The programmer and his woman

I sat quietly in front of the computer desk, with two computers on the table in front of me. The old one was a 486, which witnessed my past hardships and efforts. At that time, I was penniless and worked in Zhang Jie's factory. I used my meager salary to buy this old computer, which became my bridge to the world of knowledge. The new one, equipped with a Pentium processor, was the prize I won in a competition, and it symbolizes my current achievements.

Perhaps, for some young readers, the name 486 is already unfamiliar. But at that time, it was the pride of Intel and the representative of the fourth generation of processors. With the advancement of technology, Intel changed its name to Pentium from the fifth generation for trademark protection. The advent of the Pentium processor caused a sensation and became a hot product in the market at that time.

I stroked the new computer gently, feeling full of emotion. This new computer not only has excellent performance, but also comes with a modem. Friends who were born in the 1980s are familiar with this thing. Back then, there was no broadband, and we had to rely on this modem to plug into the telephone line to surf the Internet. Every time we went online, we had to dial up, and every time we went offline, we had to disconnect. The screaming dial-up sound, when I think back now, seems to still ring in my ears.

I could not wait to connect to the Internet and download an instant messaging software called ICQ. Perhaps some people have heard of it, but many people may know nothing about it. ICQ, the name is taken from "I Seek You", which means "I am looking for you". It is the world's first instant messaging software, providing people with a convenient and fast way to communicate online.

However, since there were not many domestic users on ICQ and I did not understand foreign languages, I put it on hold after trying it for a while.

However, not long after, someone in China imitated ICQ and launched OICQ, which was renamed QQ soon after. Today, QQ has become one of the most popular instant messaging software in China, and its little penguin icon is deeply rooted in people's hearts. The functions of this software are basically the same as ICQ, but the user group is mainly domestic. I also registered an OICQ account, but who can I add as a friend? I immediately thought of my old friend Yanjing. I wonder if he still uses web chat rooms and knows OICQ.

Thinking of this, I immediately picked up the phone and dialed his home number. As soon as the call was connected, I said, "Hello, Yan Jinger, it's me, Dongzi. Do you know OICQ? It's quite similar to the chat room you used last time, but the functions are much more powerful than that chat room! I registered an OICQ account, and I'll give you the number. Add me and we can chat."

"Hey, Dongzi, Dongzi, I was just looking for you!" Glasses' excited voice came from the other end of the phone, "Come to my house, Xiaobai is here, and he brought some good stuff, come and take a look, hurry up!"

"What's the matter, Yan Jing'er? Why are you in such a hurry? Do you have any good stuff?" I asked curiously, and my curiosity was immediately aroused by his tone.

"Okay, okay, stop talking nonsense and come over!" Glasses hung up the phone. I ran all the way to Glasses' house, opened the door, and saw a group of people gathered in front of the computer, concentrating on it. I tiptoed over and asked curiously, "Wow, everything is here, so serious, what are you looking at?"

"Shh~" Glasses playfully made a silent gesture and motioned me to sit down, "Come over here, let's watch together."

I thought it was something new and interesting, but when I took a closer look, I found out it was the live-action version of "Sailor Moon"!

"Oh, a cartoon. I thought you were watching something. I watched this when I was a kid. It's Sailor Moon, but this is a live-action version." I smiled easily, trying to break the tense atmosphere.

"Shh, don't talk, just keep watching." Glasses still nervously motioned for me to be quiet, so I had to sit down and continue watching.

On the screen, Usagi Tsukino made a brilliant appearance, and she ran into a monster right away. She raised her magic wand and prepared to transform! This was the most shocking scene when I was a kid. I remember that at that time, a golden light would cover Usagi Tsukino's entire body, and then her clothes would turn into a super cool tight combat suit. But this time, the situation is completely different!

I saw the same golden light flashing, and Usagi Tsukino was about to transform! But at this critical moment, she was cast a spell by the monster and tied up tightly. I was so surprised that I shouted, "Oh, I haven't changed my clothes yet. Now, I should have been a fighting rabbit in uniform, but I turned out to be a naked little rabbit!" This scene was so embarrassing that I dug my toes into the ground!

I couldn't help but ask Xiao Bai: "Did you get this? What are these? They are a mess."

The fat man quickly took over the conversation: "Is this called chaos? This is already very serious! The ones we saw before were chaos."

"Okay, okay, Fatty, be quiet, it's starting again." Man with Glasses interrupted Fatty and motioned for us to continue watching.

We watched this afternoon, and our backs and waists were sore, but it was an eye-opener. Although the content was a bit confusing and embarrassing, we also learned some "new knowledge" from it.

"Hey, guys, we've been staying at home for a long time. It's such a nice day, let's go out for a walk and get some fresh air!" Glasses shook the empty can in his hand like an excited guide, "We haven't updated the game library in the past few days, we have to go to the computer city to replenish some fresh blood and buy some new game discs."

At that time, selling pirated CDs was almost a routine operation for vendors in computer malls. The price of ten yuan per CD was the perfect choice for students like us. The content was basically the same as the genuine CDs, but the computer environment for making the CDs was not good, and some CDs contained viruses. This was probably not intentional by the manufacturers of pirated CDs, but in the era of rampant viruses, it was considered normal.

In the computer city, there are two types of vendors selling pirated CDs. One type is the merchants in the mall, who hide the CDs and sell them secretly; the other type is those who stand on the street to sell them. These vendors are more dangerous because once they are discovered by the police, they will be arrested and their goods will be confiscated. However, later these vendors seemed to have received instructions from "experts" and all became middle-aged women, holding a baby in their arms. The police often cannot impose administrative detention on women holding babies, which makes them more unscrupulous when selling CDs on the street.

These middle-aged women usually carry some hot-selling CDs with them. If they don’t have what you want, they will take you to their warehouse to choose.

