At the beginning of June, the sun was blazing overhead.
This was especially true in California, a region blessed with abundant sunshine, where standing under the sun was particularly unbearable.
Yet a long line still stretched outside GAMENOVA's entrance.
The small arcade was packed to the brim. Had Ethan not restricted the flow of customers for safety reasons, the situation would have been even worse.
After two days of word of mouth spreading, 1942 had exploded in popularity.
Players throughout the arcade had discovered that those two seemingly ordinary machines were actually running a brand-new game.
In addition, Ethan had modified several more machines, making the waiting line move much faster than before.
Outside, Gerald struggled to squeeze through the crowd.
No matter how much he insisted that he wasn't cutting in line, it was useless.
Just as it looked like he was about to get punched by a hot-tempered young man, Ethan finally squeezed out of the arcade and rescued him.
"Mr. Lawson, it's too noisy here. Let's find somewhere easier to talk."
Faced with the current situation, Ethan himself was drenched in sweat.
The first batch of arcade machines had only officially rolled off the production line this week, and the initial sales contract with Meyer had only recently been signed.
This was their busiest period.
Poor Sam hadn't had a single day off since renting this arcade.
Fortunately, he was earning nearly as much as Ethan, so he was enjoying himself despite the workload.
Ethan brought Gerald back to the apartment, where they could finally talk in peace.
"Ethan, nothing could be more convincing than your arcade. To hell with Atari!"
Gerald seemed to have completely emerged from the slump in his life. There was a newfound lightness on his face.
As usual, he spat out a curse toward Atari before taking several documents and an obviously hand-soldered prototype board from his briefcase.
"According to your requirements: a dual-processor architecture with a 16-bit and an 8-bit CPU, 512KB of dedicated memory and video memory, plus the latest YM2151 audio chipset!"
Ethan accepted the board in surprise, visibly moved.
As expected of a top tier electrical engineer rated S-Class by the system panel. In just half a month, Gerald had already managed to produce a usable test platform.
Integrating such a collection of cutting edge hardware onto a single board required far more than simply soldering the components together.
The amount of adjustment and compatibility work involved was staggering.
Only an engineer like Gerald, someone who had once led the development of an entire home game console, could accomplish such a feat.
Along with the board came an entire bag of EPROM 27256 chips. Each one had a capacity of 32KB and cost roughly fifty dollars apiece.
"Mr. Lawson, this..."
"Let's go all in." Gerald smiled with remarkable calmness.
"Consider this the last gamble of my life. If even your work can't succeed, then perhaps video games and I simply aren't meant to be."
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After that day, Gerald had shut down VideoSoft, gathered all of his remaining funds, and scraped together everything he could to make this happen.
For him, this was his final all or nothing bet.
Ethan nodded solemnly and pulled over a chair for Gerald to sit down.
Then he took his own seat at the table.
Rather than beginning to write code immediately, he took eight 27256 EPROM chips from the chip box.
The 1987 arcade version of Contra had a total capacity of 256KB. A single 32KB EPROM was nowhere near enough to contain it.
Even if he somehow invited Shannon himself, the future member of the National Academy of Engineering, to help, it wouldn't solve the problem.
But that didn't mean he was out of options.
Ethan grabbed Sam's soldering iron along with a pile of miscellaneous components and immediately got to work at the desk.
Gerald didn't leave. Instead, he sat quietly to the side, watching every move.
The more he watched, the more astonished he became.
"You're planning to build an expansion board yourself?"
Seeing Ethan connect wires in every direction until the thing looked like a spider's web, he finally couldn't help speaking.
"Ethan... you weren't formally trained, were you?"
The technique was simply bizarre.
It was like watching a veteran craftsman who had never received systematic education but had spent decades immersed in the field.
The more Gerald watched, the itchier his hands became. He simply couldn't suppress the restlessness of a true geek.
He snatched the components right out of Ethan's hands.
Ten minutes later, a neat and beautiful board appeared before Ethan.
[Ding!]
[Watching a master at work has inspired you. Hardware Technology +3]
[Skill Acquired:]
[Wire Routing Expert]: You are more likely to produce neat and orderly jumper-wire layouts when soldering.
[Milestone Completed]: Produce a storage medium with a capacity exceeding 64KB.
[Reward]: Hardware Technology +5
...
"Whew, Mr. Lawson is truly a genius."
Wiping away his sweat, Ethan couldn't help praising him sincerely.
The storage chip assembly before him, with a total capacity of 256KB, was nothing short of a work of art.
It consisted of a control circuit and eight 32KB EPROM chips.
The principle behind it was extremely clever.
The CPU would write a value from 0 to 7 into the control circuit, and the expansion board would switch to the corresponding chip based on that value.
In other words, at any given moment, only one 32KB chip could actually be accessed.
Such an ingenious trick was truly astonishing.
With this device, the final barrier standing between him and Contra had been completely broken.
….
A month passed in the blink of an eye.
On June 29, 1984, Ethan completed all of the game's initial development work. Only bug testing and final optimization remained.
And on that very day, alongside Contra, another work was being released.
Los Angeles, inside a movie theater.
Sam held a bucket of popcorn and stared excitedly at the poster on the wall.
"I can't believe we actually have the chance to attend the premiere of Conan the Destroyer!"
He knew that Ethan's purpose in coming here wasn't simply to watch a movie, but the rare experience still excited him tremendously.
Over the past month, arcade sales had climbed steadily, causing quite a sensation throughout California.
For every machine sold, they earned more than a thousand dollars in profit from Meyer.
It was no exaggeration to say that Tetris and 1942 had become two chickens laying golden eggs at a frantic pace.
As a result, Ethan had made a fortune, and Sam, the angel investor who had recognized his potential early on, had also become considerably wealthier.
This massive influx of cash had given them the capital to take another step forward.
More importantly, it had given them the opportunity to meet people who would otherwise have been completely beyond their reach.
As they entered the theater, Ethan's gaze immediately locked onto the burly figure seated in the front row.
His muscles bulged beneath his suit, his bronze skin carrying a distinctive reddish tint beneath the tight fabric.
Ethan couldn't help sighing.
At that moment, Schwarzenegger was quietly chatting with the person beside him.
His face still carried traces of youthfulness, and he was still some distance away from the iconic image that existed in Ethan's memories.