American History 1988
Chapter 101 - 95 Teams

Chapter 101: Chapter 95 Teams

"David, the IRC protocol is more complex than I imagined," Dean, sitting in front of the computer, frowned and stopped tapping his fingers on the keyboard.

"Bullshit! IRC isn’t complex! What’s complex is that you, Dean, want to add G.722 wideband audio decoding technology into this software!" On the other side of the long rectangular table, Marcus continued to complain while still hammering away at his keyboard.

He had repeated these words who knows how many times, but even now he was still indignant. "Oh my God, I should never have agreed to this, Dean.

The start-of-term week is such a great opportunity, before the freshmen could see through us, isn’t it the best time to throw a party?

David, we’ve been duped! Dean, you’ve already achieved a home run with a double play, but we haven’t!

Especially you, David, you haven’t even scammed a kiss from a girl! Poor David!"

"Shut up, Marcus! Girls will always be there, but inspiration won’t!" Dean pointed at his head with his finger, "I just had a brilliant idea, but guess what? Your ’home run’ screwed it up!"

"Aha~ Did I hit a nerve?" Marcus put down his keyboard and turned to face Dean, "I knew you missed that double play, Mother F*cker, I even cleared space for you. So shouldn’t you throw another party to repay me?"

Hearing these two bickering again, [Poor David who hadn’t even scammed a kiss from a girl], spoke up very calmly. "Perhaps we need to seek some external help."

"What?" Dean and Marcus looked at him at the same time.

"Clearly, the three of us still can’t handle it." David shrugged, "A software that supports multi-person voice communication for instant chat is still too complex for us.

Whether it’s the IRC protocol or the G.722 wideband audio encoder approved by ITU-T. Both were only released at the end of last year, not even a year ago.

We don’t know enough about these two technologies. So I was thinking, maybe we could find some help?

Of course, the idea was first brought up by you, Dean, the decisions on what to do next are up to you."

David had completed the computer technology portion of his studies at Durham University, and even he found it challenging, which showed how complicated the software Dean wanted to develop was.

Technologically, it was feasible, but because no one had done anything similar before, Dean and his team were essentially feeling their way forward in the dark.

After listening to David’s suggestion, Dean considered whether this was feasible while rubbing his chin.

He was used to going it alone before, with websites and DCAP which weren’t too difficult and had previous works to reference, Dean could indeed figure them out by himself.

Even C-Link was developed based on the Plato System as a research subject, which Dean had improved upon.

But this software was different; from the functions to the underlying code, Dean needed to redesign everything.

Especially since it adopted two new technology protocols, even Dean, who considered himself a genius, couldn’t handle them without fully understanding them.

"Dean, maybe we should consider David’s suggestion," Marcus believed there was nothing wrong with seeking help.

Isn’t that what college is like? Especially for students majoring in computer science. If someone wrote an innovative software tool, it would quickly spread throughout the school.

Of course, if you ran into programming problems, there were plenty of people willing to lend a helping hand. This wasn’t about interests, but more about attraction due to interest.

"OK, I agree to look for external help," Dean accepted David’s suggestion, "But before that, let’s clarify the problems we’re currently facing."

Dean was good at taking advice from others and willing to ask for help. But the lessons learned from Dyson made him realize that it was better to clarify things beforehand.

"The IRC protocol is mainly used for relay chat and file transfer, and the G.722 wideband audio encoder is for voice communication.

What’s troubling us now is how to integrate these functions into the same software and ensure their reliable operation.

Moreover, G.722 doubles the speed of audio acquisition to 64 kbit/s, which is a huge challenge for the current network transmission speeds."

"Exactly, such a sampling rate ensures the quality of the voice, but the capacity of the data packets will also grow exponentially," David nodded in agreement with Dean’s analysis.

"The relay chat functionality based on the IRC protocol also requires the support of corresponding servers.

Dean, I think you’d better consider the server issue before the software is finished; Those things aren’t cheap."

Marcus analyzed the potential application risks of the software from another angle.

"So..." Dean spread his hands, "Does this mean the main issue with the software isn’t programming, but how to survive in the current network environment?"

"Mm-hmm~" Marcus nodded, "That’s the core issue, but I think programming is a hassle too. At least I can’t handle it."

"If we seek external help for programming, we can definitely solve it in the end. But if the software we eventually create is something that no one wants to use, that can be very frustrating."

