Egg PC's Comdex Conquest
Two days had passed since Yoo Jae-won's Digital Revolution conference. Normally, the first day of any major event drew the largest crowds, with attendance steadily declining afterward. But Comdex '89 was different. While most booths saw fewer visitors as the days went on, one booth experienced the opposite: ID Technology's. The undisputed star attracting explosive interest was the Egg PC. For the first time, consumers encountered a PC that broke free from the rigid, ivory-or-black boxes that had dominated the market. Its transparent casing was novel enough, but the real innovation was a complete system barely larger than its monitor. A built-in handle made it easy to carry, and powering it on or off was simplicity itself. The main drawbacks were difficult disassembly and limited expandability, yet only one in a thousand users ever filled every expansion slot, so it hardly mattered. The sound card was integrated into the motherboard, saving a slot, and the built-in speakers delivered surprisingly rich audio despite their compact size.
Television and newspapers hailed the Egg PC as Comdex's most innovative new product. Naturally, curious Americans flocked to see it. Not only ordinary attendees but also numerous buyers lined up at the ID Technology booth, forming long queues. The interest was genuine. Buyers left with detailed quotes, and some even placed firm orders during the show itself. Best Buy alone had already committed to a thousand units. Reactions to ID Talk and AES-256 were equally strong. The surge in downloads overwhelmed not only ID Technology's own BBS and FTP servers but also multiple third-party sites hosting ID Talk, causing temporary outages. Even CompuServe's massive servers struggled under the load.
The praise was well deserved. Though ID Talk ran on DOS, its underlying technology belonged to the twenty-first century. Multi-user connectivity, message encryption, and seamless file sharing for documents and images were all fully realized. When connection quality was good, transfer speeds far surpassed anything traditional PC communications could offer. Within a single day of launch, over thirty thousand users had registered on ID Technology's servers. At this pace, the million-user mark seemed achievable within a month. Inquiries about AES-256 poured in as well. Several companies, impressed by the unexpectedly low licensing fees, began seriously considering adoption—an unmistakable sign that ID Technology's business reach was expanding rapidly.
As ID Technology basked in brilliant sunlight, shadows inevitably fell elsewhere. The chill of that lunar shadow fell squarely on Microsoft. The day after ID Technology unveiled the Egg PC and ID Talk, Chairman Gates launched his own product announcement in a grand venue: Portable Word and Portable Excel. These were essentially Sharp electronic dictionaries running MS-DOS with Word and Excel installed. The device featured a QWERTY keyboard, slightly expanded memory, and ran on three batteries. Had it been properly executed, even Yoo Jae-won might have bought one; with his frequent travel, the ability to work during flights and layovers would have been invaluable. Yet the fatal flaw was its pitifully short runtime—only two and a half hours on three batteries. The LCD screen was abysmal: large pixels crammed into a tiny display meant very little content fit on screen. The CPU, a TI 8088-compatible chip, was sluggish to begin with and became even slower under load. Rapid typing produced ghostly lag as characters appeared seconds late. Most critically, transferring files to or from another computer required a proprietary external floppy drive and custom cables; no standard connection existed.
Despite Microsoft's media connections filling articles and magazines with glowing reviews, anyone who actually handled the device at Comdex offered scathing criticism. Gates himself seemed to sense the mood. The day after his announcement, he skipped the show floor entirely and returned to Seattle headquarters. Yoo Jae-won felt a twinge of disappointment; had Gates visited the booth, he might have secured an autograph while savoring the man's sour expression.
Comdex '89 proceeded smoothly without further incident. Yet every grand festival must end, and the curtain finally fell after several days. As a computer product exhibition, Comdex featured no direct competition among participating companies, but on the final day the press corps voted for the Best Item. The result was clear:
- Comdex '89 Best Item
- ID Technology, Egg PC!
The award triggered an avalanche of calls—dozens, then hundreds per day—to the Korean distributor handling the low-cost Sambo Trigem line. Even greater volumes of orders flowed directly to ID Technology's flagship store. The Egg PC had not competed on price but on design and performance. Though more expensive than rival offerings, a few hundred dollars meant little in the premium segment where machines cost three to four thousand dollars. Just as luxury goods sell despite high prices, the Egg PC sold briskly at a premium. The flood of orders kept Sambo Computer's factories running around the clock, yet demand still outstripped supply. Additional production lines were hastily added, and rush orders went out to Intel, AMD, and Taiwanese motherboard makers. Even with notices warning that new orders would ship only the following year, the orders kept coming. Though the golden era of the 1980s was ending, a large and affluent middle class still possessed disposable income. Even at its higher price, the 486 Egg PC found plenty of buyers. Sambo Computer screamed under the strain—happy screams. They had always sold on low margins; this was their first experience selling at a premium.
