Silicon Valley Online BBS Goes Live

Nakayama Takuya tapped his fingers lightly on the log report, his face showing none of the tension Nohara had expected.

He raised his head, his gaze sweeping over everyone present, from the worried Nohara leader to Harry, whose expression was equally grave, before finally settling on Tom Kalinske.

"Nohara- san, this isn't a problem," Nakayama Takuya said calmly. "This is the first round of feedback the market has given us."

"Five thousand downloads are just the Yamaichi. These are the most curious and proactive pioneers." Nakayama Takuya stood up, walked to the whiteboard, picked up a pen, and said, "When the BBS officially launched, their discussions and even arguments began on the BBS, and the first entrepreneur posted in the 'Startups & VC' section seeking funding—do you think the number of users will decrease?"

He didn't turn around, but the question, like a pebble, landed precisely in the hearts of every technician present.

Won't.

It will only snowball, getting more and more numerous!

"What we're seeing now isn't the peak, it's just the beginning of the internet revolution." Nakayama Takuya turned around and tapped the report in Nohara's hand with his pen. "Based on this download volume, double it."

"Double it?!" Team Leader Nohara exclaimed, this wasn't just audacious, it was utterly insane! "Executive Director, the servers we need... the supplier might not have them in stock, bandwidth expansion can't be done overnight, and the cost—"

I'll take care of the money.

Tom Kalinske, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up. He stood up from the sofa, patted Nakayama Takuya on the shoulder, and then picked up his phone and dialed a number.

Everyone in the office stared at him as he spoke into the microphone in his signature booming voice, "Hello? Larry? It's me, Tom! — Yes, Tom from Sega! Listen, I don't care what you're doing right now, get me a batch of those servers we ordered last time! Yes, same quantity and specifications, right now! Deliver them to this address in Silicon Valley — What? Out of stock?"

I don't care what methods you use, whether you steal it from other clients' orders or take it from your own studio, I need to see it before dawn! --Express fee? No problem."

With a "bang," Tom - Kalinske slammed down the phone and turned around to find himself surrounded by a room full of dumbfounded Japan and equally shocked United States employees.

He grinned, revealing a set of white teeth. "Done! The CEO of Sun Microsystems is a golf buddy of mine, and he said it's no problem."

After saying that, he picked up the phone again and dialed a second number.

"John! It's me, Tom. We've doubled the bandwidth we requested from PSInet last time---"

Team Leader Nohara opened his mouth, feeling as if his worldview had been slightly shaken.

Nakayama Takuya wasn't surprised at all. He smiled and said to the petrified Nohara team leader, "Now, hardware and bandwidth are no longer a problem. Nohara- san, Harry, your task is to get all these new devices up and running before dawn. Can you do it?"

"Yes, sir! Mission accomplished!"

Nohara and Harry shouted in unison, their previous worries vanishing, replaced by an unprecedented excitement.

For the next dozen or so hours, the entire "Silicon Valley Online" office transformed into a high-speed, operational war fortress.

One truck after another roared in late at night, and boxes bearing the "Sun" logo were carried into the server room in a continuous stream. When the clock struck five in the morning, and the first rays of dawn shone through the glass curtain wall into the brightly lit server room, Team Leader Nohara pressed the last Enter key.

On the monitoring screen, rows of green "OK" status indicator lights lit up, indicating that the newly added server cluster had been smoothly integrated into the network, and the bandwidth provided by PSLnet had also been tested, confirming that the expansion was complete.

Nohara let out a long breath, leaning against the cold server rack. He felt completely drained, but his heart was filled with a tremendous sense of satisfaction.

Silicon Valley Online BBS completed its final preparations before dawn.

It was 10:00 AM on the first Monday of May.

Nakayama Takuya's fingertip hovered over the Enter key for a moment before gently pressing it.

"Online."

As he uttered those two simple words, Harry immediately gestured to several of his local engineers.

"Guys, it's time to ignite the war."

The young people smiled knowingly, immediately logged into their pre-prepared personal accounts, and skillfully published the articles they had prepared in the "Computer Science" section.

