Chapter 138 SAM Trio

Matthew is the most eloquent and knowledgeable among them. On the phone, he said that he was an ashes user of Texas Instruments, and even his father was an old Texas user. He said bluntly that he was attending a Latin school and that he was currently working on an electronic project on calculators. A few days ago, he finally decided to identify the TI-82 calculator as one of the main subjects of his project...

The other party did not doubt Matthew's words at all. He appreciated Matthew's behavior and was also very happy that Matthew liked their company's calculators so much. I not only mailed him the specific schematic diagram, but also gave him some spare parts. In the end, I wish Matthew a smooth project.

"Don't be surprised, many hardware hackers obtained the technical information of device manufacturers in this way. For example, when Apple first started its business, it also obtained the first batch of zero devices in this way." In the face of Lin Hong's surprise, Matthew felt that this was very normal. In his opinion, as long as he called and the request was not too ridiculous, the other party would generally respond happily for an hour later. Vina and Orlando had gone home, but Arthur and Matthew both stayed in the room and did not come out, even dinner. He didn't come out to eat. When Vina asked, Lin Hong had to say unnaturally according to Arthur that they were completing the homework assigned by a teacher. Since tomorrow was the deadline, he was working overtime to finish it.

Matthew had called his family before and told his parents that he might stay at Arthur's house tonight.

When Vina wanted to bring dinner in, she was rejected by Arthur in the room, saying that it would be enough to let Lin Hong do it for her.

In this regard, Vina actually agreed. Although she had some doubts in her heart. But in the end, he was not forced to enter the room.

From these details of life, Lin Hong saw Vina's respect for Arthur, and there seemed to be a completely equal relationship between them. Here, parents respect their children's decisions very much, and rarely force their children to do something against their will. It seems rare to see such a situation in China.

On the other hand, if children want to get money or gifts from their parents, they generally have to pay a certain amount of labor as a price. Otherwise, if you want money, you have to "borrow". Since it is borrowed, you naturally need to return it in the future. Just like Arthur borrowed money from his parents to buy an Apple computer, when he wants to spend money, he will remember from time to time that he still has a debt to pay. If according to Chinese customs, parents give their son money to buy things, which seems to be a matter of course. Isn't it too much to care about it?

Because both Arthur and Matthew have a strong interest in Lin Hong's calculator cracking plan. In the room, the two immediately began to start with the things mentioned by the experimenter Lin Hong before, such as entering those instructions to make the calculator crash instantly, or all kinds of bugs.

Many of these bugs have been encountered in the process of use. However, they usually don't care about this kind of thing at all. Anyway, it's good after the calculator is restarted, which does not affect their normal use.

They have never thought about it. It turns out that these bugs can be used to crack the firmware of the calculator. It's not that they don't expect it, but that calculators are too common and low-end in their lives. It's not cool enough, so no one wants to do anything on it. They play relatively high-end things, so that everyone will think they are more awesome.

But now when I think about it, if they really crack this calculator successfully and make it a device comparable to a low-configuration computer, it is a very awesome one in itself. It's very cool, isn't it?

Considering that almost all students have such a similar calculator, Matthew specially used Arthur's account to publish a post called "Texas Instruments TI Series Calculator BUG Collection" on a technical BBS called "Tullip". At the beginning, the post was released. Several obvious bugs are used to throw bricks to attract jade, and then guide everyone to reply and write down the various bugs you have encountered in the process of use.

This post immediately became the most popular post of the day in BBS in a short time. Many BBS users actively participated in it, because they had more or less had such an experience in the process of using the calculator.

Moreover, these users themselves are some people who know technology very well. They were inspired after seeing this post, so they picked up the calculators in their hands to test and dig...

In just half an hour, the number of replies to this post has exceeded 100, and each reply is basically something to say. It puts forward at least one calculator firmware bug, all kinds of crashes, all kinds of flower screens, all kinds of overflows...

