Depressed Saturday is finally over, because every Saturday has a lot of homework to do, 80% of which is math. That woman arranged a lot of test papers and exercises for us, repeatedly crushed and ravaged us. Although the rebels in the class have organized an efficient operation plan, I don’t want to ride a bicycle back and forth for two hours on Saturdays to copy homework from other people’s homes. Occasionally participated in a few times, but later found out that people are learning to pick up girls, and I was kicked out as a light bulb, and I was no longer popular. I am also an honest person, and I obediently completed my homework at home. Although I know very well in my heart, those things are wasting my life, but I have already entered this pit, and the next thing is to live.
Xiao Jin gave me the address of his house, and made an appointment to go to his house on Sunday to play on the computer, and by the way, have a meal at his house at noon. This is the first time such a grand invitation. It can be seen that Xiaojin’s family is very wealthy, and people from rich families do things in an orderly manner, unlike our poor families.
After checking the map, I was a little confused. I thought it was a long way to get to the school by bicycle for half an hour every day. Isn’t it because he bikes back and forth for two hours a day in order to study this broken computer major? Or because his family lives in a suburban villa, and usually uses bicycles as a means of transportation for fitness. Rich people are different and pay special attention to physical health.
On Sunday morning, I rode my bike almost across the city, and after more than an hour, I arrived at Xiao Jin’s address. It’s all three-story old buildings, densely packed, just as cramped and crowded as the collective dormitory where I lived in my parents’ factory when I was a child.
Fortunately, I left his phone number and found a public phone, and then I got in touch with him and successfully connected.
When he took me deep into this residential area, I felt as if I had traveled back to when I was a child. These buildings are quite old. I didn’t expect such places to exist in the city. I remember living in my parents’ collective dormitory when I was a child. It was densely populated and the aisles were narrow. It was hot and uncomfortable in summer and unbearably cold in winter. There is not even a public toilet, and the toilet must be pulled in the toilet. Usually, there is a queue for cooking. The public kitchen is humble and life is extremely difficult.
I think it’s similar here. I didn’t expect Xiao Jin to live in such a place. It can be seen that the living conditions at home are quite difficult. It is difficult to imagine that there will be high-tech things like computers in such a place. Of course, I don’t mean to discriminate against Xiao Jin at all. I just think that only a wealthy family like Xiao Chen can afford to support this kind of computer.
”Here, it’s this one, my house lives on the second floor.” Xiao Jin pointed to the three-story building with red walls and black tiles in front of him.
I looked around and saw no place to park my bicycle. I asked curiously, “Is it safe to park the bicycle downstairs? Will it be stolen?”
Xiaojin replied without hesitation, “Move to the second floor, so as not to be stolen, you can’t go back.”
I rub, it seems the same fucking everywhere, bikes are not safe there, no wonder there are so many dirty bikes for sale on the market. My muscles were also developed by carrying a bicycle. When I got home, I had to carry the bicycle to the second floor, and when I went to my classmate’s house, I also had to carry it on the second floor.
Fortunately, the three-story building where Xiaojin lives has a very spacious corridor. As soon as he carried his bicycle to the second floor, he saw his bicycles neatly arranged. It seems that everyone carried their bicycles on the second floor. The building was also locked with a large iron chain.
After putting away the bicycle, he turned me around and entered the corridor. The corridor was bottomless, more than 30 meters away, and it looked like a collective dormitory. The corridor was dilapidated, and there were all kinds of messy household utensils and discarded home appliances. In some places, you have to pass sideways, otherwise you will scratch your clothes and hurt your body.
I followed him and looked around, moving forward cautiously, for fear of bumping into something and damaging other people’s things. It is found that the living space of each household is very small, the living room, dining room and bedroom are all in one room. The bathroom and kitchen were not even seen, but the neighbors were very friendly. Xiao Jin went in all the way and said hello from left to right.
I started to regret coming here, I felt very embarrassed, but Xiao Jin didn’t care. After all, he had a computer in the line, and even though these mortal things around him were incompatible, he didn’t care.
This makes me feel that Xiao Jin seems to be the kind of person who is not afraid of mundane festivals for his own hobbies and ideals, for the sake of computers. No matter how bad the living conditions are and how bad the surrounding environment is, as long as there is a computer, everything will be at ease. Well, like me.