<ViorEmacs? ENDTHEWAR>

<OSWAR: UNIXvsVMSvsWINDOWS. Whoisthebest?>

The post was extremely provocative, filled with the arrogance and prejudice typical of tech geeks. Not content with just posting it, they immediately added their own comments using other accounts.

"That's why I came here. Emacs is godlike, no arguments allowed!"

"Sir! Users are flooding in!"

Roy, who was in charge of monitoring the backend, trembled slightly with excitement.

On the big screen, the numbers representing online users jumped wildly upwards like a runaway Mustang.

One hundred. - Five hundred. - One thousand!

In just a few minutes, the number of participants exceeded one thousand!

The number of replies to those two provocative posts was increasing at a visible rate.

Once the fuse is lit, the effect is immediate.

"Which idiot posted this? Vi is the best editor in the world—simple and efficient. Do you Emacs users even know anything about philosophy?"

"The caveman upstairs, still coding with the command line? My Emacs can even brew coffee! Oh, I forgot, you Vi users probably don't even know what coffee is."

"Long live UNIX! What garbage is VMS? As for Windows? That thing can't even be called an operating system? Don't insult my eyes!"

Team leader Nohara and a group of Japan engineers stared dumbfounded at the English comments on the screen, a mixture of technical jargon and personal attacks, and for a moment they even began to question the meaning of life.

Was the platform they painstakingly built just for these United States elites to argue about?

But they soon discovered that they simply didn't have time to think about these things.

Because the users' enthusiasm goes far beyond just arguing.

In order to save precious bandwidth, BBS forums of that era could not refresh content in real time.

Users need to manually click "Update" to download new posts and replies as incremental packages to their local clients for viewing, but this has not dampened their enthusiasm in the slightest.

The small notification icon in the upper right corner, indicating "new reply," seems to possess a magical power, stimulating every user to keep clicking the update button and then enthusiastically replying to every new message they receive.

The feeling was strange, like the anxiety of waiting for a carrier pigeon in ancient times, mixed with the thrill of instant feedback in the digital age. An hour later, Roy practically rushed to Nakayama Takuya with a freshly printed report in hand.

"Executive! One hour!" His voice trembled slightly. "Registered users have surpassed six thousand! Posts have exceeded one hundred! Our servers... our servers are undergoing a true test!"

Tom Kalinske slammed his hand on the conference table with a loud "bang," followed by his signature loud laugh.

"Ha! Larry's server snatching wasn't for nothing! John's bandwidth upgrade wasn't for nothing! Thank God! Your hunch was right, Takuya!"

He walked up to Nakayama Takuya and patted him hard on the shoulder.

Nakayama Takuya simply smiled, his gaze remaining fixed on the large screen.

"Tom, don't rush, the best is yet to come. Let's go get some lunch first."

Lunch consisted of pizza and Coke ordered from elsewhere. Tom Kalinske insisted that this was Silicon Valley's "battle meal," giving a group of Japan engineers, who were used to bento boxes, a taste of authentic American efficiency.

After everyone finished eating, they returned to the large screen, where the BBS's various data continued to steadily climb.

The Computer Science section remains incredibly popular, almost like a marketplace, filled with technical jargon and abbreviations mixed with slang and personal attacks, refreshing at a dizzying speed.

"Ignore the arguments for now." Nakayama Takuya, holding a cup of coffee, calmly pointed to another section on the screen. "Take a look at the 'Industry' section; that's where things start to get interesting."

After his reminder, everyone's attention immediately shifted to that direction.

Unlike the chaotic state of the Computer Science section, the posts here, though few in number, are all polite and packed with valuable information.

A post titled "[Seeking performance optimization advice for SPARC architecture]" was posted by an engineer from Sun Microsystems who described in detail a technical bottleneck he had encountered.

A reply came quickly.

"You could try adjusting the overflow handling of the register window; I did a similar project at Berkeley before."

"I work with the MIPS architecture, but the underlying principles are the same. Your problem might be with pipeline instruction scheduling. Shall we talk privately?"

Team Leader Nohara's eyes widened in astonishment. He clicked on the commenter's profile and saw that their signature read, "PhD student in Computer Science at Stanford University."

This is no longer a simple exchange; it's an online technical seminar between top minds!

"My God—" Harry exclaimed as he scrolled through another post, "Someone here is discussing next-generation network routing protocols and has even posted their lab's sign, openly recruiting researchers."