Glasses and his friends couldn't hold back their enthusiasm to explore the new game world, so we followed the middle-aged woman and walked into her small warehouse. As soon as we stepped into the door, it was like entering a colorful game treasure house with so many discs that it was overwhelming.

Although the light in the warehouse was a little dim, the CDs were like twinkling lights, illuminating our eyes. Each area was carefully divided, with science fiction, adventure, action, romance...all kinds of games. And under each small category, there were boxes and boxes of CDs neatly stacked, like hills, waiting for us to discover.

Although we didn't have much money, we were very careful in our selection. Glasses picked up a CD, looked at the cover carefully, and then handed it to Xiaobai: "What do you think of this one?" Xiaobai took the CD, looked at the introduction, and shook his head: "I've played this one, let's move on to the next one."

I excitedly picked up a game box called "Red Alert: Avengers Alliance", shook it towards Glasses, and said with a smile: "Hey, Glasses, look, isn't this the new version of Red Alert that you've been dreaming about?"

Glasses took the box from my hand with a vigilant look on his face. After examining it carefully, he revealed an expression that said, "Don't be fooled by this fancy name. This is actually Red Alert 98. The market for Red Alert 98 is so saturated that it can't be sold anymore, so they wanted to change the packaging to attract attention."

I scratched my head and smiled awkwardly, "Ah? So that's how it is. I really thought there was some new trick."

Glasses raised his eyebrows proudly and continued to reveal the truth: "If you don't believe me, you can find "Red Alert: Jedi Counterattack" and "Red Alert: The Last Stand" in this pile of game boxes later. They are all vests of Red Alert 98."

I nodded, expressing my admiration for Glasses' insight: "You really know what's going on, Glasses."

At this time, the fat man joked, "Brother Dong, don't brag about Brother Monkey. The little knowledge he has is all the lessons he learned from being cheated badly in the past with blood and tears."

When Glasses heard this, he immediately glared at the fat man and said, "Fatty, if you don't speak, no one will think you are dumb!"

The fat man was like a treasure hunter, rummaging through the cartons, picking up a CD from time to time to study it carefully.

"Haha, I found this!" The fat man suddenly held up a CD excitedly, "Monopoly 3, I haven't played this version yet, how about it?" Everyone gathered around, looked at the introduction, thought it was pretty good, and unanimously approved this choice.

We didn't have much money, so we were extra cautious in choosing the CDs, feeling that each one was an investment.

In the end, we chose two CDs: Monopoly 3 and Tokimeki Memorial.

"Monopoly 3" was chosen by Fatty. The reason for choosing it was that there were many of us, so it was most suitable for us to play this kind of game together. Moreover, we had played "Monopoly 2" before and found it very interesting. Now that "Monopoly 3" has finally been released, we naturally want to have a sneak peek.

"Tokimeki Memorial" was chosen by Yanjing. The reason he chose this game was simply because he thought the group of Japanese girls on the cover were very pretty.

With the two discs, we excitedly returned to the glasses' house and could not wait to install them. However, when the game was running, we found the "trick" in it.

The fat man was stunned at first, then he said with a smile: "How come this Monopoly 3 is exactly the same as Monopoly 2? It turns out that the pirated merchants took the Monopoly 2 stock and changed the packaging to fool us!"

Glasses looked at the game screen of "Tokimeki Memorial" with an embarrassed look on his face. It turned out that this was a pure dating simulation game. He scratched his head and said embarrassedly: "I thought... I thought it was that kind of game, who knew..."

Xiao Bai looked at the embarrassing looks of Glasses and Fatty and couldn't help laughing: "Brother Monkey and Fatty, why did you two choose these two discs after spending so much time choosing? This Tokimeki Memorial is too boring. And this Monopoly 3 is simply a complete IQ tax. The official has not even announced the launch of the new version, so how is it possible to see the third generation version on the market?"

Glasses glared at Xiao Bai and said, "It's all your fault. Those movies have filled my mind with those images. Look at the cover of this CD, it's in Japanese and it has a beautiful girl, who wouldn't think of that?"

At this time, the fat man also said angrily: "Xiao Bai, you know that the official has not announced the new version, why didn't you remind us earlier?"

Xiao Bai shrugged, smiled innocently and said, "Oh, I just remembered it afterwards."

Glasses glanced at Xiaobai unhappily and said, "Xiaobai, you are really a wise man after the event, but a pig before the event!"

Hearing Glasses say this about himself, Xiaobai also got angry: "Brother Monkey, you mentioned the Red Alert repackaging at that time, why didn't you think that Monopoly might also start to use this repackaging routine?"

"Ah, this..." Glasses was at a loss for words for a moment, obviously caught off guard by Xiaobai's question. He frowned and quickly glanced at the game disc in his hand, as if looking for a suitable explanation.

"Well...actually..." He began hesitantly, but suddenly stopped, as if thinking about how to put it.

Seeing that everyone was embarrassed, the fat man laughed, breaking the awkward situation, waved his hand and said, "Forget it, forget it, let's just treat this as a lesson. Next time when choosing a game, everyone should be more careful and not be fooled by these repackaged games. Let's still play this Monopoly, at least we can continue the fun we had before. As for the other Tokimeki Memorial, I think we should give it back to an innocent boy like Dong Ge, he will definitely like it."

When I heard that, I quickly took over the fat guy's words and said excitedly, "You really don't want it? If not, then play it! I have always been interested in this kind of dating simulation game. Although I have never played it before, looking at the cover and introduction, I think this game should be pretty good."

Glasses and Fatty smiled at each other, nodded and said, "See what I said, we like the direct ones, and Dong Ge likes the innocent ones. Dong Ge, take this disc, we really don't like this kind of game."