After reading this post, for the first time, I found that the calculator they had been using hid so many unknown bugs. This is simply too fucking. As a technical house in pursuit of perfection, they really can't tolerate such a situation, and some people even began to resist the use of Texas Yi. This is a series of calculators.

Later, some people have begun to analyze the reasons why some of the bugs exist. They specially posted additional posts to discuss. Some speculated that this was the reason for software design, and some said that it was due to defects in hardware design. It seemed that no one could convince anyone, so they began to look for their own support. Hold your own argument.

Someone directly gives a piece of code. After running this code, its performance is exactly the same as that in the calculator. Some people directly draw the circuit diagram of the calculator, and then prove that some data processing cannot be completed according to the hardware principle according to this hand drawing...

......

Lin Hong and the three of them squatted in front of the computer to refresh the post, and they were very excited. They didn't expect that this question would resonate so much. The discussion posts about calculators have occupied almost the entire page on the Tulip BBS, and there are more and more trends.

Matthew's post seemed to be a fuse, which directly detonated an arsenal with a bang.

Lin Hong held a pen and paper in his hand and quickly recorded some information that he thought was more important.

Sure enough, everyone's wisdom is still strong. He tested all night yesterday and found that only a small part of it was, while Matthew only posted here, but collected so much useful information, which is of great significance to his cracking work. At the same time, it is also very enlightening, which makes him think of many ways to crack it. Of course, everything needs to be tested whether it is useful or not.

"STONE, are you really sure that you can crack the calculator?" Matthew confirmed again.

"In theory, this is completely possible." Before Lin Hong could answer, Arthur said first.

Lin Hong nodded: "Arthur is right, but he has to try. You can only know if you have tried it yourself, can't you?"

"Wow, I can't wait to see this day come quickly!" Matthew helped the cracked glasses, "I dare to be 100% sure that once we successfully crack this calculator, we will become the most dazzling star in the school!"

Lin Hong and Arthur have no doubt about Matthew's assertion, which can be seen from the reaction of these people on BBS. Moreover, having a "computer" as small as a calculator was something I couldn't imagine before. You know, there seems to be no such product on the market at present.

Of course, there is still some gap between this "computer" and the real computer, which is caused by hardware limitations, but at least most of the content of the computer can be completed.

Next, the three of them discussed it together and found that once it was cracked, the charm of this product for everyone was two points.

The first point is that you can program it as you like, instead of limiting it to a few functions specified by Texas Instruments as before.

Arthur is looking forward to it. In his words, he even hopes that this calculator can be connected to the Internet to achieve intrusion. Of course, networking is not realistic at all, because the hardware of the calculator has completely limited it. On the contrary, the infrared data exchange function it has is a little interesting. Theoretically, it can realize an online network in a sense.

The second point is the most critical point, that is, you can run the game in it! This is what Matthew is most looking forward to.

This calculator has an LCD screen with a size of 96x64 pixels, which can display some relatively simple graphics.

Matthew hopes to be able to port some games from handheld game consoles or computers.

Of course, it is more ideal for him to design a few games himself, then write them out, and then implant them into the calculator...

At the thought of the scene after the crack, Matthew and Arthur are full of hope for the future.

At the same time, Matthew and Arthur have a deeper understanding of Lin Hong's hardware technology through this matter. In this regard, the two of them are incomparable in any case. Matthew is good at game things, including game planning and design. He once designed an arcade entertainment game, which was later sold to a game company and earned a lot of money. Arthur is good at software programming and networking.

So, at Matthew's suggestion, a three-person project team named "SAM" was born, which was named after the initials of their names. S stands for Stone, A stands for Arthur, and M stands for Matthew. Because Lin Hong is the initiator of this project, he is at the forefront.

However, Matthew and Arthur did not know that in addition to Lin Hong's solid hardware knowledge, in fact, his software programming ability is also quite good. What he lacks is the accumulation of relevant knowledge. ( To be continued)