Chapter 1937 - Two Senators

Originally, the General Office planned to expand the Senator residential area, but with the Liangguang Strategy's launch, the Senate planned to relocate to Guangzhou. After seeing planning and design drawings and renderings of the "Guangzhou Senator Residential Area" drawn by the planning and construction department, the Senators' calls for changing houses were suddenly not so strident...

"Draw you a big pie and you quiet down!" Senator Xu complained again.

He asked someone to fetch him a meal from the industrial zone canteen, then opened the door to his office's inner room—his personal dormitory. It wasn't large, but comfortably furnished. It also possessed necessary washing facilities, making it very convenient for habitation. Here he could contemplate work problems with peace of mind. It could be considered a small harbor in his work and life.

On the desk sat his confidential document box, containing Planning Agency documents he'd requested to access—all reports on various computer equipment's storage capacity and status. Among them were both precise tables and regular reports.

Some reports were written by his partner Feng Nuo, others by Planning Agency Senators. From the wording and phrasing to the super-fine management style where every capacitor was accounted for, one could perceive how profoundly the Planning Agency valued these devices.

Senator Xu still remembered the time when various gods on the BBS offered their advice and suggestions. Some discussed electronic equipment aging and wear causes from multiple angles such as electromigration, power supply principles, and capacitor design; some gave relevant suggestions for extending service life from their own work experience perspectives; others considered how to effectively seal and store electronic products. Finally, the Planning Agency issued a document titled "Provisional Regulations on Maintenance, Care, and Life Extension of Precision Electronic Equipment in Dispersed Use."

This document regulated every aspect in meticulous detail, from hardware to software. The document's most significant measure: except for a few machines with special applications, the Windows series was completely discontinued for computer operating systems, switching to operating systems without complex background scheduling such as DOS or Linux. Some equipment requiring visual operations also tried switching to Linux systems with visual interfaces as much as possible.

The more he read the reports, the more pressure Xu Laowu, as main user and manager, felt. No wonder Feng Nuo was fussing about launching mechanical computers all day long. If they continued relying solely on reserves like this, one day the Senate's "refined digital management" would collapse.

No wonder Feng Nuo has been so active recently—his sense of crisis is stronger than mine, Xu Laowu thought to himself. Once this system collapses, Senator Feng will become a complete "idle Senator."

While reading the report, he took notes on key points, especially estimating how much equipment and materials could be applied for, how large a scale of data computing center should be configured.

Xu Yicheng estimated that demand for the Guangdong Data and Computing Center would differ from Lingao's. Besides substantial data management, Lingao also had numerous production and research projects requiring computing services. But Guangzhou was different: there was no modern industry to speak of, but the population and total economic volume were far larger than Hainan's. So the main demand should be in population management, economic statistics, and tax administration. The demand for storage, retrieval, and classification was far greater than for calculation.

If these applications were primary, the "mechanical computer" proposed by Feng Nuo could indeed replace part of the computer's functions.

He took notes and wrote outlines while reading the report. After a while, someone brought him dinner. Xu Laowu ate, then took a walk in the Computing Center's corridors and hall, which served as both after-meal exercise and a chance to supervise night shift work.

Then he began his report writing work. By the time the first draft was basically formed, it was already past two in the morning.

"Forget it, let's sleep for a while." Xu Laowu fell headlong onto the bed and immediately sank into dreamland.

It seemed like only a moment later that he woke. Looking up, the sky was already bright. Xu Yicheng got up and stretched. While washing up, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in!"

His administrative secretary entered. She reported, "Chief Feng is here to see you."

"Ask him to wait a moment..." Xu Laowu hurriedly wiped the water from his face with a towel. "Tell him to have breakfast together."

Breakfast was set in the conference room adjacent to the office. The breakfast was made by Xu Laowu's Living Secretary, Xu Shanshan. His other Living Secretary, Zahra, delivered it. Zahra had also made him "traditional Persian style" breakfasts, but Xu Laowu had a stubborn "Chinese stomach" and really couldn't enjoy snacks that abused spices and sugar without restraint. So cooking was completely delegated to Xu Shanshan.

The breakfast delivered by Xu Shanshan always came in large portions: a steamer basket of buns with various fillings plus rice porridge cooked in an earthen pot, delivered in a dedicated insulated box. The leftover porridge and buns were routinely "welfare" for the night shift inputters outside. The buns made by Xu Shanshan were a Computing Center "famous item," a hot commodity that was "gone if your hands are slow." The porridge cooked slowly with Senator-special rice over low heat also wasn't comparable to what the general canteen supplied.

The secretary set two sets of tableware on the table. Feng Nuo was already sitting there eating a bun—Xu Laowu didn't mind this. Seeing his complexion and dark circles, it seemed he hadn't slept all night again.

