episode_0041

Johnson Huang was rolled over.

This was because, based on the financial support received from KIN, the company paid off the employees’ overdue salaries in a lump sum and mobilized all of the company’s capabilities to design a graphics accelerator, or GPU.

It’s late January, and it’s snowing. We finally finished developing our GPU and released our first home graphics accelerator, the GPX 100.

This time, they even promoted it with graphics from the pipe. The performance when there is graphics acceleration is completely different from when only the CPU is used.

Smooth graphics and high frames through texture filtering, lighting effects that can be used without worrying about performance degradation, etc… In reality, it’s just pushing the subsidiary, but what can you do? There’s no alternative. If you’re going to do it, you should make a GPU too.

Naturally, the GPUs sold like hotcakes.

What are the reviews from people who have used it?

[Graphics Revolution]

Everyone said the same thing. In fact, that was the only thing that could come out.

Graphics cards have greatly expanded the limits of graphics. Since the GPU handles tasks that would have consumed CPU resources, the CPU’s available space has naturally expanded.

In other words, even if your computer’s performance is a little lacking, if you attach a GPU, the computer’s performance will drastically improve!

“Hey, Mr. Hwang.”

“Why are you like that, CEO Yoon?”

“If you give me more funding, can I make a better GPU? Hwang?”

“Ah, of course, Yoon.”

After seeing the potential of GPUs, they immediately invested money in Nvidia.

A virtuous cycle began where putting in money brought in more money.

***

Half-Life has created several crazes.

One of them is [Speed Run].

This sort of challenge to see who can clear a stage or game faster has become a huge craze.

At first, the optimization of the route was done in a normal way. It was simply something like, “You shouldn’t go this way.”

Next came the discovery of technique.

By exploiting a loophole in the game system, “Rotating the viewpoint and jumping diagonally increases the jump speed ” is a kind of bug that has been developed into “If you continue to use that bug, you can easily achieve maximum acceleration “.

That is, it was the birth of Bunny Hop.

This technique called bunny hop revolutionized the world of speedrunning.

Not only did they shorten the existing record by more than half, they also started skipping unskippable sections.

Techniques have also been developed to use the recoil of grenades or grenade launchers to fly further and higher.

This led to KIN creating unexpected routes, completely ignoring the rules of avoiding escapes, and skipping several puzzles, resulting in some truly outrageous plays.

And finally, a bug was developed.

It’s a combination of numerous bugs, including a bug where you can move quickly by picking up an object and rubbing it against a wall, a bug where you can skip numerous sections by blowing up a grenade while stuck on an object and breaking through walls, a bug where you can fall through the map, and a bug where you can respawn at a debug point that was added for testing when there’s an error in coordinates.

But there was one person who couldn’t laugh during this speedrun craze…

“Oh my god, stop uploading these videos!!!!”

Among the people who managed the Digital Inside server, it was Kim Moo-sik.

Kim Moo-sik, who could not resist the temptation of the dollar offered by Yoon Yi-seo and fled to the United States during the IMF crisis, was given the position of managing Digital Inside.

And what causes most server overloads? Huge videos!

The fact that speedrun videos that take at least 30 minutes to complete, no matter how much time is shortened, are constantly being uploaded puts a huge burden on the server, and often causes dumplings to be spilled on the server.

“Hey, how about we make it so that videos can’t be uploaded to Digital Inside?”

“It’s a bit much to remove a feature that already exists…”

“Or, how about managing the videos on a separate server…”

“Oh.”

This was the moment when YouTube was born five years earlier than the original world.

***

Current video codecs are quite inefficient.

Even with the deterioration of the image quality, the enormous capacity was difficult to handle. The time it took to download and watch a video once was beyond imagination.

The current state of the Internet is that when you insert a video player component into a page and leave it as an extension like AVI, the webpage will often crash, which also puts a huge burden on the server.

So how do you maintain the O-tube?

The answer is simple. All you have to do is convert all the existing bitmap videos into vector graphics, which take up relatively less space.

It is much more efficient to process pixels through functional operations than to display each pixel individually. Of course, there is the problem of it eating up a bit of CPU.

In fact, this is also a tactic in some ways. If we support hardware acceleration, we can sell GPUs again. But what can we do? We have a monopoly on the market.

