14: Father's "traditional methods" and systemic recognition

Excellence, as if carrying a ticking time bomb, "rescued" the heavy, old equipment exuding the scent of old metal and dust from the auction dinner, and carefully protected it all the way back to the dormitory.

After escaping the suffocating atmosphere of the banquet, he let out a long sigh of relief, impatiently placed the iron box on his desk cluttered with scraps and tools, and expectantly unscrewed the casing's fixing screws.

With a dull "creak," the rusted casing was pried open, revealing the mysteries within.

The sight before him caused the anticipation on Excellence's face to freeze instantly, and the corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

The traces of passing years solidified here into concrete form.

As far as the eye could see, it was a labyrinth of tangled, old-fashioned cables, the crude insulating rubber long since cracked and hardened, exposing the dull copper cores inside.

The circuit board was an ancient phenolic paper substrate, its edges worn and frayed, covered with various components now only seen in textbook pictures: bulky vacuum tubes with dark yellow glass casings, some with dried solder flux still hanging on the tube sockets; thick wire-wound resistors and massive oil-paper capacitors, looking like battle-hardened, chubby soldiers; dense clusters of solder points like age spots, covering the dust-laden component leads and oxidized, blackened solder pads.

Several huge coils were fixed to coil frames, with green verdigris covering the exposed enameled wire.

The air was filled with a unique scent, a mixture of aged dust, a faint smell of burning, and the indescribable decay of electronic products.

"This... can this thing really be modified and used?" Excellence felt his scalp tingle, and a huge sense of powerlessness instantly gripped him.

Let alone integrating it into his rudimentary brain-wave interaction system, just identifying the parameters and connection relationships of those ancient components was enough to make him shudder.

He thought he had found a savior, but now it looked more like he had brought back a dumpster for electronic waste.

He sat blankly in his chair, looking at this antique from the fifties, and then at the cheap brain-wave cap on the table and the code editor that kept throwing errors, and a sense of despair spread once again.

The mission deadline was like a guillotine hanging over his head, and the system's punishment was like the Sword of Damocles.

Ask the system for help? All he would get would be the cold "Please, host, overcome the difficulties yourself" or another modification guide he couldn't understand.

After pacing around anxiously twice, a thought emerged like a faint light in the darkness.

He carefully covered the device casing again (he really couldn't bear to look at it anymore), picked up his phone, took a deep breath, and dialed home.

The call connected, and his father's familiar and steady voice came through: "Hello, Xiao Yue?"

"Dad, it's me." Excellence tried his best to make his voice sound normal, "That... an old piece of equipment I got from school last time, I'm using it for my graduation project on... um... the history of electronic research..."

He wove a half-truthful lie, struggling to describe the device's "aging," "complex internal wiring," "severely rusted critical parts," and his desire to "attempt a functional restoration."

He avoided all real purposes regarding the system, tasks, and brain-wave interaction, only vaguely saying he needed to extract, amplify, and filter some "specific frequency electrical signals generated by weak, old-fashioned equipment."

He clumsily relayed the key parameters mentioned in the system list: the required gain, input impedance requirements, passbands (band-pass, band-stop), and even awkwardly spouted a few filter types (Butterworth? Chebyshev?), explaining it so poorly that even he felt he was stuttering and confused.

The father on the other end of the line was silent for a moment.

Excellence's heart jumped to his throat, fearing he would be pressed for details.

However, his father simply said: "Hmm, sounds like a complicated old thing. You wait, I'll tell Uncle Liu about the requirements; he knows more about this area and see if he can help."

His father's trust made Excellence's nose sting.

"Thanks, Dad..." His voice was a bit hoarse.

"Why be polite with family?" His father paused, a hint of undetectable concern in his tone, "You... nothing's wrong at school, right? You sound a bit tired?"

"No, nothing!" Excellence quickly denied, "It's just... just busy with studies. Dad, tell Uncle Liu not to go to too much trouble; I'm just giving it a try."

After hanging up, Excellence felt uneasy.

He really wasn't sure; no matter how capable Uncle Liu was, could he understand these technical terms based on experience? Could he understand his predicament over the phone? He himself only half-understood those parameter requirements.

One afternoon a few days later, Excellence received a text notification to pick up a package from the courier station.

He practically ran over, his heart full of anxiety and a weak glimmer of hope.

When he got the package, he was stunned.

The package wasn't small, but the weight clearly didn't feel like a refurbished machine had been sent back.

