Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 924 - 504: The Computer That’s Worth the Price_2

Chapter 924: Chapter 504: The Computer That’s Worth the Price_2

Can you understand the feeling of waiting an entire week to finally see a movie you’ve been wanting to watch, only to be two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through when, just before the climactic finale, you must leave for evening self-study at school?

It wasn’t until the advent of the VCR that people could sit comfortably in their rooms to watch a movie. No worries about the program being interrupted at any moment, no concerns about the TV screen turning into a blur of static, no frustration from reaching a crucial scene only to have the sound turn into that irritating "Cila" noise, and no more having to stop halfway through because you had to go to school...

But VCRs were considered luxury items back then. In underdeveloped small towns, having one was like possessing a divine artifact. In fact, some people bought a VCR and started their own video rental stores.

In such a context, talking about original discs that cost ten or even fifty yuan each was nothing short of a fantasy.

So, piracy really was popular at the time. It wasn’t just movies and TV shows, even other foreign programming reached many people through these pirated discs—like some foreigners’ lectures and interviews; those discs weren’t unavailable.

Of course, there were negatives. Many who sold pirated discs relied on those that shouldn’t see the light of day. Mostly "Japanese" and "Western" films that were banned from circulation, their influence was indeed quite harmful.

Take, for example, someone who one day happened upon a regular Japanese film and expressed their astonishment, "Ah... so Japanese films can also have actors performing with their clothes on!"

But no matter what, this was indeed the era when pirated discs were most popular.

Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan’s morning talk of going to see the racetrack was simply because the race hadn’t started yet, and the road was still closed, so they headed straight for the technology market instead.

Before even entering the technology market, they were approached by at least three people asking if they wanted discs. Of course, since there were girls present, these people offered only the popular legitimate movies of the time, while the not-so-decent ones were reserved for those with expectant, flickering glances with ulterior motives...

After turning down these enthusiastic introductions from the small business owners, the two finally entered the technology market.

The so-called technology market would often disappoint first-timers. Far from the imagined high-tech hub, there was no opulence, none of those dazzling sci-fi scenes that would mesmerize at first glance.

It was more like a wet market.

After inquiring at a random computer assembly counter, the owner immediately started his pitch in a practiced manner, "How about this setup? AT power supply, ASUS motherboard, supports Intel and AMD CPUs. Look at the slots, it supports not just the commonly used EDO memory but also the most advanced SDR memory. See, it can take two 8M memory sticks, guaranteeing slick performance while using..."

"Do you often watch movies? We can set you up with a 4MB dedicated graphics card. It comes with a CD and floppy drive, and a 2.4GB hard drive..."

"You can ask around, my prices are definitely the cheapest in the whole market. The whole setup will cost you less than ten thousand yuan..."

In reality, the technology of those days, looked back on a few years later, would actually be embarrassing. To these owners, an 8MB memory stick was a divine artifact, a 4MB graphics card was out of this world, and a 2.4GB hard drive was something to rave about—of course there was better technology, but those were just released and considered the highest of high-tech. They were too expensive and not typically mentioned to ordinary buyers.

Who would have thought that thirty years later, 8GB of memory would be commonplace, and as for those once-revered 8MB memory sticks—what were those even? That’s a whopping 2048 times smaller!

And that’s just for desktops. Don’t even get started on laptops. At the beginning of the year, a Pentium 133MHz/1.35GB hard disk NEC laptop was advertised in Computer Weekly for forty-six thousand yuan!

In the end, Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan spent the better part of the day deciding where to buy their computer, not finishing up until the shop owners started their lunch break.

A fifteen-inch monitor, two sixteen-megabyte memory sticks plugged in—Boss Yan didn’t understand, but he learned quickly. After asking around and synthesizing the information the owners provided, he knew which products were good.

Actually, you really couldn’t fool anyone with the stuff in the technology market. Everything here was open. If you were diligent enough to wander here for a couple of days, you could learn more than half a year of computer science studies at university.

