Fueling the Digital Revolution
Yoo Jae-won was satisfied with his enthusiastic followers, the Esquires. The funds needed to invest in the new businesses of cable TV and ISP were being diligently raised in Japan right now. It would also be possible to acquire a cable TV company based in San Francisco or LA and launch on a grand scale from the very beginning.
After hearing the full explanation, Yoo Jae-won connected the prototype ADSL modem Henry Samuel had brought to a computer and tested high-speed internet. Even ISDN modems had felt fast, but with ADSL, the internet truly flew. Usenet, filled with countless images, loaded instantly, and the online download of ID Office—equivalent to dozens of 3.5-inch diskettes—finished in the blink of an eye.
Henry Samuel possessed exceptional talent in communications technology, which was why Yoo Jae-won had recruited him as president of NextCom. The results exceeded expectations. Finally, Yoo Jae-won did not forget to award bonuses to Henry Samuel and the development team that had created the ADSL modem. As a former developer himself, he never neglected to take care of his developers.
After sending off the delighted Henry Samuel, Yoo Jae-won fell into thought for a moment.
“Hmm, then I have a few things I need to prepare as well.”
The internet world was still dominated by text-based content. The spread of digital cameras was only just beginning, so almost no ordinary people used them. Only publishing companies, photographers who loved electronic devices, and early adopters interested in the latest products owned them. Image quality was not particularly good either.
Yoo Jae-won had already selected technologies like CMOS and CCD among those Vincent Greenhill absolutely needed to acquire and sent them over, but he had no intention of entering the digital camera market immediately. The same held true now. It was better to let the digital camera market follow its natural course. However, now that he had decided to provide high-speed internet connections using ADSL, he resolved to offer a little assistance.
“The very first thing to do is develop codecs, isn’t it?”
In 1991, the widely used image formats were BMP and PCX, both highly inefficient file types. BMP stored image pixels exactly as they were, so the higher the color depth and resolution, the larger the file size became. PCX did perform some compression, but its performance was poor. At present, with PC graphics limited to VGA level, it was not a major issue, but the era of 32-bit color was approaching rapidly.
A new format was needed—one capable of delivering vibrant full-color imagery, small file sizes, and fast decoding. It was not just about images. Once internet connection speeds increased, it would become possible to deliver video content beyond still pictures. Yet uncompressed video boasted enormous file sizes, making simultaneous distribution to large numbers of users impossible. That was why lossy compression codecs were necessary.
Typically, these codecs worked by boldly discarding details the human eye could barely perceive and continuously reusing data from previous frames. The better a codec could reduce video file size while maintaining high image quality, the higher its evaluation. Yoo Jae-won knew of many codecs that delivered image quality and speed far superior to anything currently available. In fact, it was not merely knowledge—the complete source code for those codecs was stored intact inside his Memory Palace.
“Still, releasing 21st-century level codecs right away would be too much.”
Of course, the impressive speed only applied when running on 21st-century computers. Those codecs were far too demanding for current 486 DX2 machines.
“Then JPG or MPEG-1 should suffice, right?”
JPG was a lossy compression codec for images, while MPEG-1 was for video. Both offered image quality and resolution appropriate for VGA graphics cards. However, MPEG-1 video was so heavy that even smooth playback—let alone encoding—was impossible on a 486 computer. At minimum, a Pentium PC was required for fluid performance. That said, adding a dedicated MPEG playback chip would allow smooth video even on 486 and 386 machines.
Another format derived from MPEG-1 was MP3. Video contained not only moving images but also audio, and MP3 applied lossy compression techniques to sound as well. Before MP3, there had been MP2, but MP3 quickly replaced it due to superior sound quality and compression efficiency.
“MP2 and the like are probably being actively developed in Europe right now.”
The same applied to JPG and MPEG. Research institutes operated by corporations and governments were surely working hard on related technologies. Therefore, he needed to release something using completely different algorithms from what they were developing. Naturally, Yoo Jae-won had already prepared everything through his master plan. It was simply being announced several years ahead of schedule.
“The places that would welcome this with open arms right away would be the adult video companies, wouldn’t they?”
Once internet speeds became fast enough to receive dozens of images instantly, high-quality image and video codecs would also emerge. There were companies ready to apply them immediately—the adult video producers who created content unsuitable for minors. They had always been at the forefront of technology and had driven the industry forward.
The first clear demonstration of their influence was the competition over video tape standards. The famous battle between Betamax and VHS remained fierce until the early 1980s. Betamax had the smaller tape size and superior image and sound quality. Yet in the end, the market chose VHS. Sony’s exclusive tendencies—refusing to easily license the technology to other manufacturers—and its additional restrictions against including violent or suggestive content had been problematic. Ultimately, adult video companies had no choice but to adopt VHS, and that became the decisive factor in Betamax’s defeat.
