1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 30



Only Noblemtl

Episode 30 – Garage Factory

“President Jeminan came by?”

“Yeah, I’m wondering if I should tell this to CEO Seo or not. He kicked me out anyway. But I feel uneasy if I don’t tell him. There might be a misunderstanding later.”

President Jeong of Modu Electronics gave a detailed account of President Jeminan’s visit over the phone.

“I guess they were trying to distribute the game since they failed at copying it.”

“When CEO Seo suggested moving the warehouse, I honestly wondered if it was really necessary to go that far. But when I saw Ho-seung suddenly appear as soon as CEO Seo left, my heart sank.”

“How did the timing turn out so well? We need to be careful too.”

“That’s right. I checked the warehouse right away, and just in case, I put another lock on the store here. At that time, Ho-seung’s eyes were not ordinary. This wasn’t the Ho-seung I knew. Oh, really. What is money….”

I could hear President Jeong’s deep sigh over the phone. I don’t know President Jeminan personally, but as someone who used to work with President Jeong, I felt that this strained relationship was very uncomfortable.

But then, at that moment, a scary thought crossed my mind.

“Just a minute. But sir.”

“huh?”

“Can we trust the company that will produce the game ROM cartridges?”

“Oh, then! How many years have I known you?”

“Does the boss there have nothing to do with Jeminan?”

“No, that is···.”

Mr. Jeong couldn’t answer. The Rompack manufacturer is the best place to extract the data. That’s where the original data is received. I asked urgently.

“Have you already handed over the data?”

“No, not yet. The floppy disk that Representative Seo gave me is still in my chest pocket.”

“First of all, that’s fortunate. There really isn’t a place that Jemi’s hands can’t reach.”

“I guess so. I’ve been here for a few years, and in the past year or two, my business has grown significantly. You could say I do business with almost every decent place. In this area, the big shots are the big shots.”

“So, are you saying that there is no company that makes ROM packs that is not under the influence of Geminian?”

“You’ll find it if you look for it. If you lie, I won’t know either.”

“Then where will they make it? If the source code gets to Geminian, won’t they make an identical copy of and sell it? Even in terms of distribution, Geminian is much stronger now, right?”

“Right. Huh···.”

Since the Copyright Act was enacted in 1987, if Jeminan or anyone else steals the data of , copies it, and releases it, a lawsuit is possible.

If we go to court, we will obviously have a much greater advantage. We have a lot of evidence and can rely on the power of a large law firm.

However, it will take a long time until the lawsuit results come out, and in the meantime, countless pirated copies will be sold. Even if you win the lawsuit, you may end up losing in the end.

Maybe I’m worrying for nothing. Maybe the CEO is just getting excited because things aren’t going his way and he’s stirring things up here and there.

But once I started to doubt, I couldn’t trust anyone. If I were to be complacent and lose my data, Starbeat would start off in the mud. I absolutely wanted to avoid that.

“Then what should we do, CEO Seo? First of all, the place I know is also a place that Ho-seung knows. I told all the game shops that I can send the game before Christmas. Should I tell them now that the release might be delayed a bit? I think we’ll have to look into a new company that’s a bit further away.”

I thought about what to do for a moment. There was one thing that was the most obvious thing I could do right now.

“Mr. Jeong, is the machine that puts data into the ROM chip expensive?”

“Huh? Why is that? Representative Seo, really···?”

“Yes, if you can’t trust the company, you can do it yourself.”

“Oh, that’s true. It might not be that easy to make 5,000 of them.”

“That may be true, but we can’t risk having our data stolen. And we don’t want to delay the release either.”

“Yes, that’s right. What Representative Seo said is a hundred percent right. It’s okay if I have to stay up all night to do it. Okay. As far as I know, it’s not that expensive. I’ll get the machine myself.”

“Yes, don’t worry about the cost. Just get me a good one.”

“Okay, then where should I buy it and do it? Our store would be too obvious. People would come and go. Should I look for an empty factory? Or should I try to get the manager of the newly leased warehouse to understand?”

“No. I know a good place, so if you’re looking for a machine, please contact me.”

“Oh? I see. I feel very secure because Representative Seo is here.”

President Jeong hung up the phone.

It may seem like I’m overdoing it, but since it’s my first game, I’m even more nervous. Since it’s come to this, I think I should finish the first game with my own hands.

Then I also need to set up a work space.

