telecom company welcomes all brands—whoever wants to sell, we'll sell."
After seeing Uncle Zhang off, Zhu Jianting walked into the office, smiling as he handed Su Yuanshan a paper boat and winked. "A thank-you note from that girl."
"You didn't say anything stupid, did you?"
Zhu teased, "She thought it was my mentor who helped. Of course, I told the truth—unless you want to be my mentor?"
"Cough, Senior Brother, don't joke." Su Yuanshan unfolded the boat, smiling as he recognized the handwriting immediately.
That familiar, chubby handwriting style—back then, practically every student practiced with Pang Zhonghua's calligraphy templates.
Even Ye Rudai had once complained to him that after her college entrance exams, her first task was to work hard at fixing her handwriting.
The letter was simple—a pure thank-you note, no flowery language, no gushing emotions.
It was the straightforward, reserved tone typical of a true coding nerd.
Signed: Dai Peiye.
Su Yuanshan mused—her mother was probably surnamed Ye.
"I don't need to reply, do I?" Su Yuanshan asked, smiling at Zhu Jianting.
"Up to you. She's leaving tomorrow. You could leave an address and be pen pals," Zhu said earnestly. "She really is pretty."
Su Yuanshan immediately decided, "Forget it. Don't distract her from her studies. I don't have time for pen pals anyway."
Zhu shrugged, giving him a "your loss" look as he left.
**
Over the next month, Su Yuanshan managed to avoid returning to school and practically lived in Qin Weimin's office, working with his senior and the team to perfect the microcode and instruction sets.
Although their architecture was based on ARM's principles, it was a completely new design.
Even with Su Yuanshan actively involved, they treated every change with extreme caution. Sometimes, they would spend an entire day discussing and testing just one assembly instruction.
Architecture was like a precise tower of blocks—move one piece, and everything could collapse.
Meanwhile, Su Yuanshan had to keep an eye on Li Mingliu's team.
Li had practically sworn a blood oath to complete the project before October.
In the final month, Li almost killed himself with overtime, working until ten every night.
When he handed Su Yuanshan the final floppy disk on the last day of September, he was disheveled, greasy-haired, and sporting half a centimeter of stubble.
"Mission accomplished," Li said, tossing the floppy onto Qin Weimin's desk before collapsing onto the sofa.
Qin Weimin was the first to clap. "Congratulations."
"Well done," Su Yuanshan also applauded slowly. "Senior Brother Li, your team gets a five-day National Day break. Anyone who needs an advance on their salary can see Sister Tang. Bonuses will be awarded after you return. Everyone should relax properly."
Li sprang up, his exhaustion replaced with a flush of excitement.
"I thank you on behalf of the brothers—if we get our pay today, can we start our holiday immediately?"
"Of course!"
Watching Li dash out joyfully, Qin Weimin smiled meaningfully. "This is the first independent design project completed by one of our internal teams, right?"
"Yes," Su Yuanshan said, weighing the floppy disk in his hand. "It's not a complex chip, but it's our first step into commercial chip design."
"That's worth celebrating," Qin Weimin agreed.
"And what's their next project?"
"General-purpose power management chips—and the main control chip for VCD players."
Qin Weimin blinked. "VCD? Not LCD?"
Su Yuanshan grinned. "Video CD—a standalone video player using MPEG format audio and video stored on CDs.
When you see it, it'll blow your mind."
"I'll wait and see," Qin Weimin laughed.
Back in the lab, Su Yuanshan opened the project files and ran a few final simulations himself.
Seeing all the data match up perfectly, he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
No doubt about it—Li Mingliu was strong, as expected of a Tsinghua master's graduate.
But whether he could become a true pillar of Yuanxin would depend on his future performance.
VCD technology was new, but its image quality wasn't dramatically better than LaserDiscs or VHS tapes.
In wealthy countries, those formats were already widespread, meaning VCD's real market would be in Asia—specifically East and Southeast Asia.
And another reason for VCD's rapid adoption in these developing regions was the near absence of copyright enforcement—pirated discs provided endless cheap content.
However, VCDs faced another major problem:
As a brand-new consumer product, they didn't naturally spread by word of mouth like phones or pagers.
Marketing VCDs would require skill and careful planning—not stupidity like Wanyan, who wasted tens of millions on TV ads.
Yuanxin's strategy would be simple:
License the complete VCD device designs and sell chips.
Let others help open the market first—Yuanxin would quietly eat up the profits.
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