It is snowing in Beijing today, and the beginning of 2020 is also a little special. The first batch of post-80s ushered in their own year of no misfortune, and the post-00s also entered the legal age of marriage. The epidemic is stable but still under pressure, and after experiencing SARS in 2003, I can better appreciate the harshness of today's 2019-nCoV.
That year, "Little Fan Xian Dongdong" had not yet been born, Xiao Zhan was only 12 years old, Yao Ming played in the NBA for the first season, Kobe Bryant had just won his first triple crown, and I graduated from college and came to Beijing to work as an editor in PCDIY magazine for less than a year. The current members of Soomal do not yet know each other. This is seventeen years ago, in 2003.
Audio: Sophie defected to iPod3 for the first time
In 2003, the PC had just experienced the so-called multimedia era of the 1990s, and China's HIFI had also cooled rapidly from the mid-to-mid-1990s, and PC-HIFI could not be talked about. The PC multimedia era has created Singapore's Creative Innovation Company, SBLive! After the glory. It was released by Audigy in 2001, Audigy2 in 2002, and Audigy2 ZS in 2003. Thanks to the powerful EMU chip, even if the sound card created by this chip is still a weapon for the current desktop platform K song and live broadcast. The EAX ambient sound effects of that year can beat today's Dolby Atmos even under the rudimentary sound conditions of the year. Unfortunately, Creative and innovation have become a common word.
Innovative Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold sound card
In 2003, it also witnessed the conversion of the first batch of "suo powder" into "fruit powder". Although the Sony MD celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2002, the design of the commemorative models N10 and E10 was amazing and absorbed countless powders, but the low-level mistakes of the metal surface drawing process control that would cause rusting greatly affected the production capacity and reputation of the E10. In 2003, it only costs about 1500 yuan to buy an N10, about 30% of the salary, there is not much pressure on the rental loan, although it can be afforded, but it is also a luxury.
iPod Classic and iPod3
The Apple iPod has also come to the third generation, which is also the generation of the iPod ushering in the inflection point. Orange backlights, capacitive turntables, double-layer injection molded apple white casings, and polished stainless steel backs appeal to more extravagant consumers. Most of these people are high-end fans with spending power cultivated by Sony in the 80s and 90s. I can have a few photos of the iPod 3 generation, also because I have such a rebellious fan friend.
Subsequently, Apple opened iTunes to support the Windows operating system, although this generation of iPods can only choose to support only Mac or only support Windows when formatted, but it was not an easy step for Apple at that time. After that, in 2004, Apple released the iPod mini, Shuffle, nano successively launched updates, Apple ushered in the glory of the player era.
In 2003, there were only a few models of small earbuds that could be bought in China, and the MX500 began to surpass Sony because of the hype of merchants, and Sennheiser's later smooth sailing in China should be thanked for that era. Sennheiser HD580, AKG K501 has been on the market for several years, the price of early 1000 yuan is slightly luxurious, and it is even more difficult to decide to buy one, because you simply can't find a good sound card or player to make them perform well.
Mobile phones: color screens and mobile Internet are simple
In 2003, the adult who envied my editor-in-chief used the NOKIA 7110 to pop open the keyboard slider of the dangdangdangang, but the color screen began to appear in the phone. Ericsson released the posthumous T68, and I actually bought one. Samsung released a variety of phones that started to have color screens and nice chord ringtones. The local tycoons of that year could not only buy Nokia 7 series 8 series, but also buy licensed Samsung mobile phones, more than 6,000 oceans. The Samsung parallel goods revision brush machine of that year is quite cost-effective, cheaper than 50%, of course, to consider the problem of NETWORK standards such as CDMA1x.
Timeline of mobile phone development - 2000, the first mobile phone to support the WAP service, the Nokia 7110
Image from the web
In that era, if buying a Samsung mobile phone of the National Bank of China is considered a local tycoon, the long-distance telephone porridge is also a symbol of the local tycoon, which is more "trench" than buying a top 5G package today. So much so that when I talk about this topic, I can always think of two colleagues at that time, the former "famous record".
Although Wap already had mobile phone support in 2000, after 2003, large Wap applications such as China Mobile Monternet were launched, and large websites and services after the 2000 Internet bubble began to be optimized for Wap. The mobile Internet is accompanied by the rudiments of SMS value-added services, although it is too simple to be seen. Of course, spam and the dark forces of the Internet and public relations industries were also formed from then, and the toxicity is still not small.
Computer: AMD K7 scenery unlimited
In 2003, AMD K7 AthlonXP, Duron unlimited scenery, AMD has just ushered in the joy of breaking through 1GHz, due to the weakness of the opponent, AMD also adopted an innovative naming method from the original AthlonXP 1700+, although not 1700MHz, but the performance is far beyond the opponent, to the Pentium4 era of 2800+, 3200+. Penitum 4 relies on high frequency on paper to support the market, but the high-frequency and low-energy paper tiger still can't avoid breaking down.