“So… this time I have to make a video plugin?”

“Yes.”

“If I submit my resignation letter, will you accept it?”

“Can I?”

In February 2000, developer Kim Jeong-jun submitted his resignation, but it was not accepted.

“What should I name this plugin?”

“[Flash]”

“But there needs to be a place to use this plugin. If I just use it in Digital Inside, it will eventually become a burden.”

“I’m going to create a separate webpage to upload videos. I’ll name it… something like Utube.”

***

After a long time, a notice was posted on Digital Inside under KIN’s name.

The content was an introduction to a site called Utube. The comment at the end by Yoon Yi-seo, “Please write here when uploading videos,” was impressive.

The insane compression of the Flash plugin was enough to force users to upload videos to YouTube. Since the site preview had the Flash plugin attached, you could preview the video on Digital Inside by just uploading the URL.

Although it was a bit of an inconvenience, the Internet users of the new century, who still had some consideration within the Internet, could tolerate this level of inconvenience for the sake of everyone.

At first, the most actively uploaded videos were of course Half-Life speedrun videos, but after seeing the first video, the one taken by Yoon Seo and her group at the zoo, some people started uploading not only speedrun videos but also miscellaneous videos they had taken.

The era of great UCC had begun.

***

“Uh…Why are you holding a video recorder?”

“I’m going to take a video.”

“Should I upload it to YouTube?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on again… Uh… Hello viewers.”

“Suddenly?”

“It’s a bit weird to not say anything. Ah. I should introduce myself… Hey! Hey! Where are you going!”

“Voila~ This is our company. It’s a little plain, right?”

“It was already empty, but everyone went on vacation…”

“Uh… Actually, I don’t have anything to show you. I’ve already requested the production of the Ultimate Golden Paru, but I don’t think it’ll come.”

“I don’t understand why they even commissioned that production in the first place.”

“Well… isn’t it fun? Sometimes, instead of using a fist, if I break Senior Jeong’s head with that, it’ll feel awesome.”

“Is that something you should say in front of the person involved? (Kim Jeong-jun, who had been sitting quietly in front, turns his chair and stands up) Everyone, this guy is a wicked boss who hits his opponents on the head at the drop of a hat. ”

“Be quiet!”

Bang! (A refreshing sound rings out)

“Aaah! Look at this! This evil boss! If it weren’t for the money, I would’ve kicked him out a long time ago!”

“They give you a lot of money, right? They give you enough money to live on even if you send it to your parents.”

“This profit…”

“The person who hit me is our developer 1, Kim Jeong-jun. Actually, he is not a senior anymore, but I am saying this because it is familiar to me. As you heard earlier, the impact is good”

“Hey, what are you talking about! Give me the camcorder!”

“And this is Sister Yu Ji-young. She is in charge of all our art.”

“Oh my, in the end, you’re the one doing the inspection.”

“Hey. The inspector and the person in charge are different.”

“Why is Jiyoung introducing herself so mildly! This is discrimination!”

“That’s because you have the best hitting sensation-”

“Give me the camcorder, man! This won’t work!”

(The door opens slightly and Newell comes in)

“…What the hell is going on?”

“You’re here at the right time, New Year! Stop this guy here!”

“Uh… I think it’s Seo-ssi’s karma.”

“You traitor! I’ll even give you a discount on your salary!”

(Suddenly Newell moves quickly and grabs Kim Jung-jun)

“Blame capitalism, Mr. Jeongjun.”

“Uh… That solid guy is Mr. Newell. He’s the one who planned the Half-Life project… He’s actually the lead developer. He also planned this game’s discount.”

“I will show you the worth of weight. Thank you.”

“That’s right. The original purpose of this was… Oh, that’s right, recruitment.”

“You said you didn’t start it to play…?”

“What the hell do you think I am? Anyway, I think there will be a recruitment between late March and mid-April. If you have a really great idea or think you are really good at something, get ready.”

“Can you promote it so roughly?”

“Originally, this kind of thing is centered around a B-class sensibility. Oh… This. I’m getting a memory shortage message. Well, that’s all for today.”

(There is a clicking sound and the video cuts out)

***

“So the salary discount is a joke, right?”

“…”

“Are you kidding?”

“…”