David also embodies the geek spirit, and if his work, to which he has devoted so much effort, is not recognized, that would undoubtedly be a terrible thing.

Seeing both of them waiting for him to make a decision, Dean just laughed. "Come on, I actually think these two points are the easiest to resolve."

"What?" Marcus and David looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Dean, I’ve never asked you about your family situation, so..." Marcus edged closer to Dean, whispering, "Is your family very wealthy? Can we handle our own server?"

"No!" Dean brutally shattered Marcus’s illusion.

"Could it be that NSFnet is planning to upgrade the backbone network? But I haven’t heard such news, and they just completed an expansion this year," David also didn’t understand where Dean’s confidence came from.

"Well, guys." Dean crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, looking at them, "Have I ever told you where this software is going to be used?"

"Isn’t it for making it convenient for everyone to chat?" Marcus retorted, as if it were a given, "I’m even imagining using it to communicate with other players in real-time while playing MUD games."

MUD is a fantasy role-playing game that is text-based. It’s very popular among computer users because of its multiplayer interaction aspect.

Although David didn’t think of the software as a communication tool for games, in his mind, it was nothing more than to facilitate communication between people.

"In fact, I didn’t develop this software just for these things, that is to say, its target audience isn’t the general user."

Dean pointed in the direction of the library, "Even NSFnet would struggle to support its operation, especially once the user base grows to a certain extent, the school’s network administrators might come looking for us."

The limitations of NSFnet were too many, and Dean had no plans to get involved too early. Price’s List is the perfect example, unless he operated it as a non-profit site.

The software currently in development was the same; if Dean wasn’t thinking of making money off of it, then just designing a good instant chat feature would be enough.

But with his ambitious plans, Dean wanted to add voice communication features. He hadn’t spent so much effort just for the sake of geek dedication.

After hearing his explanation, it took a moment for Marcus’s eyes to widen before he exclaimed, "Shit! Dean, are you thinking of making money with it? Is this a proprietary software?!"

"Mmm-hmm~" Dean nodded matter-of-factly, "What’s so surprising about that? Silicon Valley has so many software companies with profit as their goal."

"Mother F*cker, I just..." Marcus gestured with his hands, "I just... think this might be a bit too soon? I’ve always thought I would wait until after graduation to consider these things. David, what do you think?"

"It’s a bit unexpected, but it makes sense," David shrugged, "Dean has put in his effort, and it’s up to him to decide whether to charge for the software or not."

"Wow~" Marcus seemed to have just accepted this reality, "It’s just like Stanford, where there’s barely a clear boundary between business and academia."

"Don’t forget, Marcus. Many of the founders of companies here in Silicon Valley were once professors at Stanford," said Dean, referring to the founders of Silicon Graphics, MIPS, Sun Microsystems.

They had all been teaching at Stanford before setting off to start their own enterprises.

This was all thanks to Stanford’s strong business atmosphere, so it wasn’t strange to David that Dean was thinking of developing a commercial software while still in school.

It was Marcus who reminded him, "Dean, remember Stanford operates on a quarter system. If you can spare the energy to develop software amid the barrage of professors’ assignments, I have no objections."

"Don’t worry, this software isn’t that urgent. Besides, we also need to first get familiar with two new technical specifications, IRC and G7.22."

"So, how do you plan to solve the issues of the server and the large data packet capacity?" Although Marcus vaguely grasped something, he still hadn’t fully understood the reasoning.

"Of course, by excluding them outside," Dean pointed in the direction of Silicon Valley, "Every company there has its own server, and they’ve set up their internal LANs.

Within the LAN, G7.22’s broadband audio sampling rate will no longer be a problem; it may even become the optimal environment for our software."

IRC servers can simply use the existing equipment of the enterprises, which will not incur additional costs for them.

As for the internal LANs of companies, that’s even better. There are no limitations on the transmission speed, and as long as the gateway and other hardware can keep up, the quality of voice communication won’t suffer any discounts.

With a 64kbit/s sampling rate, it will perfectly showcase the parameters of the new specifications and bring the quality of voice communication up to par with mainstream telephones.

Upon hearing Dean’s analysis, Marcus and David’s eyes lit up, "Cool~ Truly a brilliant idea!"

"So Dean, what’s the name of this software?"

"Teams," Dean snapped his fingers, and that settled on its name.

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