The Prodigy's Visit
The smallest booth at the Android Begins event was a single stall no larger than three pyeong. With only one computer desk and a single machine inside, the space felt cramped. What set this modest Hangul booth apart was that, aside from one person, every member was a university student. They were current students and recent graduates of Seoul National University, Korea’s most prestigious institution, their faces still bright with youth.
The driving force behind the development of the Arae-a Hangul word processor was Lee Chan-soo, a mechanical engineering graduate. Together with Kim Hyeong-jip, Woo Won-sik, and Kim Taek-jun—whom he had met through the SNU Computer Research Club—they had resolved to create a Korean word processor unlike any other. Roughly a year after their alliance formed, they released version 0.9 beta in March on KETEL and other PC communication services. After incorporating user feedback to refine the program, they launched the official 1.0 version at the end of April.
Finding a retailer proved difficult. The only outlet was a tiny shop in Sewoon Electronics Market run by acquaintances of the development team. The store, Lovely Computer, agreed to stock and sell the product, though distribution remained haphazard at best. The packaging itself, however, had been crafted with genuine care. It contained three 5.25-inch 2D diskettes along with a thick manual, all housed in a premium case made of plastic and PVC. The case was designed to resemble a Korean dictionary. Priced at 47,000 won, it was deliberately set low. MS Word, which required a separate Hangul card for Korean editing, cost nearly twice as much.
Even at that affordable price, sales through July 18 had fallen far short of expectations. Lee Chan-soo visited Lovely Computer every day to check the numbers, and each visit brought fresh disappointment. The highest single-day sales had been ten copies—an occasion that left him elated. More surprising still was that one customer had purchased all ten packages at once. Most companies bought a single copy and circulated it among their machines, thanks to rampant piracy. Praise for Hangul 1.0 had been overwhelming, yet poor sales stemmed entirely from illegal copying; of that, Lee Chan-soo was one hundred percent certain. The fact that someone had bought ten copies suggested an organization installing legitimate versions on every machine—an upright company with integrity. He had even considered writing a thank-you letter.
After that day, however, no further bulk purchases materialized. Selling three or four copies a day counted as a good result; some days nothing sold at all. Monthly tallies still reached thirty to fifty units, enough to offer modest compensation to the juniors who had helped. When the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications announced its Information and Communications Software Exhibition, Lee Chan-soo decided to participate. Even a single mention of Hangul in a reporter’s article would help, and with luck they might meet a generous buyer willing to place a large order. He also harbored quiet hopes of winning an award; he took genuine pride in the program’s features.
The WYSIWYG editing, eight Korean and Roman bitmap fonts, support for 180 DPI dot-matrix printers, special character input, and line-drawing functions were all competitive with Microsoft Word while offering superior Korean support. “Chan-soo hyung! Have you seen the ID Technology booth?”
Kim Taek-jun, the last to arrive because of classes, asked the question. Among the Hangul developers, he had worked the hardest after Lee Chan-soo and possessed the strongest programming skills. His voice carried genuine surprise.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I saw it.”
Setup at Jangchung Gymnasium had begun on the sixteenth. Lee Chan-soo had been the first to arrive. With no job lined up after graduation, he had plenty of time, and his dream was not to join a chaebol but to found his own company—one that would continue developing the Hangul word processor. That gave him ample opportunity to watch ID Technology’s staff assemble their booth. The confidence that had filled Lee Chan-soo evaporated the moment he saw how dazzling their installation was. Watching them set up rows of brand-new computers left his jaw hanging. Each 386 machine cost as much as fifty Hangul packages, and every unit came with a color monitor and VGA card as standard. Most shocking of all was ID Office itself. While he had created only a word processor, ID Technology had built a full office suite. Its elegant VGA graphics were breathtaking, and features like line drawing and table creation were basic. The ability to instantly convert large spreadsheet data into graphs or tables and paste them directly into the word processor was simply staggering.