Now, adult video companies were serving as the vanguard of the internet, preaching its benefits to the world. Because NextCom was providing free top-level DNS servers, Yoo Jae-won was fully aware that several new adult video companies were registering IPs every single day. Thanks to this, Tim Berners-Lee, who had created the WWW service and even formed the W3 standardization association, had complained to Yoo Jae-won via ID Talk that this was not what he had intended.
If Yoo Jae-won had been an ordinary person, he might have reacted more strongly. But he showed no particular response. Although the current focus remained on image files due to internet transmission speeds, the growth rate of these companies was truly remarkable. As the number of companies increased, so did the number of users. Even in the 21st century, the adult content market had always maintained an enormous scale, so this was a natural development. Yoo Jae-won agreed with that assessment. That was why he had no intention of forcibly banning adult content in the name of maintaining a wholesome medium, as Sony had attempted.
“Hmm, leaked videos would need to be regulated, of course.”
In Korea as well, there had been famous leaked videos, and some people had turned to the internet specifically to view them. However, since such content violated personal rights and dignity, he was determined to strictly block the sharing of illegal videos.
“Besides, the internet is not only about adult content.”
There were countless ways to properly utilize the internet. “Still, it would be a shame to exclude games. Multiplayer games are fun, and MMORPGs are outstanding content as well.”
If adult video companies were the ones who had discovered and cultivated this new land called the internet, then the explosive growth that had sprung from that cultivated land was games. Games were the alpha and omega of the computer industry. Play was an essential part of human nature, and that play became games that dominated the 21st century. That was why Yoo Jae-won had marketed Android Alpha as a gaming operating system, and that lineage had been faithfully inherited by the official version 1.0 as well.
John Carmack of ID Software was meeting almost daily with engineers from video card manufacturers, working tirelessly to complete Glide X2. The president of Electronic Arts was so eager that he had offered five million dollars if they would immediately begin developing the sequel to Doom, but neither John nor Yoo Jae-won had any intention of starting the next project until Glide X2 was complete and video card manufacturers began releasing 3D accelerator cards. That did not mean the employees at ID Software who were not involved with Glide X2 were idle. They were diligently studying the relevant programs in preparation for full-scale 3D game development. Since the completion of Glide X2 was scheduled for early next year, a proper 3D game succeeding Doom would likely be released at the end of next year or early the year after.
When discussing games, Korea could not be left out. It was the country where the world’s first professional gamers and professional gaming leagues had emerged, thanks to the unique culture of PC bangs. The contribution of PC bangs to popularizing computers and the internet was beyond words. At the same time, two games were inseparable from PC bangs: StarCraft and Hyeolmaeng.
“Heh heh, I may not have StarCraft, but the developer of Hyeolmaeng is in my hands.”
Kim Taek-soo, who was diligently developing ID Office at the Seoul Rodeo Team, was the developer of Hyeolmaeng. Come to think of it, both games shared a common point. Games in similar genres had already paved the way before them. Hyeolmaeng was not the first large-scale online game. The same was true for StarCraft. Although StarCraft had perfected the real-time strategy genre, there had been an earlier game that had given its developers powerful inspiration.
“Was the title Dune? The developer was Virgin Games, right?”
Dune was released in 1992. In other words, it was before the game Dune had come out in reality, but to Yoo Jae-won, who possessed memories of his previous life, it felt like a very long time ago, and his recollection was hazy. Without the Memory Palace, the vast memories would have mixed chaotically and caused great confusion.
“The first MMORPG developer was Origin.”
Yoo Jae-won immediately wrote down the names Virgin Games and Origin on a note. If Henry Samuel, president of NextCom, was responsible for the hardware that would compose the internet, then Yoo Jae-won would be responsible for the content that would travel across high-speed internet.
“Then should I establish a separate entertainment company altogether?”
Unlike packaged games, internet-based games operated on an entirely different scale. With multiple expansion packs continuously accumulating content, the file sizes became enormous, and server systems capable of handling large numbers of simultaneous users had to be properly established. Therefore, rather than keeping it under the umbrella of ID Technology, launching it as an independent business entity would offer significant advantages.
Whatever the case, the flow was favorable. On the other hand, someone on the opposite side from Yoo Jae-won was not faring so well. It was Kim Hyuk-soo of Ilseong Group.
“We have an answer. It’s ID Group.”
From the information team leader, who looked thoroughly exhausted, came a name Kim Hyuk-soo had never imagined.
“What? ID Group? Why would that name come up here?”
Kim Hyuk-soo had strongly suspected Mirae Group as the backer. After all, it had been the most lukewarm participant in the so-called Busan Group rescue movement that had quietly occurred among the chaebols. Yet ID Group? Kim Hyuk-soo had no idea how to respond.