Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1364 That Operating System Isn't Working (4k)

As the leading generation of those most deeply steeped in collectivist education, the comrades in the Third Factory Electronics Laboratory attached the highest importance to this matter and felt the greatest sense of honor from it.

Chief Engineer Gao is really inspiring here; there are always major projects like this to work on, and now we've even gone into space.

Prior to this, the technical department of the third factory had not been without related projects, but they were generally working on parts and materials. This was the first time they had worked on such a large system.

If they knew this was part of our cooperation with our comrades in the North, their excitement would probably go even further.

Regardless, our comrades from the North have helped us a lot, and in the simple perception of ordinary people, their goodwill towards us is now almost at its maximum.

After seeing off a few comrades who were so excited they were almost disoriented, the door to Gao Zhendong's office rang.

As Gao Zhendong said "Please come in," the only female among his junior classmates walked in.

"Senior Brother Gao, you wanted to see me?" Ma Juan called Gao Zhendong "Senior Brother," her eyes sparkling with curiosity and excitement. Senior Brother Gao had called her back from Jinchen University with a single phone call; she wondered what good news it could have.

If there's nothing wrong, they definitely wouldn't call me back.

At this moment, the three of them, along with their colleagues from the Institute of Computing Technology, had joined forces with their colleagues from Jinchen University of Technology and were launching a final all-out attack on the network operating system.

Therefore, the fact that I was called back at this critical juncture must mean something important. Fortunately, after the two sides meet, it will be the last task, and there will be some surplus human resources, so it won't affect the work on the other side.

Seeing her come in, Gao Zhendong made her a cup of tea and handed it to her, then sat down at the coffee table.

"Are there enough people over there?" Gao Zhendong's seemingly random question instantly ignited Ma Juan's passion. See, I wasn't wrong, there must be something important, otherwise he wouldn't be asking about manpower.

"Enough, there's still a bit too much, hahaha." She said cheerfully.

Gao Zhendong nodded: "That's good. In that case, I have a new, important, and challenging task for you. Are you confident?"

The "you" in this context refers to the group of comrades led by Ma Juan.

Without hesitation, Ma Juan nodded firmly: "Yes!"

It wasn't that she made a rash promise, but rather that she knew that no matter how difficult the task was for Senior Brother Gao, there were two advantageous aspects.

Firstly, he will assess whether the person in charge has the ability. If he feels that the person is not capable, then there is no point in even thinking about getting started. And his assessment is quite accurate.

Secondly, he will provide a safety net, which is a safety net in every sense of the word, including preparing routes, technology, materials, personnel, funds, and so on in advance.

This gave Ma Juan a lot of confidence. Besides, she was the one who led a team and completed the network operating system kernel upgrade. Although she received a lot of help from Gao Zhendong, things were still done well.

Gao Zhendong nodded: "Okay, that's good. I remember you were in charge of the operating system kernel, right? Task scheduling and other parts were all handled by your team."

Ma Juan nodded: "Yes, we are doing it." She thought that Senior Brother Gao would consider all sorts of situations when assigning tasks. Since he asked this question, it must be about a new task related to the operating system kernel.

"That's good. This time, we need you to develop a new operating system for some very important applications," Gao Zhendong said with a smile.

Operating system? Then it's alright.

At this moment, Ma Juan was incredibly confident! After all, she was in charge of the kernel and scheduling parts of the network operating system. Although it was based on Gao Zhendong's original work and carried out under Gao Zhendong's guidance, she could be said to be the person closest to the bottom layer of the operating system.

This task assigned by Senior Brother Gao was practically tailor-made for her; in fact, there was practically no one in the country more suited to it than her. Oh, right, except for Senior Brother Gao.

However, she was puzzled by this: "Senior Brother Gao, don't we already have an operating system? Why do we need to make another one?"

Gao Zhendong shook his head and laughed, "That operating system is a general-purpose operating system, which emphasizes being large and comprehensive. In order to achieve compatibility and functionality, too many compromises have been made. It is huge and bloated, and for some special applications, it is too big and useless."

