Chapter 6

"Hey, Mr. Shen, business is booming! Has the stuff I ordered arrived? I'm in a hurry to use it!" Li Xuan approached a shop called Shen's Electronics on Ya Liao Street.

This was a small shop specializing in various electronic components and instruments. The owner was a man in his early thirties with a square face and a serious demeanor, named Liu Heshen.

"Ah, it's Xiao Xuan!" Liu Heshen nodded at him, "The stuff has arrived, I'll get it for you right away!"

Liu Heshen bent down and took a plastic bag from a storage compartment under the counter: "Here, this is the Z80 processor you ordered, a box of ten. The rest are the instruments you need, the list is here, check it yourself!"

Li Xuan took the list from Mr. Shen and checked each item. These were tools for burning chips, including testers, editors, burners, connectors, and adapters, a whole assortment.

These items were hard to find. Li Xuan had circled around Hong Kong and Kowloon but couldn't find any place selling these electronic instruments. Eventually, with no other choice, he sought help from Liu Heshen, who agreed to help him purchase them from abroad after seeing his list.

Li Xuan had met Mr. Shen when he was upgrading the Apple II for his company. His original computer was the standard configuration of the first Apple II, with only 4KB of memory, while modern laptops have a standard memory of 4GB. There's a difference of a million times. You didn't misread, it's not a hundred times, but a million times.

Fortunately, Apple had reserved space for upgrades. To make his machine run faster, Li Xuan, as soon as he got paid, spent his own money to upgrade the memory to 32KB. He found the components at Liu Heshen's shop. At the time, he also bought a used Z80 conversion card for his computer on Liu Heshen's recommendation.

Anyone who has used an Apple computer knows that its operating system is always unique. The iOS that later competed with Android and the OSX that competed with Windows both originated from the first commercial computer produced by Apple, the Apple II. It could not be compatible with the CP/M operating system, which held almost 90% of the market at the time.

Most of the software on the market was developed for the CP/M system, but Apple's computers could not run CP/M. However, since Apple's computers sold very well, software developers were unwilling to give up this market and began to figure out how to port CP/M-based software to the Apple II.

Thus, someone designed a SoftCard for the Apple II, which is the Z80 card. This card, equipped with a Z80 processor, could take over the bus control, memory address transformation, and interface allocation of the Apple II, allowing it to run the CP/M operating system smoothly.

The designer of this Z80 card, Paul Allen, is no stranger to anyone. He is the owner of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and a super-rich man with assets exceeding $20 billion. He and Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, which profoundly influenced an era. Sometimes it feels like the world is so small; it turns out that Apple and Microsoft had connections so early on, perhaps this is what is meant by fate.

Returning to the main topic, Li Xuan's boss, He Junming, had called back. The negotiations with Epson were going very smoothly. An unexpected situation was that Epson's technicians were very impressed with the Han Card design Li Xuan had created and were interested in buying it to produce it themselves.

He Junming fully agreed with this. He was only concerned about the sales agency rights. Since the Japanese side was willing to directly produce printers with Chinese Han Cards for the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets, this was the best outcome for him. This would save him the additional costs of finding someone to produce the Han Cards and then installing them in the printers.

Li Xuan also didn't care who bought it; he wasn't planning to haggle. Epson could easily develop a suitable Chinese Han Card on their own. Li Xuan's design merely saved them some time.

He Junming said that Epson would send a technician to discuss the details with Li Xuan, and they hoped to see a physical Han Card. Li Xuan had already received a check for 5,000 yuan from his boss before he went to Japan to fund the R&D. The PCB (printed circuit board) factory in Kowloon's Kwun Tong Industrial Area that he had contacted had already produced the sample circuit boards he requested.

Li Xuan's next task was to solder the Z80 chip onto the circuit board, then burn the Chinese character library data into the chip, and finally install it in the printer for testing.

"Everything is correct, thank you, Mr. Shen!" Li Xuan verified everything and found it all matched.

"Without the change, it's 2,000 yuan in total. Thank you for your patronage!" When collecting the money, Mr. Shen's usually expressionless face finally showed a hint of a smile.

Li Xuan didn't haggle and took out his wallet, counting out twenty hundred-yuan bills and handing them to Mr. Shen. He then asked for a receipt, as he needed to report it to his boss.

Ya Liao Street is a small street in Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po, originally known for selling second-hand goods. Since the 1970s, it has gradually become a hub for electronic components in the entire city. The street is lined with shops selling second-hand electronics and old products. It is always bustling with Southeast Asian buyers and tourists looking for treasures.

Li Xuan walked through the crowded street, looking at the various slightly messy shop signs and promotional billboards. He suddenly thought of buying a cassette player for his younger sister, Li Ying. She had mentioned wanting one to listen to English tapes, but their frugal mother had refused without hesitation.

"Boss, do you have cassette players?" Li Xuan approached a sound and video store.

"Of course! What type do you want? I just got a batch of Japanese Sanyo dual-deck cassette players. They have good sound quality, many stations, and look elegant and grand in your home!" The boss pointed to a black dual-deck cassette player prominently displayed in the window and enthusiastically introduced it.

"Sorry, I didn't explain clearly. I don't want a large cassette player, but a single-deck tape player for my sister to learn English and listen to music." Li Xuan waved his hand.

"You're a good big brother. These are the ones you want. We have American, Japanese, and local brands. Choose whichever you like!"

"Which brand sells the best and is reliable?"

"Then this one, it's a Japanese Sanyo brand, very good quality. If it doesn't work within a year, as long as you didn't intentionally damage it, you can come back and I'll replace it!" The boss, seeing Li Xuan's genuine interest, immediately became more enthusiastic.

After some haggling, Li Xuan spent 200 Hong Kong dollars to buy the Sanyo cassette player. Men are decisive when shopping; once they decide, they pay and leave. If a girl were with him, they would inevitably visit several more shops to compare prices.

As Li Xuan was about to leave, he casually looked up and noticed a beautiful figure not far to the left. She had wavy long hair and was wearing a white dress. However, a man in a denim jacket was slowly approaching her, his hand stealthily reaching for the small bag on her shoulder.

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