Chapter 823: The Russians demanded a sky-high price, Gao Zhendong paid it back on the spot

Since computers are needed, the Russian vacuum tube computers, which are expensive, bulky, have a high failure rate, high operation and maintenance costs, and have extremely poor deployment capabilities, are naturally not the best choice.

At this time, the DJS-60D, which is small and exquisite, has basically sufficient computing power, and has an affordable purchase price and operation and maintenance costs, came into their eyes. You Russians want DJS-61 and C6108, that’s your business. We are more pragmatic and just want something that is good enough.

Any equipment has production capacity issues. It is not decades later and production capacity cannot be exploded at any time. They all understand that a bird in the hand is worth a thousand in the bush.

In addition to these, computer peripherals are also of great interest to them.

In addition to tape drives, printers, modems and other devices that have gradually become “traditional” peripherals, a brand new peripheral has aroused their great interest.

That is the replacement of magnetic storage, the gravedigger of tape drives in the mobile storage track, the most common and popular mobile storage device in the past 30 years, the disk drive that appeared frequently in future science fiction films and TV shows, and the disk.

The capacity of 135kByte, the size of a 15cm disc, and the extremely compact disk drive that is not much different from a cassette tape player, will make anyone who knows a little about computers understand what this means.

A magnetic core memory of this capacity would need to be stored in a cabinet. Not to mention the high price, the deployment cost alone is already very unaffordable.

Of course, Westerners now have another choice, that is the hard disk developed by Big Blue, which is used to match mainframes. And at this time, the hard disk is actually a mobile storage device because its hard disk platter can be replaced.

As for the size and price… guess why this thing is specifically designed to be used with mainframes?
Using size to describe it may be a little distorted, so using another very common thing in life as an example may be very vivid – the hard drive of this era, even the latest one, has a drive that is about the same size as a washing machine!
“This 15cm disk can store 135kB of data? Oh my God, am I dreaming?” Gao Zhendong’s original plan was 90kB, but the workers and masters of the third factory felt that this density was too low and too wasteful during the research process, so they increased the 20 tracks that Gao Zhendong had expected to 30, and the storage capacity increased from 90kB to 135kB.

“Did you notice that these platters are very cheap?”

“This drive makes Citigroup’s Big Blue hard drives look like shit!”

The first hard drive of Big Blue was the 1956RAMAC released in 350. It was a non-removable storage device consisting of 50 24-inch disks with a capacity of 5MByte, which is approximately the capacity of 40 floppy disks. It was priced at 35000 Citibank coins, and these were Citibank coins before the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. One Citibank coin could be exchanged for 1 grams of gold.

“The capacity of a 350-inch disk on Citibank’s 24 RAMAC is not as large as that of a 5-inch disk.”

“It’s not surprising. The 350 was produced in 1956. Compared with it, it seems as old as last century.”

“Big Blue’s latest product, the 1311, has six platters to store 2.6M of data, which is a bit higher than the density of this floppy disk.”

“You are wrong my friend. 1311 is a 14-inch disk. It can only be said that the storage capacity of a single disk is higher than that of this floppy disk drive, but the density is not, because the area of ​​a 1311 disk is about 8 times the area of ​​this floppy disk. Six 6-inch disks are theoretically equivalent to more than 14 of these 45-inch disks.”

“It is hard to imagine how the Orientals achieved such high-density storage.”

“I don’t care how the Orientals achieved it, I only care whether I can buy it. Random storage, high-density capacity, easy to carry, and cheap, my friend, there is no product more suitable for use on ordinary small computers than this one. Even the Blue Giant hard disk used in mainframes does not have much advantage over it. If there is an advantage, it is that the capacity that can be accessed at the same time is larger and the speed may be a little faster than it. But for general applications, these advantages are meaningless. After all, everything seems less important in front of its price.”

There are no junk products, only junk prices. Moreover, products like floppy disk drives are not junk, but rather the embodiment of the current highest technology.

On this matter, unlike the Russians and the economic assistance countries, the Gauls on the side have more ideas.

On the evening of the first day of the exhibition, at the “Foreign Trade Exhibition Immediate Coordination Meeting” led by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and jointly participated by multiple ministries and commissions, the first day of the exhibition was being summarized and reported, as well as some issues that needed to be addressed and discussed.

This was the first time we held such an exhibition, and we were all unsure, but we had to do our best to deal with it, so this real-time coordination meeting came into being. We were not afraid of problems, we quickly coordinated and solved them. In order to give the participants enough decision-making power and avoid delaying work by asking for instructions, the participants were all of high level.

There is no doubt that Gao Zhendong was also present at the meeting for such an important matter.