"Didn't sleep all night again? Get some good sleep later." Being a few years older, Xu Laowu naturally had to care about Feng Nuo. "Pushing too hard mainly hurts yourself in the end!"

"I'm not tired." Feng Nuo's eyes were dull. "I have to go to the printing factory for a card manufacturing work meeting in a while—this mechanical computer thing finally has the beginnings of success."

Xu Laowu was very concerned about this and asked, "I haven't read the documents recently. How is your project progressing?"

"It has entered the engineering prototype stage. The punch card machine has produced a finished product—it's just that the paper cards' quality is not good enough yet. This thing is easy on the blueprints, but once it enters manufacturing, all the problems emerge: materials, processing... it's a headache..." Although Feng Nuo said it was a headache, his appetite was very good, and he started eating his third bun.

"I remember this thing is said to be mechanical, but actually it still needs relays. Can you handle it?"

"I've consulted others and pondered it myself. It should be doable." Feng Nuo had repaired computers for many years and was considered half an "authority" in this regard. "Actually, including things like capacitors, even simple printed circuit boards—with our current capabilities, we can make them, it's just that the yield is not high and the quality is unstable."

"This instability could be fatal."

"That's right, but having something is better than nothing. Rough first, refined later." As Feng Nuo spoke, he extracted a document from his briefcase. "This is the specific data and design drawing of the first mass-produced computer in the plan. The shape and structure will be modified somewhat, but the data processing capability should be about the same."

Xu Laowu knew this document's purpose was for him to write his report. They'd been partners for many years, and though usually just a "working relationship" without much "private friendship," they both felt the other was "reliable." He accepted it without comment.

After eating Xu Laowu's free breakfast, Feng Nuo hurried to the paper mill. He held meetings with the Senator in charge of technology at the paper mill all morning. When he returned, he brought a bag of punch card samples of different sizes, thicknesses, and materials for him to test—actually, he didn't even have a finished machine on hand yet.

Returning home at noon, Feng Shan hadn't come back again. The stove was cold and the pot was clear, not even a boxed lunch was prepared. The room had been tidied up, but looking closely, the floor hadn't been swept, and the tables, chairs, and furniture hadn't been wiped for a long time, covered with a thin layer of dust. Feng Nuo felt somewhat lost: the "Hikaru Genji Plan" he'd painstakingly cultivated didn't seem as enticing as imagined.

Though he knew Feng Shan's study and work schedule was very tight, and he'd given maximum understanding and support, compared to other Senators' maids—especially the breakfast he ate at Xu Laowu's place this morning—Feng Shan could be said to be "too incompetent."

Going out to eat was naturally easy; whether it was the canteen or the Nanhai Coffee House, food was available. However, clearly having a maid but still living a single dog's life, Feng Nuo couldn't help but sulk.

"Forget it, better roll back to the Computing Center. At least there's someone to order around there!" Feng Nuo casually left a note for Feng Shan, telling her to come to the Computing Center immediately after returning home.

"Teacher Xiao Feng?"

Feng Shan stopped. She looked somewhat confusedly toward the voice's source. A teenager wearing an apprentice uniform was standing at the door of a room on one side of the Computing Center hall looking at her. The teenager was about 14 or 15 years old, of medium height, with medium-length hair, and a very ordinary appearance.

"I am Qian Yuzhi. I attended your class before, Teacher Xiao Feng."

Feng Shan still had no impression. She taught more than twenty classes weekly at the National School, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Vocational School, with varying depths and progress. Especially the Vocational School classes were large classes exceeding two hundred people; she simply couldn't remember all students' names. Moreover, she had many affairs to attend to. Besides continuing her own studies and substituting for Fangcaodi, she also had to care for Feng Nuo's daily life. So she merely substituted and didn't hold positions like homeroom teacher or counselor, thus she had no mind to remember students' faces.

Seeing that Feng Shan still didn't seem to remember, the teenager seemed somewhat embarrassed, and a trace of disappointment flashed in his eyes. He walked over and said, "I am Qian Yuzhi from the 6th term of the Class of 1634 at the Vocational School. I listened to your lectures several times before. I sat in the last row of the classroom by the window. I even asked questions several times after class, but maybe you don't have much of an impression..."

Feng Shan nodded blankly. Because she was beautiful, had a gentle personality, dressed more fashionably than ordinary naturalized substitute teachers and senior students at Fangcaodi, and was close in age to the Vocational School students, she was very popular among the students. Every time after class, apprentices asking questions would surround her in three or four circles, sometimes not leaving until the next class's bell rang. Therefore, asking questions really couldn't recall any valuable information for her. However, she still smiled and chatted with the teenager for a while before carrying the food box into the management area on the second floor.

(End of Chapter)