To Lee Chan-soo, who had believed that piracy was the only obstacle between Hangul and massive success, a formidable rival had appeared—more than formidable; it was overwhelmingly superior. Even someone as proud as he felt his spirits sink.
“Hyung! That booth is incredible, isn’t it? We should make one like that someday!”
“Yeah. Someday.”
Kim Taek-jun, oblivious to the wound he had reopened, continued gushing about ID Technology’s booth, especially the pretty assistants. Female classmates were rare in their department, so campus romance had always been a distant dream; instead they spent their days wrestling with machines. Seeing a girl their own age who was also skilled with computers had clearly left Taek-jun shaken.
“Huh? There’s a middle-schooler heading straight for us.”
They had just finished stapling a large “Arae-a Hangul” sign to the top of the booth and were about to add the slogan “A domestically developed word processor embodying the principles of Hangul creation.” Kim Taek-jun, who had contributed nothing but chatter since arriving late, pointed out the approaching figure. A middle-schooler? The exhibition had not even started yet. Lee Chan-soo looked up and saw a neatly dressed boy walking directly toward them. Though his face was youthful, the casual suit made him look like the scion of a wealthy family—definitely middle-school age at most. A young man who might have been a guardian or bodyguard accompanied him.
Before Lee Chan-soo could wonder what was happening, the boy stopped in front of him and spoke.
“Excuse me, are you Lee Chan-soo, the creator of Arae-a Hangul?”
Yoo Jae-won approached with the sharp gaze of a hawk eyeing its prey.
“Uh? Oh, yes. That’s me.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Yoo Jae-won. I’m the president of the ID Technology booth over there.”
“ID Tech… Wait! That elementary-school founder?”
Only then did Lee Chan-soo connect the boy before him with the news stories he had heard countless times. He had been so absorbed in developing Hangul that he had missed the period when Yoo Jae-won frequently appeared in the media. He had caught snippets through industry contacts and even looked into the story out of curiosity, but he had never imagined the actual person would seek him out. The doubt showed plainly on his face; he was not the sort to hide his thoughts.
Yoo Jae-won stated his purpose without hesitation.
“I downloaded the beta version you uploaded to KETEL and tried it. I was genuinely impressed by how thoughtfully the features were implemented. At the time I was deep into developing ID Office, so your work made me tighten my focus even more. I wanted to meet the person responsible.”
Receiving praise from someone he himself respected lifted Lee Chan-soo’s mood, though not enough to erase his earlier discouragement. He had not used ID Office himself, but the gulf in sophistication between the two programs was obvious even at a glance. If Arae-a Hangul had to compete with older programs like Geulgeul or Papyrus, ID Office was already capable of challenging Microsoft itself.
“You… wanted to meet me? Why?”
It was hard to believe the boy standing before him had created such an impressive program, and even harder to guess why he had come in person to offer compliments. ID Technology was clearly the star of the exhibition, while he felt like an afterthought. The self-deprecation might have sounded excessive, but after graduation Lee Chan-soo had faced a cold reality and failed to secure even a proper distribution channel; the feeling was natural.
“Naturally, because I have a proposal for you.”
“Really?”
Lee Chan-soo felt a flicker of hope. Perhaps ID Technology was interested in distributing Hangul or licensing its technology. Yet the question that followed fell outside his expectations.
“Before that, do you have any plans after the release of Hangul 1.0?”
It sounded less like a question about the word processor and more like an inquiry into his own future.
“Ah, well… I don’t have anything concrete yet.”
“Come on, you must have at least a vague dream.”
“If it’s just a dream… I’ve always wanted what you achieved—Hangul 1.0 selling well enough to build a proper company. A company that keeps developing the Hangul word processor. Though the current situation looks pretty bleak.”
Perhaps because Yoo Jae-won was so young, Lee Chan-soo found himself revealing thoughts he rarely shared even with close friends.
“I see.”
