Chapter 207 Ushers in the Industrial Open Source Era

On the high platform...

Yamamoto Ichiro felt as if he were watching an absurd farce.

Trading rubber for machine tools?

This was a primitive way of trading from a tribal society!

Yet, this very primitive method was crazily eroding Mazak's potential market share.

If this momentum were allowed to spread...

Forget about global dominance; the QT-10 wouldn't even be qualified to pick up the scraps.

Mazak had invested three years of R&D funding into this product. If it failed...

"Everyone, shut up!"

A shrill roar, amplified by high-powered speakers, forcibly tore through the noisy crowd.

Yamamoto Ichiro turned off the elegant symphony and completely dropped his facade.

He gripped the microphone like a gambler who had lost everything and was seeing red, roaring loudly:

"Everyone!"

"Please calm down!"

"The core of a machine tool is its CNC system! It is the brain!"

He pointed at the "Tianshu," his face full of contempt as he attempted a final struggle:

"As far as I know, this system from Red Star is as crude as a toy."

"While our Mazatrol system..."

"...is deeply developed based on Fanuc's top-tier architecture."

"That represents decades of accumulated technology!"

"If you buy these cheap machine tools..."

"...and later want to upgrade functions or install a fourth axis..."

"...this crude system won't support it at all!"

"When that time comes, this will truly become a pile of scrap metal!"

The previously fanatical crowd cooled down slightly.

Indeed, the CNC system was the soul of a machine tool.

Once the "brain" was dead, no matter how good the hardware was, it was useless.

Especially for those small and medium-sized enterprise owners from Europe.

Although they coveted low prices, they valued future processing capabilities even more.

If the system was too simplistic, it was indeed a major problem.

The crowd began to whisper, and some who had already pulled out pens to sign contracts pulled their hands back.

Seeing this, a cold sneer appeared at the corner of Yamamoto Ichiro's mouth.

This was the technological barrier.

No matter how low your price, it was pale in the face of an absolute technological generation gap.

Lin Xi stood below the stage, quietly listening to Yamamoto's rant.

He wasn't angry; he even felt like laughing.

This was the moment he had been waiting for.

"Mr. Yamamoto."

Lin Xi picked up the old-fashioned megaphone, his voice clear and bright.

"Since you mentioned the system and mentioned Fanuc..."

"Then I would like to ask everyone present a question."

Lin Xi ignored Yamamoto and turned to face the group of hesitant factory owners.

"The machine tools you buy back—are they your tools, or are they masters you've brought home to serve?"

Everyone was stunned, not quite understanding.

"Mr. Yamamoto, if I wanted to modify a low-level cutting logic on the QT-10..."

"For example, if I wanted to increase the torque output by 10%..."

"...during rigid tapping, could I change it myself?" Lin Xi asked.

Yamamoto Ichiro snorted coldly:

"Of course not! That is for safety."

"The logic is encapsulated; modifying it recklessly would burn out the motor."

"Then, if I wanted to replace it with a cheaper domestic motor..."

"...instead of the model specified by Fanuc, would the system still recognize it?" Lin Xi followed up.

Yamamoto Ichiro's expression changed slightly:

"Fanuc systems must, of course, be paired with Fanuc motors."

"This is to ensure optimal performance! It is also industry practice!"

"What a fine 'industry practice'!"

Lin Xi sneered, finally revealing his true intent:

"If I remember correctly..."

"...if Mazak machine tools do not use the servo motors specified by Fanuc..."

"...the system's computational efficiency is forcibly reduced by 30%, and it even frequently reports errors."

"Am I right?"

The entire venue erupted in an uproar.

Yamamoto Ichiro's face instantly turned pale, and cold sweat dripped down from his temples.

He opened his mouth but found himself unable to refute it.

Because this was code written into the low-level protocol.

It was a technological moat set up by Japanese manufacturers to monopolize profits from components.

The stream's chat scrolled rapidly:

[Hahaha, Yamamoto is stunned!]

[Is this the joy of having a God's-eye view?]

[Thanks to the user 'Industrial Archaeology Excavator' for providing the dirt—a precision strike!]

[Lin Xi: I don't produce the dirt; I'm just a porter of the dirt.]

"How did you..."

"How I know isn't important," Lin Xi interrupted him.

"What's important is..."

Lin Xi turned to the audience, his voice rising an octave:

"If you buy Fanuc and Mazak products..."

"...then you are not the masters of the machines at all."

"You are merely long-term laborers for Fanuc and Mazak!"

"You are slaves working for them!"

These words were like a heavy hammer, smashing ruthlessly into the hearts of everyone present.

It hit too close to home!

Which boss here hadn't suffered such treatment?

When a machine broke down, they clearly knew which capacitor had blown.

But because the system was encrypted, they had to wait for the original manufacturer's experts to fly in.

Only after they entered a string of passwords and replaced a sky-high priced circuit board could the machine be restarted.

This was the most suffocating technological hegemony of the 1980s.

"But at Red Star, we refuse to be slave owners."

Lin Xi stepped onto the display platform, one foot resting on the base of the "Tianshu," his posture bold and uninhibited.

"We open our low-level hardware bus protocols and process parameter interfaces!"

"What does 'open' mean?"

"You think our algorithm isn't good enough? Change it yourself!"

"You have a unique machining technique you want to write into the system?"

"No problem, I'll give you the modification permissions!"

"We don't sell black boxes; we sell a blank sheet of paper!"

"Whether you paint a Mona Lisa or just graffiti on this paper depends entirely on the skills of you bosses!"

This was open source.

In an era where everyone was busy building high walls of patents...

...Lin Xi directly swung a sledgehammer and smashed the walls to smithereens.

For the industrial world of 1982, this concept was nothing short of an ideological liberation movement!

The stream's chat was packed:

[Too ruthless! This move is simply unsolvable in the 80s.]

[Even if it's just limited interface open-sourcing and the core code is still in their hands, for these people who are used to being bullied by big companies, this is freedom!]

[Yamamoto: I've never seen such a brazen yet irrefutable tactic.]

[Being half a step ahead makes you a madman; being one step ahead makes you a genius. The Streamer is directly three dimensions ahead.]

[This is going to fill in Fanuc's ecological moat!]

"My God..."

The mechanical factory owner from Lyon dropped his cigar on the ground.

With trembling hands, he took off his glasses and wiped them.

"Are you saying..."

"...I can write my own ancestral gear grinding logic into this machine?"

"Of course!"

Lin Xi spread his arms as if embracing the whole world.

"The machine is yours; you use it however you want!"

"Even if you don't want to use our motors and want to switch to Siemens..."

"...or some cheap local product..."

"As long as the interface matches, the system will never lock the machine!"

Checkmate.

This was a complete checkmate!