He took me to the far end of the aisle. There were some old wooden furniture piled up at the door. Inside, an uncle was smoking a cigarette and watching a black and white TV.
”Dad, my classmate, come and play with the computer for a while.” Xiaojun shouted to the uncle.
The uncle turned his head and glanced at me, and exhaled a puff of smoke. This was obviously his father. I greeted politely, “Hello, uncle.”
He was so busy smoking that he had no time to answer and nodded. This surprised me a bit. I thought that his father’s image should be an intellectual. After all, he is a person with a computer at home, so he has to look like a literate person.
He wanted to shudder for a few words, but his father didn’t want to pay any attention to me. He turned his head and continued to watch the TV show. Maybe there were too many classmates who had come to his house recently, and he was tired of it. Classmate Xiaojin took me into another room. Visually, there are two rooms in his house.
The room is not big, but there are a lot of old furniture in it, which makes me suddenly feel that his house is not a collection of old furniture, right?
An old writing desk with his schoolbag and some open workbooks on it, it seems that this is where he usually studies. In contrast, the living conditions of my family are much better, at least not so dark, and the writing desk is also newly bought.
Xiao Jin proudly lifted a piece of white cloth covering the TV. It turned out that there was a computer inside, which was the treasure of his family’s town shop. This computer is obviously not in harmony with the surrounding environment. In retrospect, even in the cluttered situation in the dark Internet cafe of Brother Curly Hair and Boss Wang, it was not out of place like this.
I frowned and looked at his computer, feeling so strange that it was hard to describe for a while.
The computer’s display and chassis were obviously supposed to be white, but the melanin buildup had turned them gray. Although the surface is smooth and shiny, it can be seen that he often scrubs it, but it still hides the traces of time. I feel that this computer has been bought for several years. No wonder he is so proficient in computers, so it is.
He proudly invited me to sit in front of the computer and pressed the power switch of the case. Like those computers in school, the case was tightly pressed under the monitor. Maybe the monitor was a few inches larger. His case looked special. Small.
With the loud fan rotation sound of the chassis, the computer started up, but the speed was indeed a bit slow. After a long time, the self-test was completed, and it entered the DOS system with white characters on a black background.
At that time, the computer did not have the Windows system installed, so the operation interface was the same as the current Unix system, with white characters on a black background, and you had to type commands by hand to execute the program.
I skillfully typed a command dir to see what games are in his directory. I thought there would be Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 or Command and Conquer that I was looking forward to, but I didn’t find these two familiar directory names at all.
After asking, I found out that Xiaojin said that the memory of these games is too large, and they can’t run. I rub, these two games, the broken 386 computer in the black Internet cafe can run, why can’t yours?
Classmate Xiaojin smiled slightly, showing a sense of superiority in his expression, obviously I don’t know anything about computer hardware.
”In order to save the budget, I did not buy memory. Now I use the 256kb memory on the motherboard. I usually use the DOS system, which is more than enough for processing documents. I don’t play games very much, so there is no need to increase the memory.”, Xiaojin The old man explained.
Hearing what he said, I remembered that in the dark Internet cafe of Boss Wang and Brother Curly Hair, the things they plugged into the motherboard of the computer one by one were called memory. And playing games requires a lot of memory, otherwise you can’t run, and even if you run, the speed is not fast.
I suddenly learned something, it seems that not all computers can play games, and the computer that plays games must meet the game’s configuration standards. Although I don’t know how much standard memory cost, even a disk in those days had a capacity of one megabyte. 256kb of memory, obviously a bit outdated, right?
”Then what games can your computer play?” I asked curiously.
”A classmate came to play last week and copied a game for me. The configuration requirements are not high, and it is quite interesting.” Xiaojin said, usually typing commands on the keyboard.
As he drove back, the screen flashed, and the picture slowly appeared. At that time, the game screen was very rough, with today’s display rate, maybe only 320 × 200. But at that time, it was a standard display rate, and it was a beautiful picture.
I wipe, this is still a Chinese game, “Emperor”. I picked up his mouse and clicked, and he instructed me how to operate while nibbling on melon seeds.