***

The next day, the CEO of Modu Electronics and Yang Geun-seok drove a truck to the place I told them about.

“Is this… the place you were talking about?”

“Yes, it’s spacious and nice. There’s also a heater, so it’s not cold at all. There was a car that just came into the service center, so there was an empty space.”

“Ah···, I see. That’s good.”

Mr. Jeong looked at our garage with a look on his face that seemed unsure of what to say.

“Many famous computer companies started out in garages. But that’s not the case in Korea. There are very few houses with garages. I suddenly remembered that and told you to come here. Also, if you stay here, Gemini will never be able to find us.”

“That’s true. Even if I died and came back to life, I would never have imagined that I would be making the ROM pack here. Hehe. Even so, Representative Seo, you are truly a strange person.”

Finding an empty office space to use for a while wasn’t a difficult task.

But then I thought of the warehouse startups in the US. I was so envious of them, and although it was a bit dreary, I still wanted to try to emulate them.

Moreover, since everything about was made in this house, it seemed meaningful that the first product of came out here.

“Hey, Geun-seok. Let’s get the stuff down first.”

We all unloaded the boxes from the electronics truck. Each box contained a case, a ROM-pack cartridge shell, a ROM-pack circuit board, and a ROM chip.

“I thought there wouldn’t be that many cartridges, but there are 5,000, so it’s more than I thought.”

“Well, even if you do it all day, it won’t be enough. Now, this is the machine. It’s a ROM writer that stores data on ROM chips. And this box here is the ROM chip, which is the core of the ROM pack. It’s 5,500 PROMs (Programmable Read Only Memory) that can store data only once. I bought plenty in case there’s an error.”

“Well done. This is a ROM lighter. This is my first time seeing one in person. It’s smaller than I thought.”

I looked at the ROM lighter, a small box that could be held in one hand. There were small holes spaced evenly in the center of the machine where the ROM chip could be inserted.

“Then shall we give it a try?”

I set up a desk in the garage and set up a computer there in advance.

President Jeong connected the ROM writer to the computer and installed the ROM writing program on the computer. When he loaded the data, the program immediately converted the data into digital data of 0 and 1 for each address to be stored in the ROM chip.

“Okay, here, set the number of legs according to our ROM chip specifications, insert the chip in the socket with the right orientation, and lower the lever. Then, when you give the write command···!”

In less than a minute, the ROM writer finished inputting data into the ROM chip. Yang Geun-seok carefully soldered the ROM chip to the circuit board. He inserted the circuit board, which had not yet been assembled with the cartridge shell, into the Gemix.

“Is everyone ready?”

“Hey, hey, try it. Representative Seo.”

President Jeong also seemed a bit nervous as he urged me on. Yang Geun-seok swallowed hard.

“One, two, three!”

I counted to three and then turned on the Jamix.

After a moment, the screen lit up, the Jemix loading screen flashed, and the title screen appeared.

“Okay! Huh? Okay. It works! Hehehehe!”

“Hey, Namjoon. This is amazing.”

The three of us breathed a sigh of relief and rejoiced.

I played the game. I got past the intro and started on stage 1. It ran just fine, just like it did on my MSX computer.

I was thrilled to see that the game I made was running on Gemmix as a real ROM pack, not an emulator.

“Wow, it may seem like nothing special, but it feels different when you try it yourself.”

President Jeong said with a moved expression. I nodded too.

It would have been easier if I had found another manufacturer and left it to them, but I would never have felt this way about making and finishing it with my own hands.

“This is the first , so I’ll keep it.”

I placed the plastic cartridge shell on the ROMPAK board and tightened the screws. I attached the extrusions and numbered them.

[Emergency stairs 0001/5000]

“Okay, then let’s get started for real. If we’re going to do 5,000, there’s no time to rest. Come on, let’s do it!”

President Jeong and Yang Geun-seok took off their coats and started working. We divided up the work thoroughly to save even a little time.

After President Jeong put the data into the chip, Yang Geun-seok soldered it to the ROM pack board, and I assembled the cartridge shell after testing.

“Please have some of this while you do this.”

While I was working, my mother came into the garage carrying some snacks, fruit, juice, and other food.

“Oh my, ma’am. What is this?”

“I’ve heard a lot from Namjoon. He said he helps a lot with game development. Thanks to him, my son is able to meet people and it’s great to see him working with someone like this. Thank you so much.”

