Riding the wind of rebirth

In the minds of Chinese people, using their own devices to help the country in any way they can is almost a no-brainer. So, although this screensaver program is very simple on the computer—basically a map of China with many lines running on it to indicate online tasks being performed—it topped the download charts of major portal websites this year, almost always ranking first.

"Let's get back to the operating system ecosystem," Zhou Zhi said with a smile. "Our nonlinear supercomputing system, as you said, has indeed found a new path for the development of the information industry. Moreover, it has been developing for a long time without the attention of competitors, and it has already occupied quite a few territories."

"So this year we released the computing power sharing program written by Xiaomiao as a screensaver. After all, it is difficult for our company alone to build a complete ecosystem for nonlinear supercomputing centers."

After years of hard work, and with the help of Mai Xiaomiao, Zhou Zhi now has a good grasp of how to make a good operating system. Regarding nonlinear supercomputing systems, he has now established intellectual property barriers for the entire industrial ecosystem, from protocols, hardware, software, operating systems, development tools, application deployment, etc. He has become more relaxed and has now passed the early "danger period". Next, he will enter his adolescence, a stage of absorbing nutrients and growing rapidly.

Throwing out some concepts to attract talent and upstream and downstream partners is an inevitable tactic.

"So this is the path you mentioned that hasn't been noticed by many competitors so far, but will inevitably become the future trend?" Hu Changfeng asked.

"No, I'm talking about the completely opposite direction."

"What?!" Hu Changfeng couldn't believe his ears. This kid had made a big splash with concepts like nonlinearity, large clusters, super networks, and distributed centralization, even giving the country confidence to include the information industry as a pillar industry ahead of schedule. Now he was saying that the opportunity for China's information industry to break free from foreign control was actually in the opposite direction?!
"Based on historical analysis, the development of the information industry's ecosystem can be considered to have gone through several eras," Zhou Zhi said with a smile. "Was the first generation the paper tape operating system ecosystem? The second generation was the machine language ecosystem?"

Hu Changfeng said, "If we analyze it from this perspective, the third-generation ecosystem is a system centered around English word commands, while the fourth generation is a mature English language system. Is that right?"

“Yes.” Zhou Zhi nodded: “We can now consider that we have entered the fifth generation, which is the era of the personal microcomputer and the corresponding window control operating system.”

"So what's next?"

"If we step outside of operating systems to look at the development of the information industry," Zhou Zhi said, "we can only look at the performance-to-size ratio of devices..."

"The performance is getting better and better, and the size is getting smaller and smaller!" Hu Changfeng slapped his thigh.

“That’s right,” Zhou Zhi said. “So we can foresee that the future information industry operating system ecosystem will inevitably be accompanied by more powerful and smaller devices.”

"By the way, this device also has another essential feature: it must be able to meet the need for surfing the Internet anytime, anywhere."

"So, this is..." Hu Changfeng gestured with his hands: "a laptop with a wireless network card?"

Zhou Zhi shook his head: "It needs to be even smaller."

"Smaller?" Hu Changfeng pondered for a moment. "A soft keyboard? Using a touchscreen and controlling it via a software keyboard, integrating the hardware behind the display, would double the thickness, but would reduce the overall size by half." "Of course, component placement and heat dissipation would be issues again..."

Zhou Zhi thought that Hu Changfeng's ability to come up with the concept of "tablet computer" was a testament to his foresight in the national industrial planning, but it was clearly not yet up to par. Zhou Zhi continued to shake his head: "It needs to be even smaller."

"Even smaller? Isn't that just a cordless phone?" Hu Changfeng asked in surprise, "A cordless phone plus your MP3 player?"

“No, it’s more complex than a media player; it’s a miniaturized personal information terminal.” Zhou Zhi glanced at Hu Changfeng’s desk and picked up a booklet about anti-corruption efforts. “It’s about this size and has multiple information processing functions, including mobile communication, internet surfing, QQ communication, multimedia, and games. Simply put, it’s a combination of a mobile phone, an internet card, and a small computer.”

"This..." Hu Changfeng was startled: "We can do it?"

“Of course there are difficulties at the moment,” Zhou Zhi said. “But we believe this is a major development direction for the future information industry, and we have been making technological preparations for this direction.”

"This will cost a lot of money," Hu Changfeng frowned. "I haven't heard that the Clover Group is doing this."

“We’ve actually been heading in this direction from the very beginning,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “The MINICOS instruction set, the industrial control platform that was developed, the platform’s public utility, the collaboration with Microsoft on the Clover Player, with Samsung on mobile storage, with Sony on digital cameras, and the versatile TYPE-C interface are all based on MINICOS, developing a ‘universal layer’ between information equipment hardware and users.”

"If the mobile device we plan to create appears in the future, we can aggregate various drivers based on the current general platform, and use TYPE-C as the peripheral interface and charging interface to quickly build this operating system."

"When you were developing the MINICOS system, you already had this future strategy in mind?" Hu Changfeng looked Zhou Zhi up and down. "You're not some kind of time traveler from the future, are you, like the author of your own novel?"

“Mr. Hu, you should think of it this way: the miniaturization of information devices is an inevitable trend in industrial development.” Zhou Zhi chuckled and said, “Under this inevitable trend, information products that can be carried by people will eventually appear in the future. And with the development trend of the Internet age, this product will inevitably be equipped with the function of accessing the Internet anytime and anywhere. Therefore, wireless data exchange will inevitably become an important function of this device.”

"Since data exchange is necessary, it is only natural to add a communication function."

"As for the investment in Clover, it is also constantly looking for various application scenarios and generating profits in the process of MINICOS' development. Therefore, it has always maintained a virtuous cycle of mutual promotion in investment and development, and has been steadily moving in the direction we hope for. It is not an investment in the air, but rather a way to build a system while making profits from the system under construction."

"Only in this way can it continue indefinitely."

"You scared me, kid! I thought you were going to start from scratch again!" Hu Changfeng laughed. "Now that you mention it, all those seemingly haphazard investments the Clover Group made before actually have a general outline. Your collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the Tianxing-Diwang network was to solve mobile information transmission; your collaboration with the telecommunications company on fiber optic switching ground stations was to try to expand network capacity; your collaboration with Samsung on mobile storage, with us on industrial control chips, and even with Blue Sky Sunshine Group on lithium batteries—was it all for this purpose?"

"Uh, Master Hu, the correct way to say it is actually the other way around." (End of Chapter)