Without waiting a couple years for universities to start their enrollment expansion and when universities rushed to offer computer science programs, many failed to match their academic offerings with the necessary hardware. Graduates would leave with a bachelor’s degree but with technical skills inferior to those of a small Internet cafe’s network admin. Some even couldn’t distinguish between a hard drive and an optical drive after graduating—such cases were true and not rare.

It was the students who frequented the technology market who had the upper hand, learning hands-on and combining practical knowledge with what they learned at school, ensuring they were much more competent than mere bookworms after graduating.

Originally, Yan Fei wanted to carry the monitor in one hand and the main unit in the other by himself, but Xu Xiaoyan wouldn’t let him. The monitor weighed who knows how many catties, and Yan Fei didn’t really care, but the girl was worried he might damage it.

So, it ended up with Boss Yan carrying the monitor in front, and Xu Xiaoyan following behind carefully holding the computer case — there was no choice but to be careful, since Boss Yan’s generous spending meant that this computer had cost a whole fifteen thousand yuan.

Fifteen thousand yuan!

Yan Fei’s parents, both working, couldn’t save enough to buy such a computer even if they combined their annual salaries and abstained from eating and drinking.

The two of them carrying the items attracted the envious and jealous stares of many people loitering around as they walked out the door.

It wasn’t until they reached home that Jingjing was willing to put down the case. Watching Yan Fei fumble with the packing, she felt so distressed. But when the monitor finally lit up after she herself pressed the power button, her hands clenched involuntarily.

Only when the familiar Windows 95 logo appeared did she finally relax, quietly waiting for the computer to finish booting.

After it booted up, both of them were at a loss, staring at the screen without a clue what to do next.

It was Yan Fei, with his quick learning ability, who, while Jingjing was shocked by the price, had secretly learned quite a bit. Now, with full confidence, he took hold of the mouse and chuckled, "The name of this mouse is really good, Double Swallow, hehe..."

The most advanced and popular mouse at the moment was the Double Swallow, the kind with a little ball inside, said to be 2D. Neither of them understood what that meant, but they knew it was good because it was expensive and trendy, which definitely meant it was good.

After clicking around with the mouse for a while on the newly installed system which couldn’t go online, aside from playing solitaire, there wasn’t much else to do.

Fortunately, the boss had also thrown in a bonus, a box of pirated CDs, all movies.

They picked out A Chinese Odyssey, the most popular movie at the time, followed the instructions learned by peeping, inserted the CD, and after clicking on it, both watched attentively for the subtitles to pass, until that dreamlike image appeared and they became engrossed in watching.

New computer, new movie, it really was exciting.

After watching for a while, Yan Fei reminded Jingjing, "Can’t you sit on a chair to watch?"

Before the movie was finished, the sound of two dogs barking frantically came from outside.

Yan Fei, too, was so captivated by the movie that hearing the dogs bark was what reminded him of the knocking at the door. He ran out to check and sure enough, Chen He was standing there with a group of girls.

Seeing Yan Fei, a girl with a quick mouth laughed and said, "Boss Yan, did you bring the computer home?"

"I did!"

"Nice! Let’s go, let’s go! To see the computer..." Hearing Yan Fei’s response, the group of girls immediately abandoned their host and giggled as they ran toward the yard.

Chen He followed at the back, and once Yan Fei closed the door, he laughed and said, "I originally wanted to come over in the morning to help you guys buy the computer, but I was tied up with something at home. How much did it cost? What are the specs?"

Yan Fei had already memorized it and quickly recited the specs of his computer, to which Chen He laughed, "Pretty good, you must have asked around a lot? The price isn’t too expensive; this stuff is just very pricey these days, but once you start using it, you’ll understand, it’s definitely worth more than what you paid..."

And it really was worth more than what you paid, at least now, seeing Xu Xiaoyan surrounded and flattered by a group of girls, Yan Fei felt it was well worth it!