Unpacking the layers of shock-absorbing bubble wrap, inside was not the restored iron box he had imagined.

Instead, there were several circuit modules of different sizes, packed separately in transparent anti-static bags!

The style of these modules was completely different from the scraps from Pinduoduo; they were full of a rugged, hand-crafted "indigenous" feel.

The baseboards were the kind of green fiberglass epoxy boards common in industry, clearly hand-cut, with burrs and polishing marks still on the edges.

The boards were covered in "flying wires" made of thick copper wire, and the solder joints were full and solid, like tiny metal pearls, exuding a solid and reliable hand-crafted feel.

The components were brand new, the most ordinary surface-mount resistors and capacitors, plus a few op-amp chips that were clearly salvaged (but in very new condition), reasonably combined and arranged.

There were even "+" and "-" polarities and capacitance values handwritten in black marker on the capacitor casings.

There was no concise elegance of integrated chips, only the most primitive, straightforward combination of discrete components.

The entire style was extremely hardcore and rough, yet faintly revealed a kind of simple, violent aesthetic of functional supremacy.

Every cut, weld, and layout revealed the maker's deep practical experience and relentless pursuit of "usable," "useful," and "sturdy."

Along with the circuit modules was a square-folded sticky note, stained with a little oil and sweat.

On it was Uncle Liu's forceful, energetic handwriting—not neat, but full of power:

"Xiao Yue: The stuff inside your antique is rusted solid, and the parts can't be found. It's a pain to take apart, and it might not work even after you do! Based on what you said on the phone (the gain, filtering, and all those words, I pondered for a long time), I used new materials and good salvaged parts from the old warehouse to build these boards for you.

The parameters for the capacitors and resistors should all be tuned correctly; what needs amplifying is amplified, and the noise that needs filtering is filtered out!

Go ahead and connect them boldly; they'll definitely be better than your original rusted junk!

Our small factory doesn't have much else, but we're confident in making practical things! Let Uncle know if anything isn't right!"

Excellence read it word for word, his nose stinging.

He could imagine Uncle Liu at the old workbench in the factory, cluttered with tools, wearing reading glasses, comparing his half-understood parameter descriptions, flipping through drawings, checking manuals, finding components, and using those calloused but steady-as-a-rock hands to precisely measure and carefully solder.

These weren't just circuit modules; they were a lifeline carved out of desperation by two loved ones through the most simple actions and the purest craftsmanship!

He carefully picked up a signal amplification module; it felt heavy.

His fingertips traced the rough solder joints, feeling the warmth and strength contained within.

He didn't hesitate anymore and immediately set to work connecting them.

He connected the new module to his rudimentary experimental platform—one end connected to the output of the brain-wave cap from Taobao, and the other end to the USB sound card of his old laptop (used as an ADC).

Taking a deep breath, with a feeling bordering on pilgrimage, he turned on the power.

[Warning: External signal processing hardware detected... Scanning interface...]

The system's cold voice rang out.

[Scan complete. Identified as unknown model analog signal amplification and filtering combination module. Starting automatic calibration program...]

Rapidly scrolling data streams began to appear on the light screen, and complex waveform charts were constantly refreshing.

[Calibrating... Baseline noise level measurement... Gain coefficient verification... Passband frequency response test... Stopband attenuation rate analysis...]

Excellence's heart jumped to his throat, staring fixedly at the light screen.

[Calibration complete! New module performance evaluation:]

[Signal amplification factor: Stably reached 98% of the set requirements (system recommended value).]

[Input impedance: Meets the > 10MΩ requirement.]

[Noise level (wideband): Significantly reduced, Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) improved by approximately 31dB (the SNR of Excellence's original broken system was almost negative).]

[Band-pass filter effect: Center frequency deviation < 1%, -3dB bandwidth meets design requirements, stopband attenuation ≥ 40dB.]

[Comprehensive evaluation: Signal quality significantly improved, SNR significantly increased, frequency band selection and filtering effects reached 92% of the system's preset solution theoretical performance.

Completely satisfies the requirements of the [Mind Leap] task for front-end signal acquisition and primary processing!]

[Evaluation conclusion: This localized technical force has targetedly solved the current bottleneck problem and effectively supplemented the hardware shortcomings of the system solution.

The plan is reasonable, efficient, and worth promoting. Strongly recommend adoption!]

The system's cold voice sounded like music to Excellence's ears at this moment!

92%! An extremely close-to-perfect practical indicator!

And it was hand-crafted!