Ma Juan nodded, seemingly understanding somewhat, but not entirely: "But if we strip away some unnecessary things from our current operating system, it can be greatly streamlined, right?"

Gao Zhendong still shook his head: "No, it won't work. The real-time performance isn't good enough. Let me put it this way, the current operating system wasn't developed for real-time systems. Its focus isn't on that. It may seem like it's very fast, but that's just an illusion. In reality, it's not designed for this purpose."

A real-time operating system (RTOS) is a special type of operating system. Even decades from now, ordinary people will have few opportunities to interact with it. If we were to give an example, the most common RTOS for ordinary people would probably be the one inside a car's ECU.

Other requirements for this operating system can be put aside; the most important thing is real-time performance, and this is a hard requirement.

Decades later, many operating systems appear to be real-time, but this is actually an illusion created by the powerful hardware and low workload. Operating systems used on personal computers, including Unix, Linux, and Windows, are fundamentally not RTOS.

Although RTOS is not well-known among ordinary people, its real-time characteristic has applications in many important fields, including automobiles, machine tools, aviation, automation, and aerospace.

Gao Zhendong's preparation for developing an RTOS is not simply about collaborating with Luo Guo on a rocket thrust control system. Given the current technological environment and needs, it is time for an RTOS to be born.

Not to mention the distant future, machine tools and aviation are all waiting.

Especially in this era when computer hardware was not advanced, RTOS was a very important operating system. After all, when hardware was insufficient, software had to make up for it, and software was used to ensure the real-time performance of important tasks.

Writing a dedicated loop monitoring program is not impossible, but it greatly reduces the versatility and reusability of the results.

After listening to Gao Zhendong's explanation, Ma Juan nodded as if she understood, "Ah, I see... So... will it be difficult?"

Before Gao Zhendong explained, she was confused by the pseudo-real-time nature at the macro level brought about by the development of computer hardware. But after Gao Zhendong explained it clearly, she was a little worried. This thing sounded like it had very high requirements.

It requires small capacity and high real-time performance, especially the latter.

Ma Juan, who already has a deep understanding of software and scientific research, knows very well that although it may sound like there are only one or two requirements, they are not simple at all.

When the requirements for a single parameter or characteristic are raised to the extreme, the difficulty of the task completely changes.

Gao Zhendong laughed. Seeing this smile, Ma Juan felt reassured. What was there to be afraid of? She had a powerful figure backing her up.

As the saying goes, if the sky falls, someone tall will hold it up; besides, the sky isn't going to fall anyway. Before Gao Zhendong led them in developing the network operating system, none of the senior students imagined that they would be able to take on such an important role in such a large-scale project, just a few years after graduation.

"Senior Brother Gao, I'm sorry, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed just now." Ma Juan said a little embarrassedly after realizing what she had said.

Gao Zhendong shook his head, not taking it to heart: "It's normal. It's normal to have some emotional changes when you come into contact with new things. The important thing is to quickly get back to work and get things done as soon as possible."

He didn't have the time or energy to do this himself, except to provide guidance. Fortunately, the network operating system training had already yielded results, and with his colleagues doing the work for him, he could take the opportunity to slack off.

After saying that, he turned around and opened the safe, taking out a stack of papers.

"These are my recent thoughts, analyses, and opinions on RTOS. Don't rush into action. Take a closer look first, and once you have a systematic understanding, we can move on to the next step."

Although the aforementioned operating system, which is actually based on Linux, is not an RTOS, many things are actually the same. The key is to make Ma Juan and the others understand the differences and explain some key points, and then the rest will be much easier.

As long as the foundation is laid well, Gao Zhendong believes they are capable of completing this project, and estimates that the timeframe won't be too slow.

After all, Gao Zhendong knew that Linux has an RTOS branch, although most people don't use it much.

With the hardware platform from the electronics lab at the third factory, plus this RTOS, everything is ready.

Ma Juan suddenly felt that the clouds had parted and the moon was shining brightly. Senior Brother Gao's mission was indeed not the kind that involved killing without any regard for the consequences.

