America 1982-Chapter 607 - 135: Facing the Future_2

He even foresaw that with the development of computer hardware and software and the internet, many terrible movies would have the opportunity to reinvent themselves. Certainly, fans with a strong professional interest would take those unwatchable films and adjust them with software, performing them anew and putting them online for comparison and appreciation. People would witness how trash could turn into gold and fans could outshine directors.

"What kind of product do you hope to advertise in your ad, Tommy? Your pure soul?" Professor Winton asked with a smile, looking up from the magazine.

Tommy sat opposite, spreading his hands out: "The AmigaOS that Jason has been pressing me for two years."

Professor Winton recalled for a moment before he realized that this thing was a graphic operating system software that Tommy’s gang had picked up before.

Back in 1982, when nearly all computers still operated with text commands, five programmers from Atari Games Corporation, dissatisfied with Atari, broke away to establish the Amiga Corporation, aiming to independently develop a brand-new game console.

Amiga means "female friend" in Spanish. Aside from wanting to distinguish their work from the overused terms in the computer industry, the name also reflected how the five gaming nerds valued their entrepreneurial venture, cherishing their creation like a girlfriend.

The company’s initial startup capital came from a Florida dentist who enjoyed playing Atari games. When the guys were still with Atari, this dentist was frequently in touch with them, discussing game plots, or promptly informing them after discovering game bugs. When he learned that these guys had set out on their own, the dentist and two of his dentist friends contributed a hundred thousand to support Amiga Corporation in developing a more entertaining game console.

With a hundred thousand in capital, the ambitious Amiga Corporation coincidentally arrived at Stanford at the same time as Tommy, driving an old beat-up car as a new student at Stanford University. They both came to Stanford, with Tommy studying at the university and the Amiga team starting their business in the Stanford Industrial Park, also known as Silicon Valley.

A year later, Tommy reached the first peak of his life with OSS and his autobiography. In contrast, the Amiga entrepreneurial team experienced the exact opposite, facing America’s video game market crash in 1983.

The crash was mainly due to a number of large companies making money, which led to a disorderly influx of small game console developers into the home game market. Players lost interest in paying for new games and game consoles due to a glut of poorly produced games. In the first half of 1983, the total sales of games in the US was 3.3 billion US dollars, which plummeted to less than 300 million in the second half, causing dozens of small console manufacturers and low-end home computer factories, who came to make a quick buck, to go bankrupt. Nearly two thousand arcades also closed down.

The five nerds of Amiga Corporation originally wanted to create their dream game console, but their business got hit on the head right after they started. A hundred thousand were by no means enough to last until the prototype was completed. They intended to seek new investors from the capital market with some development progress, but with the video game industry facing a crash, investors holding money walked away immediately upon hearing the words "game development company," not even bothering to take a business card.

As for the initial three dentists from Florida, they were choked by this dream-driven investment. To prevent being called by the guys for additional funding, they even changed their phone numbers.

To find new investors, Jay Miner, the leader of the five and founder of Amiga Corporation, had a stroke of genius. The gaming industry had crashed, but the computer software industry was booming. Why not simply claim to be insiders of the computer industry instead of the gaming industry?

After digging through the material they had previously spent money on, they found that only the Amiga-DOS disk operating system was somewhat related to computer software. This system was originally developed for game console users, with a thoughtful addition of a graphics library and a graphical user interface. The purpose was to allow users to understand how to get started with the game console through icons on the screen upon turning it on, reducing the time spent reading the manual for various commands.

So they revamped it and claimed it was a new generation of graphical computer operating system, embarking on a quest to find potential investors. Their first target was that year’s hotshot at Stanford University, Tommy Hawk, who became a millionaire just by selling his autobiography.

Jay Miner’s initial thoughts were simple. Tommy Hawk, a freshman who developed the OSS document processing software, was also a nerd who started from his freshman years. He understood what these computer genius students were like. They surely loved playing games, had crushes on beautiful girls, and should have a lot in common with their five nerds. Moreover, such a person who had suddenly become wealthy wouldn’t hesitate to spend money and could be prone to impulse purchases. Considering they were both geniuses among the nerdy population, he figured he could swindle a few tens of thousands out of Tommy’s pocket.

With this prejudgment and stereotype, he also deliberately sought the help of his SSD friends from his alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley, to set up a meeting, thus arranging to meet Tommy and Jason from Stanford University.

But when they showcased the Amiga operating system, Jason accused the five nerds of conning money, saying this thing was nothing but a game console interface with a DOS and a graphic shell. There were even game joystick icons that hadn’t been properly deleted. Which computer operating system would prioritize adding support for game joysticks without considering optimization first?