Chapter 4

Li Xuan was taken aback for a moment; he hadn't expected his boss to agree so easily. In fact, his bottom line was 50,000 Hong Kong dollars, and he had thought he would need to do a lot of talking. But it turned out that things went much more smoothly than he had imagined.

Hu Junming, despite his usually amiable demeanor, was a shrewd businessman who knew exactly where to fight and where not to. Compared to the millions of profits that securing the agency rights would bring him each year, 100,000 dollars was a small price to pay. Just as Li Xuan had said, if he himself was going to feast on the meat, he couldn't deny others the chance to drink the broth.

What he was more skeptical about was whether Li Xuan could actually produce the Han card he had mentioned. But that was a matter for the future. The most important thing now was to contact the Japanese company and secure the exclusive distribution rights. Whether Li Xuan could get a taste of the broth would depend on his own abilities. If he proved unreliable, Hu Junming could always spend a bit more money to find a capable professional to create the Han card.

"Alright, I won't hold back either! You go and contact the Japanese Epson company. It will probably take them a few days to respond. I'll hurry and get the circuit design of the Han card ready. When you go to Japan to negotiate, you can show it to them, which will add more sincerity and confidence!" Li Xuan said loudly.

"Hmm, you young man have quite the ambition, don't let me down!" Hu Junming encouraged him as Li Xuan was about to leave.

"Vincent, what did you and the boss talk about? Why did it take so long?" Hu Junming's secretary, Cao Yajing, whose desk was not far from the door, asked.

"Company secrets, you're not at a level to know!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

"Hmph, you're just teasing me. Be careful, I'll secretly give you a hard time and say bad things about you to the boss every day!" Cao Jingya shot him a glare.

"The Amy I know is a kind and generous girl; she wouldn't do such despicable things!" Li Xuan leaned on her desk, not in a hurry to leave. "How about I buy you off? I'll treat you to afternoon tea!"

"Tsk, not very sincere! You're not treating me alone; everyone in the company will get it, I know!"

"Ah, others will just get regular milk tea, but I'll get you pearl milk tea. Others will only get pineapple buns, but you'll also get egg tarts. Is that sincere enough?" Li Xuan got up and left, saying as he walked.

"That's more like it!"

After exchanging a few playful words with Cao Jingya, Li Xuan returned to his position. The military order he had given himself in front of his boss, to design a Han card, was not something that could be accomplished in a day or two.

In fact, he had already started working on it half a month ago. The core of the Han card was a chip that stored a Chinese character library and could process Chinese information. The second part was the integrated circuit board designed to work with the chip.

Li Xuan planned to use the Z80 processor as the core of the printer Han card. This chip was released in 1976 by Zilog, a company founded by several former Intel engineers. The design of the Z80 was a knockoff of Intel's 8080 processor.

In the end, the new Z80, a counterfeit, outperformed the genuine 8080 from Intel, with the only trump card being its price. At the time, the retail price of the 8080 chip was $150 per unit, while the Z80 was only $25. The huge price difference made Intel's 8080 chip virtually defenseless.

The Z80, an 8-bit chip, was later selected as one of the 25 most impactful chips in history. Even thirty years later, in the 21st century, it was still used in some low-end microcontrollers, demonstrating its enduring vitality.

Li Xuan chose it not only because of its low price but also because he was familiar with its structure. When Li Xuan was in college, the laboratory had many Z80 single-board computers from the 1990s that were no longer in use.

In a major assignment for a professional course, he had specifically studied the feasibility of improving the outdated Z80 single-board computer into an MCS-51 microcontroller. He spent half a semester conducting various experiments and wrote a complete paper, which was later recommended by his teacher and published in the school's journal of natural sciences. Therefore, Li Xuan was very familiar with the circuit structure and performance of the Z80, making it easier for him to design the corresponding circuit board.

Before his rebirth, Li Xuan had worked on embedded system low-level design, requiring both strong software programming and hardware design skills. Hardware design naturally included circuit board design. Designing a Han card was not a difficult task for him; compared to his previous work, this task was at most an entry-level challenge.

However, theoretical ease did not mean practical ease. The biggest challenge Li Xuan faced was the lack of suitable development tools. In the 21st century, circuit design had entered the era of computer-aided development, with various CAD and EDA software making the process much smoother. But in 1979, commercial computer-aided software had not yet been developed, and most of the integrated circuit design and wiring had to be done manually.

Of course, if Li Xuan were working at a large company like IBM or Intel, they would have their own design software and large computers for simulation and testing. But Li Xuan was working alone, which greatly increased the difficulty. Fortunately, the circuit design of the Han card was not overly complex, and Li Xuan could manage it.

As for the negotiations with the Japanese, it would depend on whether Hu Junming could successfully persuade them. If he failed, all Li Xuan's efforts would be in vain. As for whether Hu Junming would deny him after securing the distribution rights for the Epson MX-80 printer, Li Xuan thought it was unlikely.

From his observations since joining the company, his boss, while shrewd in business, was not a petty person and was decisive and generous in his actions. This was why Li Xuan was willing to encourage him to go to Japan to negotiate the agency rights.

If, in the end, he was kicked out, Li Xuan could only accept his fate. After all, his own strength was not enough to qualify him to be a player, and he could only be a small chip in someone else's game.

As for applying for a patent, this was not a groundbreaking invention; he had merely made a small application based on someone else's product. The design of the entire Chinese Han card was largely based on the original Japanese Han card in the Epson printer, with the circuit interfaces designed according to the printer's interfaces. Without this printer, the Han card would have no value.

Moreover, to some extent, Li Xuan's Han card had the potential to be accused of copying others' technology. If someone really wanted to avoid his design, redesigning a Han card would not be difficult.

Therefore, he had never considered applying for a patent. After all, applying for a patent was not free; the fees were quite high. Even applying for a local patent would cost several hundred dollars, and applying for an international patent would require a specialized agency, costing at least a thousand dollars.