Tom Kalinske leaned over for a look, then patted Takuya on the shoulder and laughed, "Takuya! This is practically a Silicon Valley elite club! We've brought together the brightest minds in all of United States!"

"So, arguing is just the appetizer," Nakayama Takuya chuckled. "When these highly intelligent, high-net-worth individuals gather together, business opportunities will naturally be spotted by those with a keen sense of smell. We merely provide the plaza; they will build the stage themselves."

As soon as he finished speaking, Harry, who had been staring intently at the screen, suddenly stood up as if he had been Dengeki, pointed at a corner of the screen, and his voice changed.

"Look! Someone posted in the Startups & VC forum!"

Everyone's heart skipped a beat, and their eyes were instantly drawn to it.

The first new post finally appeared in the forum that had been empty since morning and was even considered a pipe dream by some.

Every letter in the title seems to be sparkling.

[Seeking Seed Funding: "TaWiz"—A Revolutionary Personal Tax Calculator, Changing the Way Every United States Family Files Taxes!]

The entire office fell silent instantly, with only the hum of the server fans remaining.

The post contained an extremely concise yet incredibly professional investment proposal, covering everything from market pain points (tax season that plagues the United States middle class every April and exorbitant tax advisor fees), solutions (a user-friendly, graphical tax calculation software), technical architecture, to an introduction of the founding team (two recent Stanford graduates).

Group Leader Nohara glanced at the posting time subconsciously.

4:09.

What shocked him even more was that several replies appeared under this post within just a few minutes.

"The concept is very interesting. Could you elaborate on your algorithm model?"

"I am an employee of Sequoia Capital. I have sent you a private message. Please check your email."

"Are you in the Bay Area? Are you free to meet up tomorrow? I'm from KPCB."

Sequoia Capital... KPCB-..."

Harry murmured the two names, his voice so soft it was as if he were afraid of disturbing something.

He rubbed his eyes, leaned even closer, almost pressing his face against the screen.

The next second, he sprang up from the chair with such force that the chair slid backward a considerable distance with a loud bang.

He slammed into the wall with a loud thud. "Oh my God!!"

A scream pierced the office.

That scream was like a signal; the entire office instantly erupted in chaos!

"What? Sequoia Capital? Is it that Sequoia Capital?!"

"And KPCB! They replied! They really replied!"

"My God, it's only been a few minutes since it was posted?!"

A group of United States engineers in T-shirts and jeans rushed toward the screen like madmen, their faces filled with fervor and disbelief.

This is a hundred times more intense than seeing "Vi vs. Emacs," because what's jumping on the screen isn't the spittle of tech geeks, but rather the symbol of real money!

Team leader Nohara and the group of Japan engineers were taken aback by this sudden fervor. Although they were excited, they couldn't fully grasp the terrifying weight behind those two abbreviations for the time being.

Nohara subconsciously glanced at Nakayama Takuya, his lips moving slightly. "Executive Director, this Sequoia Capital— "

Nakayama Takuya didn't even turn around to look at him; his gaze remained fixed on the screen, a faint smile playing on his lips. He simply replied in a calm voice, "Nohara- san, it's the Sequoia Capital you're thinking of."

One sentence, like a depth charge, exploded in the hearts of all the Japan employees.

Team Leader Nohara felt his throat go dry. He stared blankly at the few simple English letters on the screen, then glanced at his United States colleagues who looked like they were going crazy.

"Hahaha! Well done!!"

Tom Kalinske's signature loud laugh finally rang out, and he slapped Nakayama Takuya hard on the back, so hard that the latter took a step forward and knelt down.

"Takuya! You bastard! You actually did it! You brought the shark into the fishpond!" Tom's face was flushed with excitement. He pointed at the screen, then at Nakayama Takuya, "I thought the 'Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital' section was just a beautiful vision, that it would take at least a few months to make a splash! And what happened? Day one! Just day one!"

He turned and yelled at everyone in the office, "Did you all see that?! This is Silicon Valley speed! This is our..."

Silicon Valley Online!

Cheers erupted again, and this time even the Japan team was completely caught up in the excitement, clapping enthusiastically.