This is a turn-based strategy game. In fact, I learned later that this is a game that copied foreign countries and civilization 2. The game mechanics and operations are exactly the same, building villages, paving roads, farming and raising cattle, developing civilization, war diplomacy, and unifying China. Obviously this is a very time-consuming game, with rough graphics and boring. But in the absence of other games, it is quite pleasant to play casually.
While playing games, I chatted with classmate Xiao Jin. Although this computer is not very good, I am very envious. If I had such a computer, I would definitely stay at home every day and play day and night, so I wouldn’t spend so much. Time is on the road, go to a classmate’s house to go prostitute.
At that time, there was one thing, I was very curious, where should I buy a computer? I grew up so much that I never saw a store selling computers.
After Xiaojin’s popular science, I learned that there is a place called the electronic market. There are all kinds of electronic equipment, and computers are a kind of electronic products.
To buy a computer, you must first understand how the computer is composed, and then buy different hardware to assemble it according to the needs and the use of the computer. Therefore, the price of the computer varies.
He claims that his computer is a 286 Plus, that is, the main hardware is a 286 computer, and then he bought some additional hardware upgrades to become a 286 Plus, which is approximately equal to the performance of a 386 computer.
Although I am confused, I know he is bragging that the 386 computer should at least run games like Command and Conquer and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4, right?
However, if you have a 286 computer at home, it is also a good choice to study computer courses and play low-end games in your spare time. Suddenly an idea came to my mind, and then I asked the price.
”A little more than 5,000 yuan.” Xiao Jin said triumphantly.
I wiped, I was shocked at the time, even though it was a 286 computer, the price was not cheap! No wonder Brother Curly Hair said that the old 386 computer in the dark Internet cafe cost 10,000 yuan, but now it seems that he did not lie to me.
But that was two years ago. Wouldn’t the price of computers be reduced?
Later, classmate Xiaojin told me that he had a lot of hardware, and he bought second-hand goods. The price was relatively cheap, economical and practical, and it was really stupid to buy a new computer directly. Things like computers will be eliminated very quickly in the future. As long as you buy second-hand goods that others have eliminated, it will be more than enough. The key is to be cheap.
I wiped it, and I suddenly realized that it was no wonder that this computer looked so outdated. It turned out to be very second-hand, but second-hand computers cost more than 5,000 yuan, which is simply beyond our reach.
Looking at the living environment of Xiaojin’s home, it seems that their family tightened their belts and invested all the funds into Xiaojin’s study and career. No wonder he is so proficient in computers that he has become a master in his class as soon as he enters school, and it seems that his future is promising. If my parents could invest in me a computer, it would be complete.
During lunch time, Xiao Jin also invited me to lunch and ate a bowl of frozen dumplings at their house. At the dinner table at the time, his father said that if you really want to learn computers well and be proficient in computers, you must have a computer at home. Otherwise, it’s all talk on paper, and the time spent on the computer practice in the school is useless after graduation.
Just like a pianist, it is impossible to have a future just by playing the piano during the class time. No matter what, there should be a piano at home, even if you don’t want to eat and sell iron, you must have it! Otherwise, change careers and stop being a pianist.
I don’t know if his dad is bragging or reasoning, but I really agree with having a computer. Thinking about it on the way home on the bike, it really makes sense. But this price is too expensive, and I never dare to mention it in front of my parents. I believe that by the time I touch the computer at school, I will definitely be able to learn the computer well, and after graduation, I will stand out!
The computer Xiaojin boasted was actually not as good as those in the school’s computer room. But at least he can grope and study at home and become self-taught. You don’t have to look forward to taking weekly computer labs like I did to get your hands on a computer and explore the computer knowledge you want to discover.
Most importantly, he has nothing to do and can play computer games leisurely at home, even though that computer can’t run fun games.
Looking back now, the idea at that time was very stupid. If a computer costs 5,000 yuan, the black Internet cafe only costs 3 yuan an hour. I believe that without spending 1,000 yuan, I can learn computers well and play games for a lot of time.
But at that time, buying a computer was like getting a beautiful wife, it was just a good wish.
Later, I realized that what I am actually interested in is not computers, but games. It’s just that fun games are on the computer. If there is no computer in this world, Sega, Saturn, and Super Nintendo can also be completely replaced.