Yoo Jae-won was not simply doing Sambo Computer a favor. Every Egg PC sold through the flagship store carried ID Technology's distribution margin. Moreover, each unit shipped with Android Alpha pre-installed and ID Office bundled as standard. After all calculations, ID Technology earned roughly three to four hundred thousand won per machine. Yet even after this triumphant Comdex, 1989 was not yet secure. The Security Challenge still had a month and several days remaining. Despite the source code being public, no vulnerabilities or successful cracks had surfaced. As a result, numerous institutions began concrete moves toward adopting the AES-256 encryption standard. The U.S. federal government alone ordered two thousand copies of ID Office. Once analysts confirmed the absence of backdoors, widespread adoption followed. Two thousand copies were merely the beginning; once federal agencies began processing official documents with ID Office, related departments would naturally follow, accelerating adoption through chain reaction.
Game software typically generates peak revenue in the first week after release before sales gradually taper. Wolfenstein from ID Software followed the pattern. Having sold 1.2 million copies by the end of October, it moved another 450,000 units afterward. Respectable numbers, yet the momentum had clearly slowed compared with the blistering pace of the first month-plus. Yoo Jae-won was unconcerned. In his previous life, an inferior version of Wolfenstein had maintained steady popularity and ultimately sold three million copies. There was no reason to believe the enhanced version, strengthened through collaboration with Yoo Jae-won, would perform worse. Still, the increased detail had also intensified the graphic violence, raising the possibility of attacks from parent-teacher associations. The influence of such groups in both America and Korea was formidable; complacency was impossible.
Calming the ID Software development team, buoyed by their sudden massive success, was another task. The Texas office remained in celebratory chaos. Several developers had already wrecked their bonus BMW M3s in reckless driving. John Carmack had divided the ten-million-dollar settlement from ID Technology equally among the team, forgoing any performance-based differentiation Yoo Jae-won would have imposed. Young men in their early twenties suddenly flush with cash inevitably created an extravagant atmosphere. Fortunately, Carmack's steady hand would soon restore focus, allowing preparation for the next project to begin.
A more tangible concern was the earthquake that had struck San Francisco the previous month. The magnitude 6.9 quake on October 17 at 5 p.m. had sent aftershocks rippling through Silicon Valley. This was one event even Yoo Jae-won could not prevent. Forewarned, he had dispatched the entire Silicon Valley staff to New York on a business trip ostensibly to support the Manhattan flagship store opening and reward the development team. The timing spared everyone from the disaster. The flagship store's glass interior had shattered completely, though the concrete structure itself suffered only minor cracks. The narrow escape fueled rumors among employees that Yoo Jae-won carried extraordinary luck. Regrettably, he had been unable to warn San Francisco's mayor in time; earthquakes strike in seconds, leaving no window for meaningful preparation. Moreover, the current mayor lacked significant political weight or capability. Yoo Jae-won had concluded that he could only do what lay within his power. Once the company grew larger, he planned to establish a seismic research institute and play the role of prophet on a grander scale.
The powerful quake had collapsed elevated highways, and smaller aftershocks continued at intervals. Staff who had avoided the main shock through the New York trip experienced several tremors upon return. Consequently, employees heading back to San Francisco after the Las Vegas event carried a faint undercurrent of anxiety. Yet Yoo Jae-won, recalling from his Memory Palace that no major damage had followed the initial quake, remained unconcerned.
Aboard the return flight, settled into the plush first-class seat, Yoo Jae-won fell into thought.
“Only the trial remains.”
To make 1989 truly successful, one final task awaited: the lawsuit. The Microsoft trial, which had begun with a temporary sales injunction, was now entering its substantive phase. As expected, ID Technology had filed a countersuit alleging damages from the unjust injunction, sabotage of ID Office stability through hidden code in MS-DOS 4.0, and violation of fair competition. Digital Research, another victim of Microsoft's monopolistic practices, had joined the action, further expanding its scope. Microsoft demanded sixty million dollars in compensation for losses caused by Android Alpha, while ID Technology and Digital Research together sought one hundred million dollars in punitive damages for abuse of monopoly power. The enormous claims required sixteen million dollars in court fees alone, marking it as the trial of the century. The entire nation, especially Silicon Valley's IT community, was riveted. Proceedings would commence on November 22.
“I'll finish this in one stroke.”
Having achieved overwhelming victory at Comdex, Yoo Jae-won was determined not to lose in court. Above all, he resolved to end the matter decisively rather than allow it to drag on, enriching only lawyers and the court.