After learning about the Dragon Gate policy of the Jiangnan Group, Zuo Sicheng felt very excited, thinking he could try to leap the dragon gate.
After all, the headquarters of the Jiangnan Group was only two streets away from his home. It would be a waste of the advantage of proximity not to try such a large group nearby.
Perhaps his ancestors were even related to the Yellow Crane.
However, since he had decided to leap the dragon gate, Zuo Sicheng had to choose one of the six majors.
Physics and Chemistry were the first two subjects Zuo Sicheng discarded. It wasn't that these subjects were too difficult, but rather that to learn advanced concepts in these fields, experiments were necessary. Zuo Sicheng did not have the ability to obtain a large amount of experimental equipment.
Railway and Materials Engineering were even more out of the question, as these required even stricter research environments.
The only fields that could be mastered in a short period were programming and electronic technology.
But both had their difficulties. Programming required at least a computer. Electronic technology required some electronic devices for research.
Zuo Sicheng remembered seeing old books and newspapers about computers at home, which had been sold as waste paper by others.
So, Zuo Sicheng went home to find these books. After studying for a day, Zuo Sicheng had a bold idea: he could build a computer himself.
This might sound incredible, but it was actually feasible. Since this was a scrap yard, there were plenty of old electrical appliances, including several computers.
After diligently studying basic computer books, Zuo Sicheng directly began the work of handcrafting a computer. He disassembled all the old computers, tested the parts inside, looked for usable components, and then assembled them into a new computer.
This time, Zuo Sicheng was lucky. The parts from these old computers could complement each other to form one computer. The only problem was the lack of a monitor.
But that wasn't a big deal. Zuo Sicheng found a discarded 32-inch color television. This television was still functional, but there was a line in the middle of the screen that was black and could not display images.
However, as long as he could tolerate this black line, there would be no problem.
So, Zuo Sicheng modified the television's input port. He removed the universal interface from a discarded monitor with a broken screen and manually soldered it to the television's input terminal. Although this process was a bit troublesome, Zuo Sicheng succeeded.
After working for two days, Zuo Sicheng had his own computer that could boot up and display a screen. Zuo Sicheng even found some interesting videos on the computer's hard drive, likely left behind by the previous owner, who never dreamed his hard drive would be used again.
However, Zuo Sicheng soon discovered a new problem: he had no internet access to find programming learning resources.
But that was also not a problem. Zuo Sicheng's home had a phone line, and internet access at that time was done through phone lines, requiring only the installation of a modem.
Of course, Zuo Sicheng didn't have a modem, nor did he have a telecommunications account. But these could be sorted out with a phone call. At that time, telecommunications companies were promoting their services, offering a free modem with a year's subscription to broadband, and the internet fees would be deducted from the phone bill each month.
So, all it took was one phone call to the telecommunications company to get internet access, which was very simple. Zuo Sicheng did just that.
When the telecommunications installation engineer arrived and saw that this small scrap yard was getting broadband, he was very surprised and asked curiously. Zuo Sicheng replied calmly, "The future is the era of the internet. Even scrap collectors have to integrate into the internet! This is called Internet Plus!"
The installer didn't understand at all but was greatly impressed.
Thus, Zuo Sicheng had his own computer and internet, and could properly learn programming. However, Zuo Sicheng still faced another problem: in a month, he would have to pay the phone bill, or rather, his father would have to pay it, and it would surely be a astronomical figure, a hundred yuan or more.
At that time, Zuo Muli, upon learning the truth, would probably kill his son. But it didn't matter. Zuo Sicheng believed that if he could achieve success within a month, successfully pass the Dragon Gate Plan, and become an employee of the Jiangnan Group with a monthly income of over ten thousand yuan, his father would definitely not bother him about a few hundred yuan. Otherwise, he wouldn't hand over a single cent of his monthly salary!
Next, he had to learn programming within a month to the extent that he could pass the Dragon Gate Plan examination. This would definitely require the help of a teacher.