With this, her confidence grew even stronger.

"Senior Brother Gao, the extent of this material's circulation..." This is an important question.

Gao Zhendong pondered for a moment: "Don't spread it too widely at the beginning. Keep it within the core group of people, no more than three. It's not that I'm worried about anything else, and there's no need to keep this a secret. It's just that the concept is a bit different. If ordinary comrades come into contact with it rashly, it might have some impact on their current work."

"Okay!" she replied crisply, took the whole set of materials from Gao Zhendong, greeted him, and turned to walk out the door.
-
At a shipyard in Shujiang, red flags fluttered, gongs and drums resounded, and firecrackers crackled.

A warship, which could be described as "huge" at this time, stood quietly on a slightly sloping ramp, with a large red ball on its bow that was particularly eye-catching.

On the side of the ship, a huge red banner swayed slightly in the sea breeze, the white characters on it clearly visible.

"Warmly celebrate the successful launch of our country's first medium-sized landing ship."

Below the ship, on a fairly large viewing platform, many people looked up at the ship not far away, their faces beaming with joy.

"It's finally launched! This ship took a lot of time to design and build. It's 3500 tons, a huge vessel!" the defense commission leader laughed.

What most people wouldn't expect is that despite its seemingly bulky appearance, the displacement of the Zhongdeng is not as large as it appears at first glance. One important reason for this is that the cargo hold has sufficient volume, so the Zhongdeng is considered to be "bloated" in a way.

After all, her belly is empty, so it's impossible for her not to gain weight.

At this moment, the ship, which looked somewhat chubby, appeared quite adorable to the comrades.

"It's not that long, is it? Such a big thing, from its proposal and design to its construction, it's only been a few years? I think you've been eating too well these past few years."

The naval leader next to him laughed.

As a new type of warship, and the first ship with a very clear and important objective, it is something that comrades of their rank must come and see when it is launched.

"Uh...you're right, we were too impatient, hahaha." The defense committee leader laughed.

"Hey, by the way, where's that darling of your Defense Committee? Why isn't he here today?" the naval leader joked.

He was referring to Gao Zhendong, a researcher who has recently provided the Navy with many valuable resources and has been a frequent attendee at various high-level conferences. The Navy's leadership is very familiar with him.

Moreover, Gao Zhendong himself was the one who first proposed this Zhongdeng, so the leaders were a little surprised that he didn't come.

Normally, given the National Defense Commission's usual practice, they would definitely drag him out to participate in this kind of thing. Ostensibly, it's to participate in the acceptance inspection and launching, but in reality, it's to pull this comrade out for a rest. Similar situations have occurred more than once.

The defense commission leader was taken aback upon hearing this, and after a moment's thought, he realized: "Oh, he's in seclusion."

"Retreat?"

"Yes, we've made some progress recently, and we're organizing it systematically. He says he can't find the time. The stuff is quite important, and he doesn't want to come out. Who can persuade him to?" The defense committee leader complained a little, but his eyes were full of smiles.

"You old rascal, I can tell from your expression that you've got something good. What is it? Give me a hint?" the naval leader laughed.

"I can't say, I can't say. Don't you know the confidentiality regulations? Hahaha." The defense committee leader looked at the old man's face and laughed heartily.

"you……"

"Don't rush, don't rush, it should be soon. Some of these things are somewhat related to you." The defense committee leader recalled the half-finished outline he had seen with Gao Zhendong, and was delighted.

The two were arguing when, amidst the whistle of the ship, firecrackers went off on both sides of the boat, and red banners with words of celebration and encouragement were thrown down from both sides.

"Launch!" With the master of ceremonies' command, the boat began to slowly move backward, gradually entering the water, making a creaking sound.

Before long, the boat was fully submerged, its full hull floating beautifully on the water.

Unlike some warships at that time, which required extensive testing and outfitting after launching due to their complex systems and numerous devices, this ship was relatively simple and was fully outfitted on the slipway. In other words, this ship could undergo sea trials immediately after launching.

The comrades watching the ceremony cheered.

(End of this chapter)