The person who was speaking at this time to report the situation was a comrade from the Ministry of Foreign Trade: “From the first day’s situation, the situation is very encouraging. All exhibition areas have received a large number of intention inquiries. For some products, the production capacity quota planned for export has been snapped up.”

Most of these things are also used domestically, so the export quota is limited. Now it seems that the quota for some products is not enough. “To be honest, even window decorations and New Year paintings can be sold. This is something we never expected. In this regard, I am very grateful to Comrade Zhendong for his advice.” The leader of the Foreign Trade Department smiled very happily.

The people from the 11th Ministry of Machinery were puzzled when they looked at the intended orders on hand: “Alas, looking at the current situation, single-cylinder diesel engines may not be enough. There are too many. We can’t handle it. We can’t handle it at all.”

“Don’t worry, we will still focus on domestic construction. We will sell as much as the quota you allocate to us. Of course, if you can squeeze out a little more production capacity, that’s not impossible.” The leader of the Ministry of Foreign Trade laughed.

“We will go back and think about it. We can still squeeze in some capacity. You can start by increasing the existing quota by 30% to start the work.” The normal production capacity will definitely not reach the actual capacity limit. In this regard, the th Ministry of Machine Building can still think of a solution.

A comrade from the foreign affairs department held up a few pieces of paper and said, “Comrades, our big brother in the north is angry. Hahahaha. Today they are protesting our discriminatory sales and strongly demanding the latest C6108 and C6110 chips. They even demanded that no matter how much our production capacity is, they demand a 40% share.”

The chief engineer of the Defense Work Committee laughed: “Oh, they are quite generous. They know to split the profits 40% and 60% so they can keep the biggest share for us, right?” This kind of request is outrageous. It’s like buying something and becoming a shareholder.

The comrades in the foreign affairs department also knew that this matter was outrageous, but they had to do their work, and they had a lot of things to consider.

“But isn’t it inappropriate to be stingy? After all, we are all family.” To be honest, although Suizong is abstract, he is far inferior to the later Xunzong. Compared with the latter’s extreme bureaucracy, the former can be regarded as more or less idealistic.

The Defense Work Committee also knew about this situation. No matter how big the internal conflicts were, they were all on the same front: “For products like DJS-61, C6108, and C6110, we can only consider selling them on a case-by-case basis.”

It’s not that we won’t buy, but we won’t release it. You have to tell us roughly what you want to do, and we will sell it if we think it’s necessary. This matter is not even something that the established export license approval agency can decide. The decision-making power lies at a deeper, higher and more professional level.

“Discuss each case separately? Isn’t that a bit harsh?” said a comrade from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Ministry of Foreign Trade did not comment on this issue at all. This thing is too high-level, not a common product, and somewhat beyond their scope of work.

At this point, the Defense Work Committee turned to Gao Zhendong and asked, “Comrade Zhendong, what do you think?”

The Defense Working Committee first opened the door for sale before asking Gao Zhendong for his opinion. In this way, the core responsibility of whether to sell or not was not on Gao Zhendong, and the Defense Working Committee would also protect people.

Gao Zhendong did have some ideas: “I agree with the Defense Work Committee’s opinion of discussing each case individually. As for the grievances of comrades in the north, it is actually very easy to solve. Just give them a more popular alternative.”

“A more popular alternative?” Other leading comrades did not quite understand.

Gao Zhendong said: “As for the single-chip microcomputer, we will sell it to them. This chip has a high degree of integration, but it can meet most of their application requirements. At the same time, the performance is low enough to meet our technical output control requirements. It is a win-win situation. At the same time, we can solve their necessary problems in high-end applications on a case-by-case basis. The combination of the two parties should be about the same.”

We can’t just think about strangling others. Objectively speaking, at this stage, there are more ways for others to strangle us. We still have to have mutual benefit, otherwise no one will play with you.

Gao Zhendong could guess why the Russians wanted C6108, so he gave them this youth version as a replacement.

After all, the Russians are at the forefront of Europe, so we should give them a hand if we can. Microcontrollers are perfect components that can enhance their capabilities at the tactical and general application levels but do not solve their problems at the root.

The leaders of the National Defense Work Committee quickly understood Gao Zhendong’s idea and couldn’t help but applaud: “Okay, this is a good suggestion. It can take into account the ideas and demands of all parties, and it won’t cause us much trouble.”

The comrades in the foreign affairs department also understood: “Well, this is a good suggestion. They are asking for an exorbitant price, and we will pay them back on the spot.”

The Foreign Trade Department was also delighted: “Then it’s settled. You just need to give us the guidelines. How to sell it at a good price is the next task for us and the Foreign Affairs Department.”

(End of this chapter)