Chapter 120 - Memories of the Forum
After dialing up and connecting to the network, Su Yuanshan first sent a few encrypted emails to the Silicon Valley team. Then, he logged into the newly established CFide BBS site — CFide, operated by Huido, was the first FidoNet-based site in China, and it served as the first communication hub for domestic internet technicians, having appeared in Beijing just last year.
Unlike history as he remembered it, this year, besides Shantou, both Yuanchip's provincial capital office and the Shanghai branch had also set up their own BBS nodes. Yuanchip even moved its internal, non-confidential technical discussions onto the platform.
Over the past half-year, besides the active participation of Yuanchip employees, several domestic software companies and researchers who didn't need to worry about phone bills had joined as well.
As soon as he logged in, Su Yuanshan noticed a new member called "Pony" who had posted a riddle using the title "A Little Cow."
"The little cow tries to jump high—"
Seeing the ID, Su Yuanshan paused for a moment. After a second, he smiled and replied to the post — his first-ever reply on CFide:
"Pretty badass."
Very quickly, Pony replied:
"Ice Cream! Senior, where are you from?"
Su Yuanshan thought about it. This guy should still be a student, right?
Where was he connecting from?
"From the Tang Dynasty of the Eastern Lands. And you, Brother Pony?"
"Wow, what a coincidence. I'm from there too."
Seeing how fast this guy replied, Su Yuanshan couldn't help laughing.
No wonder he would later develop instant messaging software — he clearly loved chatting even now.
"Since we're from the same place," Su Yuanshan typed mischievously, "let me pose a question. Suppose I need to travel from the Tang Dynasty to the Great Thunder Sound Temple in the West, passing through twenty-three countries randomly scattered along the way. What method would allow me to pass through all countries the fastest?"
After posting the question, Su Yuanshan returned to the main forum.
There, he saw a recruitment ad posted by user "QBJ."
Whether it was due to butterfly effects or Yuanchip's leading role, the software scene in this life was already livelier than Su Yuanshan remembered.
Besides the early players like Jinshan, Neusoft, ChinaSoft, and UFSoft, new companies like Huaruan, Shangsoft, and Softstar had also sprung up.
As for IC design companies related to the chip industry, there were even more — Yuanchip, being an EDA supplier, had launched small angel investments in pilot cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Chengdu, so Su Yuanshan had a very clear picture of the design industry's current state.
Although IC design firms hadn't yet sprung up everywhere, there were at least promising seedlings across the land.
That was why Su Yuanshan had decisively merged Yuanchip's internal IC design team into the CPU department.
Their previous project — a campus card system — had been directly handed over to Yuanzhong Microelectronics in Shanghai.
After all, given Yuanchip's strength, if they competed directly with their subsidiaries, other small design houses wouldn't stand a chance.
Yuanchip was meant to be the soil nourishing the industry, not a predator.
Looking at the generous terms offered in the recruitment ad, Su Yuanshan silently calculated Yuanchip's internal salary levels.
Seeing that they couldn't poach his people, he smiled and moved on.
CFide BBS claimed to be for technical exchanges, but in reality, it was mostly a place for programmers to chat and blow off steam.
In the old timeline, there were rumors that Lei Jun, after a failed startup around 1997, had spent half a year venting his frustrations on CFide — no one knew how he managed to pick himself up afterward.
Browsing the long threads of casual banter, Su Yuanshan smiled when he saw Giant Corporation's CEO simultaneously flaunting his wealth and recruiting people.
He posted a new thread:
"Anyone developing a PC video player?
I can provide a decoder card interface.
If not, I'll do it myself." — SYS.
After posting, Su Yuanshan immediately disconnected — not because he was worried about phone bills, but because the site had a strict capacity limit: one user per slot.
...
Meanwhile, at the Zhongxin Special Economic Zone Branch:
In July, after a quick survey of the area, Wang Chaoxin decisively acquired a small electronics factory that made radios.
Using its facilities and workers as a base, he built a new pager production line and established an R&D department.
Since it was the Special Economic Zone, everything proceeded with special treatment — including university recruitment.
Zhongxin, as the leading domestic pager company, received tremendous government support and quickly recruited many graduates and interns from local universities.
Pony was one of those interns.
