256KB Cobbled Together by Sheer Force

In early June, the sun blazed fiercely. In sun-drenched California especially, being out under it was all the harder to bear.

Yet a long line still stretched outside GAMENOVA.

The tiny shop was packed so tightly that not a drop of water could have passed through. Had Lin Lixin not limited admissions for safety, it would have been even worse.

After two days of word of mouth building, "1942" had exploded in popularity.

Players throughout the arcade had discovered those two seemingly unremarkable machines that actually housed a new game.

With Lin Lixin having converted several more machines, the line was now moving a little faster.

Outside, the somewhat portly Gerald struggled to squeeze through the crowd, the fierce sunlight having darkened his naturally black skin several shades further.

No matter how often he insisted he was not cutting in line, it did no good. Just as a hotheaded young man looked ready to give him a beating, Lin Lixin finally squeezed out of the shop and rescued him.

"Mr. Lawson, it's too noisy here. Let's find somewhere we can talk."

Naturally, the current situation had left Lin Lixin sweating too.

The first batch of arcade machines had only officially rolled off the production line that week, and the initial sales contract with Meyer had only just been signed. This was their busiest time.

Poor Sam had not had a single idle day since they rented the arcade.

Fortunately, he was not making much less than Lin Lixin, so he was enjoying himself all the same.

Lin Lixin took Gerald Lawson back to the apartment, where they could finally talk in peace.

"Mr. Lin, nothing could be more convincing than your arcade. Fuck Atari!"

Gerald seemed to have long since emerged from his disappointment with life, and his expression had grown lighter.

He first spat out a curse at Atari as usual, then took several documents and an obviously hand-soldered prototype board from his briefcase.

"As requested, a 16-bit plus 8-bit dual-processor architecture, 512KB of dedicated memory and video memory, and the latest YM2151 audio chipset!"

Lin Lixin accepted the board in surprise, visibly moved.

Integrating that pile of cutting-edge hardware onto a single board involved far more than simply soldering everything together.

The sheer effort required to adjust and adapt every aspect was staggering.

Only an engineer like Gerald, who had once led the development of an entire home console, could have managed it.

Along with the board came a whole bag of EPROM 27256 chips, each boasting a capacity of 32KB and costing around fifty dollars apiece.

"Mr. Lawson, this..."

"Let's give it everything we've got. Call it the last adventure of my life." Gerald smiled with acceptance. "If even your work can't succeed, then perhaps video games and I were never meant to be."

After that day, Gerald had shut down VideoSoft, pooled all his remaining funds, and scraped together these things.

For him, this was the final all-or-nothing gamble of his life.

Lin Lixin nodded solemnly and pulled over a stool himself, inviting Gerald to sit.

He sat down at the desk.

Rather than immediately starting to write anything, he took eight 27256 EPROM chips from the chip box.

The 1987 arcade version of Contra took up a full 256KB. A single 32KB EPROM could never hold it.

Even bringing in Patriarch Shannon, who was about to ascend to membership in the America National Academy of Engineering, would have been useless.

But that did not mean he was out of options.

Lin Lixin fetched Sam's soldering iron and a heap of miscellaneous bits and pieces, then bent over the desk and got straight to work.

Gerald did not leave. Instead, he sat quietly to one side watching, his eyes growing increasingly astonished.

"You're planning to build an expansion card yourself?"

Watching Lin Lixin connect that pile of components with jumper wires until it resembled a spider demon's cave, he finally could not help speaking.

"Mr. Lin, you... haven't had formal training, have you?"

The technique was downright bizarre, like that of an old master who had never received any systematic education but had spent decades immersed in the trade.

The longer he watched, the more his hands itched. Unable to suppress his geek's restlessness any longer, he snatched the bits and pieces from Lin Lixin's hands.

Ten minutes later, a neat, beautiful board lay before Lin Lixin.

[Ding!]

[Inspired by watching a master at work, hardware technology +3]

[Skill acquired]:

[Jumper Wire Expert]: you can more easily keep jumper wires neat when soldering them

[Milestone completed]: produce a storage medium with a capacity exceeding 64KB

[Reward]: hardware technology +5

"Whew-Mr. Lawson, you really are a tremendous talent."

Lin Lixin wiped away his sweat and offered his heartfelt praise.

The storage chipset before him, with its capacity of a full 256KB, could be called a work of art.

It consisted of a control circuit and eight 32KB EPROM chips.

Its operating principle was ingenious: the CPU wrote a value from 0 to 7 to the control circuit, and the expansion card switched to a different chip according to that value.

In other words, at any given moment, only one 32KB chip could still be read.

Such ingenious tricks were truly astounding.

With this thing, the last barrier between him and "Contra" had been completely shattered.

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

On June 29, 1984, Lin Lixin finished all the initial development work, leaving only bug testing and some final optimization.

And that day, besides "Contra CONTRA," another work was being released.

A movie theater in Los Angeles.

Holding a bucket of popcorn, Sam gazed excitedly at the poster on the wall.

"Unbelievable! We actually get to attend the premiere of 'Conan the Destroyer'!"

He knew Lin Lixin had come for more than just a movie, but the rare experience still left him particularly excited.

Over the past month, arcade machine sales had climbed steadily, causing quite a stir throughout California.

For every machine sold, they received over a thousand dollars in profit from Meyer!

It was no exaggeration to say that "Tetris" and "1942" were now two hens furiously laying golden eggs!

They had filled Lin Lixin's coffers to overflowing, and Sam, the angel investor with the discerning eye to recognize a pearl, had made quite a fortune too.

That enormous influx of money had given them the capital to take another step forward, and a chance to approach people they could never otherwise have reached.

Entering the auditorium, Lin Lixin fixed his gaze on the burly figure in the very front row.

Corded muscles and bronze skin with a peculiar reddish cast lay hidden beneath that taut suit.

"The Governator looks so young..."

Lin Lixin could not help remarking.

Schwarzenegger was quietly discussing something with the person beside him. His face still had a youthful look, some distance from the image of the "Governator" in Lin Lixin's memory.