“Oh my, what are you talking about? We are so lucky and grateful that we can work with Namjoon to create such an incredible game. This is something we couldn’t even dare to dream about before Namjoon came along.”

Mother and President Jeong bowed their heads several times to each other, expressing their gratitude. Yang Geun-seok stood rigidly at attention until his mother entered and exited the garage.

The work lasted all day. There were 5,000 pieces, and the process of writing data, soldering, testing, and assembling each piece took a long time.

“Oh my, this is going to be endless. Representative Seo, I’ll have to call in some reinforcements tomorrow. I’ll bring in a carefully selected group of trustworthy people, so don’t worry.”

President Jeong and Yang Geun-seok, who had been working late into the night, cleaned up and left. I was left alone in the garage to try making a ROM pack.

I copied the data onto the ROM chip and soldered it with the soldering iron that Yang Geun-seok had left behind. The solder melted and flowed down in an instant under the heated soldering iron.

“Oh, I screwed up.”

I think I tried it during practical training at school. Yang Geun-seok was able to finish it with just a few quick hand movements. I tried soldering the circuit board again.

“No. You can’t do that. How much lead are you going to use? You’re going to throw away the circuit board, you punk.”

“Mr. Chairman!”

I looked up and the chairman was watching me.

“Give it to me. I’ll show you how to do it.”

“The chairman?”

The chairman took the soldering iron and lead from me and started soldering. The chairman of a conglomerate was soldering a game ROM pack in his garage. It was a surreal scene.

The soldering I did was all clumped together, but the soldering the chairman did was even and neat. The chairman skillfully completed one ROM pack.

“Do you know how to solder?”

“Yes. When I was younger than you, I used to help your grandfather build or fix radios. He used to scold me for using too much lead. It was really scary. But he was so kind and gentle to his grandson. There were many times when I wondered if my father and your grandfather were really the same person.”

The chairman told a story from the old days while showing us how to solder.

“It reminds me of the old days. Back then, I couldn’t even eat until I finished the amount my father had set for me. He only gave me exactly the amount of lead I needed. I couldn’t give more or less, not even a little bit.”

I watched the chairman solder and followed his example. After a little practice, I soon got the hang of it.

“You’re doing pretty well now. You must be just like me, you’re good with your hands. You learn quickly.”

The chairman and I had a lot of conversations while creating together.

I felt strange. In my previous life, I didn’t have a good relationship with my father. I didn’t really sit around with him and talk like this.

My father didn’t understand that I was developing games. He asked me why I, with my smart head and good schooling, didn’t do something more respectable.

One time, I was so angry that I drove a foreign car that was a bit too much for me. Look at that. I became so successful because of the game I liked. Contrary to my father’s thoughts, games were very plausible and a valuable thing recognized by the world.

“I don’t plan on saving money and getting married quickly.”

But my father didn’t even get in the car and just went into the house. That was when I gave up on getting my father’s approval.

But now, I’m sitting next to another father and we’re making a ROM pack for a game I made.

The night deepened.

“It was fun after a long time. I guess I should go home now. I’m starting to get sleepy.”

“Yes, I’ll do it a little more and then go to sleep. Go to sleep first.”

“Yeah, and Namjoon.”

“Yes, father.”

“It’s fun once, but from now on, leave this kind of work to others. There are many subcontractors for Myungsung Electronics that can do this kind of thing meticulously. For a manager, time is much more valuable than money. I understand wanting to do it yourself, but now you have to learn how to trust and leave it to others.”

I nodded. This time the situation was a bit more urgent, but it was definitely the right thing to say.

“I don’t know much about games, but whenever something like this happens, always ask this dad for help. I think it’s good that you want to do everything on your own. But do what’s easier. And focus on what you’re better at. That’s how the company grows.”

“Okay, I understand. Then, can I ask you a favor?”

“That’s fast. Okay, tell me.”

“I would like to sell at the Myeongseong Electronics dealership in the future. Please help me get in.”

“Really? Of course it should be like that since it’s a company that Myungsung Electronics has invested in. Then let’s talk about it with the president of Myungsung Electronics. Should we start by selling mainly at our direct stores starting next year?”

“Yes! Thank you, Father.”

“Yeah, it hurts. Don’t stay up too late. I’ll go in first.”

My father waved and went into the house. On one side of the desk, there was a pile of copies of the I had made with the chairman, like a new memory.