But Zuo Sicheng knew he had no money to hire professional teachers. So, Zuo Sicheng decided to look for some self-study tutorials online. He discovered an advertisement placed by "Lost Lamb g" on a computer programming forum, stating that he could learn programming for a month for 50 yuan. Zuo Sicheng found it to be a good deal, so he added his QQ number and chatted with him for an entire night. He successfully negotiated the fee down to 20 yuan, and then spent a month of hard self-study, not only learning basic programming knowledge but also having the potential to get the 20 yuan back if he could solve a simple problem.
Zuo Sicheng really didn't think this problem was difficult. On the contrary, he found it somewhat simple.
Although it required him to complete a chip architecture, it didn't require a complete architecture, but rather a conceptual design. That is, to design a simple architecture diagram, and theoretically prove its feasibility, which would be enough.
There was no need to actually complete a complex architecture with billions of semiconductors, as that was something an individual could not accomplish alone.
Providing a concept was simple enough. As long as he understood how the architecture should run, it would only take at most one day to draw a basic architecture diagram and write some explanatory text.
In his process engineering courses, such assignments were often given, requiring a week to complete, so this was not a difficult task.
The key was to have the concept for completing the architecture.
The semiconductor arrangement in the problem given by "Lost Lamb g" to Zuo Sicheng was actually very simple. Each semiconductor was connected to five other semiconductors, forming a completely identical connection structure without any variation. Therefore, this architecture was simple, and did not require complex ideas. You just needed to find a structure that allowed these semiconductors to perform normal chip calculations!
The sequence of 5+5+5+5... totaling billions of fives, required finding a solution. It seemed very vast and terrifying, with an extremely formidable computational load.
But if you could find a way to find the constant n, and then calculate 5xn, you would know the result in seconds. It was very simple.
Of course, the most difficult part was finding the constant n. But Zuo Sicheng didn't need to find it. He just needed to tell others that 5n was the result of this sequence, without needing to find the specific value of n. This would require hundreds of people for mechanical work. He only needed to present the formula, which was that simple.
Therefore, Zuo Sicheng felt that the other party was not deliberately making things difficult for him by giving him an extremely difficult problem. They were simply giving him a problem in a new field, which Zuo Sicheng found to be quite good.
Because he could get a basic textbook in process engineering for free and master process engineering capabilities, which should be of some help in passing the Dragon Gate Plan.
So, Zuo Sicheng began to seriously study the problem. Hmm, it seemed a bit difficult. The conventional method of forming an architecture using a closed loop of a semiconductor seemed quite difficult to implement in this system; the mutual interference was too great.
After thinking for a whole night, Zuo Sicheng felt a headache. Perhaps his illness had flared up, so he decided to go to sleep and deal with it the next day.
In his dream, Zuo Sicheng came to a dim street. He and some friends seemed to be carrying something very heavy and moving forward. A few days later, he faced a group beating, and someone specifically took the thing he was carrying to hit his head.
...
Waking up the next day, Zuo Sicheng felt refreshed. He couldn't remember anything that happened in his dream; everything was so relaxed and lovely. The sky was so pure blue, and at the door, five ducks were walking in a line, one after another, which was very interesting!
"That's it. If it's difficult to perform structural calculations as individual semiconductors, why not bind five semiconductors together to form a whole!"
"Moreover, in this special semiconductor architecture, the connection between five semiconductors is the closest. Four of their lines are connected to another five, and only one line connects to another group."
"And five such small groups can form a larger five-five group, and the large five-five groups can then be aggregated into even larger five-five groups. With such a layered structure, wouldn't it form an operational architecture controllable by electric current?"
"It's too simple. It seems that 'Lost Lamb g' is quite good to me and gave me a relatively simple problem. As long as one understands basic architectural knowledge and uses a little thought, it's done!"
"However, it seems that binary calculation cannot be used in this way... But it doesn't matter. This architecture perfectly suits a base-five calculation. We can just program in base-five. There must be base-five programs in this world, right?" Zuo Sicheng muttered and began to write the answer.