Using the most ordinary, cheapest components!

Excellence was completely shocked!

He stared blankly at those unadorned, even somewhat "unsophisticated" modules on the table, and then looked at the pile of precise yet cold photos of foreign chip samples with high-tech labels next to them; the impact in his heart was beyond measure.

Uncle Liu!

That master craftsman who only attended vocational high school, worked his whole life in a small processing factory on the outskirts of the city, and had thick calluses on his hands!

He had no profound theoretical knowledge, didn't understand complex mathematical models, but relying solely on the "feel" and experience accumulated over decades of circuit repair and industrial equipment debugging, accompanied by solder and a multimeter, using the most basic materials, he actually hand-crafted a signal processing core capable of meeting the hard requirements of a high-civilization system task!

This wasn't just a replacement or a patch!

This was completely a technical "translation" and transcendence built on a foundation of profound experience!

"Usable," "durable," "problem-solving"—this most simple engineer's creed exerted incredible power in Uncle Liu's hands.

He bypassed that pile of complex antique problems and directly used the most suitable, most cost-effective "modern indigenous method" to achieve the results Excellence needed.

"Uncle Liu... you are the real hidden master! A true top-tier hardcore electrician of the national server!"

Excellence whispered sincerely to the module that represented his father's and Uncle Liu's hard work, his tone full of admiration and gratitude.

He didn't delay any longer and immediately set to work connecting the original output wire of the Taobao brain-wave cap—which had been battered and cursed by him countless times—directly into the input of the "indigenous" amplification and filtering module that Uncle Liu had meticulously crafted.

He then connected the module's slightly rough output port to his data acquisition card.

The entire system seemed to have been injected with strong muscles and bones, instantly transforming from a malnourished child.

Putting on that familiar "thought cap" again, Excellence took a deep breath, trying hard to clear his mind (mainly trying not to think about the last failure and the impending punishment), his eyes staring fixedly at the small LED icon on the laptop screen that was blinking with the word "Standby."

He began to concentrate in his mind and recite the command: "Light! Off! Light! Off!"

Compared to the countless attempts before, the waveform monitoring chart on the screen now underwent a subtle but crucial change.

The original waveform chart was a "dump" of churning, noise-ravaged chaos.

No matter how hard Excellence tried to focus his spirit, the weak EEG features representing effective command signals (such as the μ-rhythm and β-rhythm changes related to activating the visual cortex when imagining "light" or activating the motor cortex when imagining motor commands) were all drowned in a vast ocean of noise: huge EMG interference (blinking, frowning, etc.), ubiquitous 50Hz power frequency interference, and his own physiological state (such as θ-waves generated by tension and anxiety), making them impossible to distinguish.

But now, after being filtered by the solid "levee" and precise "sieve" of Uncle Liu's module, the waveforms on the screen, while still fluctuating and jumping like a vibrant stream, were much clearer and cleaner!

Those huge, irregular noise spikes were significantly suppressed!

The neat "comb-like" waveforms representing environmental power frequency interference were also greatly weakened!

In their place, some relatively stable, rhythmic feature signals that were originally drowned in the chaotic ocean began to emerge like reefs!

Although they were still relatively weak and their forms not perfect, and would deform or disappear if Excellence's attention wandered slightly, they were now truly there and could be clearly captured!

[Effective EEG pattern feature signal detected! Signal-to-noise ratio significantly improved! Host, please maintain concentration and repeat the instruction pattern!]

The system's prompt voice carried a hint of positivity for the first time.

Hardware!

It really is the hardware foundation!

A surge of great excitement and realization welled up in Excellence's heart.

Without a solid physical foundation, even the most exquisite algorithms are castles in the air!

No matter how good the design concept is, it needs reliable components to realize it!

These simple modules from Uncle Liu were like replacing the piers of his wobbly wooden bridge with solid ones!

Although the days of understanding those complex rough set algorithms remained bleak, and debugging parameters still felt like groping in a maze full of thorns, at this moment, the path in front of him finally had a faint but real light.

He knew this road was still difficult, but with the support of Uncle Liu and his father, and with that seemingly rough but incredibly powerful "indigenous hardcore" in hand, he saw the meaning of persistence and the possibility of success.

The suffocating feeling of being crushed by the cold system and advanced technology was slightly relieved.

He adjusted the strap of his brain-wave cap, a stubborn flame reignited in his eyes, took a deep breath, and sank once again into that chaotic consciousness world that was pregnant with hope.

Light! Off! Light! Off!