It was the answer Yoo Jae-won had expected. After releasing Hangul 1.0, Lee Chan-soo would go on to found a company called Hangul and Computer the following year. As he had said, it would be a company dedicated to developing the Hangul word processor. Successive versions would grow more refined and feature-rich, eventually becoming the standard in government and corporate environments—the only country where Microsoft Word never achieved total dominance. Yet a single word processor could never defeat an entire office suite. When the IMF crisis struck, the company went bankrupt. It survived restructuring only to be passed from owner to owner. By the 2010s its influence had waned. Without the government adopting HWP, Hangul’s native file format, as a standard, the company would likely have closed much earlier.
“ID Technology will continue developing its office suite, including the word processor, for the foreseeable future.”
“Right, of course.”
Lee Chan-soo wanted to say that he would keep striving too, so they should stay on their toes, but the technological gap was simply too vast.
“Actually, I need to focus on something else.”
“Something else?”
“Heh, operating system development. We can’t keep using computers on top of that rigid DOS forever. The 386 has been out for a while, yet we still aren’t fully utilizing its performance. The 486 is even worse. I’ve tried it—running DOS on a 486 is a waste of money. So I’m building an operating system with a graphical interface that’s both easy to use and capable of drawing out the full power of the 486.”
Both Lee Chan-soo and Kim Taek-jun were stunned. Creating a full office suite was already an enormous undertaking. Now the same person intended to build an independent operating system as well—an ambition few would even consider.
“That’s why I’m looking for people to take charge of ID Office development in my place. I’ll still set the overall direction, but I need a lead programmer and producer to head the development team.”
“W-wait, you don’t mean…”
“Yes. I’m seriously considering you, Chan-soo. If you’re interested, please get in touch.”
Yoo Jae-won took a business card from his pocket and handed it over. The ID Technology logo was embossed in gold foil, and the title “President Yoo Jae-won” stood out clearly. The address of ID Technology’s Seoul branch was printed in tiny letters at the bottom; the most important phone number was on the back. Lee Chan-soo stared at the card for a long time.
“By the way, who is this gentleman?”
At Yoo Jae-won’s question, Lee Chan-soo quickly introduced Kim Taek-jun.
“Ah, this is Kim Taek-jun, my junior. He’s in electronic engineering at SNU, so he’s a real computer expert. He was the biggest help during the development of Arae-a Hangul.”
Kim Taek-jun! Yoo Jae-won had not expected to meet him here. Taek-jun would become a pioneer of Korea’s online game industry, achieving explosive growth with Lineage, a game that delivered unprecedented immersion. He would also popularize partial monetization, emptying gamers’ wallets—though the games were genuinely fun, so players kept paying. Yoo Jae-won himself had enjoyed titles from Taek-jun’s company. He wondered why he had not recognized such an important figure until the introduction.
Looking closely at Kim Taek-jun’s face now, however, he realized the man before him looked quite different from the version in his memories. The Kim Taek-jun who appeared in the media had already achieved great success; the years between now and then had left their mark. The young man standing here radiated vitality, whereas the Taek-jun Yoo Jae-won remembered had carried the visible weight of heavy burdens.
“If Chan-soo hyung recommends you, I can’t afford to let you slip away.”
Yoo Jae-won produced another card and gave it to Kim Taek-jun as well.
“Our company doesn’t only make stiff office programs. You’ve heard of our first hit, Keyboard Warrior: Zombie Crush, right? We haven’t planned anything yet, but we’re also considering game development, so don’t think of us as boring.”
He added the reassurance just in case Kim Taek-jun might refuse to join because he wanted to make games. Operating systems, office suites, and games—the three business areas ID Technology needed to dominate. Yoo Jae-won would handle the OS himself, Lee Chan-soo the office suite, and Kim Taek-jun the games. That would form a perfectly stable triangle.
After handing out the cards, Yoo Jae-won stayed a few more minutes to build rapport, then reminded them to contact him before returning to his own booth. The exhibition was about to begin.