Chapter 92

"What did you say?"

Olson listened in surprise to the voice on the phone, then he dug his ears to make sure he hadn't heard wrong.

"Intel is willing to invest 10 million dollars... and at the same time, they will acquire 65% of our company, which they have already acquired from ARD. I have already agreed to it." The caller was Anderson, Olson's good friend and one of the founders of DEC.

Last year, the venture capital company ARD, founded by Junior Rockefeller, used a $300,000 loan and partial benefits to acquire 65% of the company's shares.

Olson only held 13% of the company's shares, which was completely different from Catherine's 100% controlling stake (Intel held 95%).

For Catherine, holding an absolute controlling stake was essential.

And Olson had long given up most of his shares for the sake of his company.

Because of this, Catherine found it much more convenient. She could directly acquire shares from ARD.

Although ARD made a lot of money, for Catherine, there was no better deal than this.

At this point, Olson's DEC company was almost a stinky company, and ARD didn't see much potential in them.

10 million dollars?

For Olson's company, there was no better news than this.

If it weren't for Catherine's intervention, Olson would have made a profit of $900,000 this year, which was $300,000 less than in 1963.

DEC's profit would continue to decline next year until the "Matrix" appeared, which would turn the tide for the company.

Olson, who was still at home, immediately rushed to the company and saw the plan from Ark Group.

DEC would collaborate with Intel and Apple to develop computers in the direction of miniaturization and compactness. The PDP series developed by DEC were originally minicomputers (not microcomputers) designed for companies. However, when cheaper Microsoft computers appeared, their computers were no longer as popular as before.

Many companies only needed a word processing device, not a professional computer. The functions of current computers were not yet complete, and simple word processing devices were relatively inexpensive, so Catherine's machines were very popular.

Especially since her machines could print out computer documents, which saved a lot of time for many companies, making them more efficient.

DEC and Intel would collaborate on the development of a new generation of microprocessors, with the code name — Z80.

In fact, Catherine preferred to call it MOS-6502, which was the name of the CPU used in the earliest Nintendo game consoles, produced in the 1970s. This was also one of Catherine's quirks.

However, the Z80 had higher performance than the MOS-6502 in the same era, and Catherine also hoped for a better connotation.

In the computer field, DEC needed to collaborate with Apple to develop new standards for computer equipment.

After all, Catherine had changed all the processing devices from integrated to independent, which made many things not as easy to accomplish as imagined. Although many semiconductor companies had contact with Catherine, Fairchild, while not interested in the whole machine, still had some interest in the hardware of computer equipment.

Olson analyzed Catherine's company.

For Intel and Apple, their biggest rival was not IBM but Motorola.

Olson had once worked at IBM, and the slow response and severe bureaucracy of the company made him extremely pessimistic about it. In fact, many people left IBM for this reason.

Moreover, IBM was now reeling from a series of blows by Seymour Cray and was in a daze.

Motorola, on the other hand, was different. Due to its cooperation with the U.S. government in radio, Motorola was at the height of its glory. The company's collaboration with National Television Company to develop the first rectangular cathode ray tube for color TVs became the standard for cathode ray tubes.

As the saying goes, top companies set standards, and this was roughly the case. Even Catherine's GameTV adopted their standards.

Olson founded DEC and developed a popular series of computers, but he was not just a computer engineer.

Now, Catherine was almost Olson's boss. After analyzing these issues, he immediately wrote a report on the company's prospects.

Catherine found Olson's analysis very insightful.

In fact, Catherine's $10 million was entirely Olson's price.

Without Olson, there would be no DEC. Not just $10 million, but even saying that he was worth $100 million or more would be no exaggeration.

However, for Catherine, the main issue now was not the matter with Motorola but the immediate need to develop an 8-bit CPU like the Z80. This was the key.

Currently, Catherine's 4004 CPU was a 4-bit CPU, which was only useful for the current Microsoft computers and not much else.

But with the Z80, things would be different.

Historically, the Z80 had 8K memory, 64K video memory, a maximum color palette of 512 colors, 64 colors on screen, a maximum resolution of 320x448, and up to 80 active blocks, supporting AV and RGB output.

However, now, Catherine had separated the graphics card from the CPU and did not plan to integrate them for a long time.

Catherine's requirements for the Z80 were not high. After separating the graphics function, the Z80 became a pure computing device. At the same time, Catherine also created a graphics card called MOS-6502 to support output...

After writing down the basic reference solutions for these conceptual issues, Catherine passed them on to Olson and Jerry Sanders.

The partnership between the companies was established, but research could not be rushed. Everything depended on the results of the researchers.

"Super Mario."

Catherine wrote these two words (in English) in her notebook, then thought for a moment and added "Pac-Man."

She still had a lot to do.

Intel also immediately announced the Z80 plan to the public and decided to make the Z80 the core and standard of the next generation of Microsoft computers.

Catherine now needed to demonstrate to the Pentagon that her company had the necessary strength...

...

Power outage, internet down, can't even use the laptop, what a pain.

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