At this moment, he stared dumbfounded at the screen displaying the reply from a big shot.
He was so absorbed that even when the tech supervisor came over and yanked out his phone cable, he barely noticed.
"Director Xiao, how do I solve this problem?"
Adjusting his glasses, Pony looked up at Xiao Li — a senior engineer supposedly from Yuanchip.
Xiao Li had initially wanted to scold this intern, but the posted question caught his attention.
At first glance, it looked like a typical NP problem — a non-deterministic polynomial-time problem.
If the number of nodes was small, brute-force traversal could work.
But with over twenty nodes, advanced algorithms like compressed state dynamic programming would be necessary.
After a few seconds, Xiao Li frowned and shook his head, "NP problems are ancient in mathematics.
Who posted it?"
"Someone called SYS."
Xiao Li paused and gave a half-smile.
"You know this guy?"
"No, he said he's from the Tang Dynasty.
I said I'm from there too.
Then he hit me with this question.
Is this like some entrance test for joining the forum?"
"Maybe it's a personal test for you, haha!" Xiao Li laughed.
Before leaving, he plugged Pony's phone line back in and patted his shoulder meaningfully.
"Little Teng, since a senior asked you, take it seriously.
NP problems are used everywhere."
"Okay," Pony nodded seriously and adjusted his glasses again, ready to tackle the challenge.
...
The next morning, Su Yuanshan first checked the emails from Silicon Valley and distributed them to his teams through the internal servers.
Just as he was about to disconnect, he remembered the thread he had posted yesterday.
Logging back into the forum, he found that QBJ had indeed replied — along with a flood of other responses.
"SYS — are you the one from YX?
If yes, please reply.
We're interested." — QBJ.
"QBJ, SYS is exactly the one you're thinking of.
I've seen his source code signature." — Cheng Yang.
"Whoa, is that true?
LiML, can you confirm?" — G·X.
"No need for Li.
Just wire me some cash and I'll tell you." — YX·HeZiTao.
"Is it really him?
Anyone behind him, just say something." — JR·Wang.
Smiling slightly, Su Yuanshan directly replied —
since there was no @ function yet, he had to call people out manually:
"To: QBJ, yes, please contact the technical department at the VCD factory." — SYS.
"BTW: QBJ, your word processing software is pretty good.
You should consider expanding westward.
Same goes for media players." — SYS.
After sending the message, Su Yuanshan logged off.
Almost immediately, Qiu Bojun's phone call came in.
"Hello, President Su, this is Qiu Bojun.
Is it true what you posted on the forum?"
"Yes," Su Yuanshan smiled.
"We don't plan to enter the office or entertainment software sectors, so you all should go for it."
"Thank you! Thank you for your support!" Qiu Bojun said excitedly.
"No need to thank me," Su Yuanshan said lightly.
After hanging up, Su Yuanshan returned to designing the MMX core architecture.
Helping Jinshan wasn't about playing the good Samaritan.
Yuanchip genuinely had no plans to step into the office software market.
Moreover, the launch of the MMX instruction set would only succeed if major software vendors — and even some heavyweight players — cooperated by adapting their applications.
It was best to let Jinshan, which had already recruited Lei Jun, lead the charge.
From a technical standpoint, WPS was in no way inferior to Microsoft Office in its early days.
At one point, Microsoft even tried to buy Jinshan, offering Qiu Bojun a $150,000 annual salary in the early 90s — a staggering figure at the time.
After the acquisition attempt failed, Microsoft played dirty:
they proposed opening a middle layer to allow document format compatibility.
With that, Office quietly crushed WPS's chance to expand westward.
Su Yuanshan had no intention of becoming Microsoft's enemy — but that didn't mean he couldn't hand Jinshan a knife to fight with.
Time passed quickly.
When Chen Jing and her team returned from Las Vegas, the people sent to UMC also came back from Taiwan.
Meanwhile, at 8:30 PM on CCTV-1's primetime slot, Springtime's Story began airing.
At the same time, 30,000 units of VCD players quietly entered Zhang Ke's rapidly expanding chain of appliance stores.
— This year, Su Yuanshan's little uncle had finally found his life's goal:
he was determined to become China's biggest boss in communications and home appliances.
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