AMD AthlonXP
Reprinted from Wikipedia
After SARS in September, ledgeHammer K8 Athlon64 was released, AMD K7, K8 two generations of CPU designer Jim Keller did not have a reputation that year, until in Apple, Tesla and other jump around to attract the attention of the media. Intel Pentium4 squeezes toothpaste near 3GHz, 3.2GHz, and 3.4GHz, which should be constipation to be precise. So much so that in 2004, Dr. Barrett knelt down and admitted that the Netburst architecture could not reach 4GHz. Intel also began to work hard for more than 2 years until the release of Core Core in 2006.
AMD Athlon64
Official LOGO
In 2003, the high-end of the graphics card market was still the main focus of the NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 series, and due to the lack of perverted-grade monitors and game support, the high-end market demand was actually far less than today. So, the earlier GeForce MX440 became the most successful entry-level graphics card in history, and I'm afraid there is no one. In the second half of 2003, after SARS, NVIDIA released the GeForce FX5000 series.
The rival ATI experienced the decline of the R200 core, the R300 core also led the high-end market in 2003, and the graphics card model was the well-known ATI Radeon R9500 and R9700. And what players like is that R9500 brush BIOS to R9700 gameplay, surprised or not surprised? Aren't we still brushing the RX5700 to RX5700XT 17 years later?
Game Chapter: Blizzard Warcraft 3, PS2 No Money
In 2003, before SARS, we could eat Maran ramen in the office group to beat Quake3, at that time the CPU, graphics card and monitor can easily make Quake3 meet the pan jump requirements of 140fps or more. However, after the outbreak of SARS, restaurants closed and there was no place to eat, and they needed to cook their own meals or cook at night to bring lunch, and the entertainment time was greatly reduced. Quake3 is also slowly being abandoned.
Blizzard Warcraft3 Warcraft 3 HD Remake - Night Elf Remake
Official image of Blizzard
After the SARS epidemic, although the balance adjustment of Warcraft3 Warcraft 3 in two years, and the subsequent launch of the TFT Frozen Throne, the company's favorite games began to shift to War3. Of course, in retrospect, it would have been fun to have a group of people playing games together in real time. This kind of fun is not a substitute for today's mobile games and online games.
Coincidentally, on January 29, 2020, the Blizzard Classic Game Group launched a beta invitation or purchase of the Warcraft 3 remake. I was going to try it, but I didn't expect that from Nine Cities to NetEase for more than ten years to act as a Blizzard BN, the consistent authorization management of the account is still a mess, which is chilling.
Sony PS2 is also one of the 2003 game choices, compared with the original 2003 is already the third year after the release of PS2, we can happily play to all kinds of pirated copies without having to do anything to crack the console.
Audio-visual article: Foreign garbage color display/ collection DVD9 is also a fashion
In 2003, if you bought a monitor in Beijing, it might be a relatively happy thing. You can go to a small shop under the stands of the Haidian District Stadium in Zhongguancun to buy a used Dell, SONY's 19-inch flat-screen or cylindrical CRT Trilong monitor. The price is cheap and sufficient, and if it is used for fitness, it is several streets away from Sigma. Of course, it is estimated that friends in Guangzhou and Shenzhen will be happier. At that time, I pursued cost performance, could not afford to buy dell P991, and then bought a Sony G500 to experience the last glory of the cylindrical Trilong.
DVD player
Display devices are about to enter the era of liquid crystals, and experiencing high-end displays does not necessarily have to buy foreign garbage. The major brands almost also launched the last batch of CRT products after 2003, and even high-end products, clearing the way for entering the LCD era three years later.
In 2003, the TV video experience at home was worse than that of the PC. Although in the early 1990s the television set entered the 29-inch era, by 2003 it was basically stuck at this level. Although there are larger 34 inches, and although the price has also become cheaper, there has been little improvement in the visual experience. However, compared with the early 90s, the film source changed from VCD to DVD, and in the 21st century, the DVD piracy industry in Chinese mainland reached its peak, and people even had the passion to remember the names of pirate distributors in order to find a better quality version of the film. Picking a movie you like, and coming from a well-known pirate distributor, plus the high D9 bit rate, is also a fashion and a collection.
Camera: 10X zoom is not as good as mobile phones
In 2003, digital cameras just began to enter the high-end consumer market, bidding farewell to the 1 million pixel Kodak DC210/DC215 two or three years ago, we can buy new models of Nikon, Canon, Olympus, but there are still very few individual buyers, because the media needs to take pictures, and the digitization of photos, it is a happy thing to have a digital camera. However, as the second-largest magazine in the country, we can only afford a Canon G2. In August 2003 after SARS, Canon released the EOS 300D SLR camera, which is not affordable for ordinary people, and even feels that it is full frame... But it's just a 6.3-megapixel APS-C with a set price of $999. At that time, the real exchange rate of the renminbi and the US dollar would not be lower than 1:9.
Canon EOS 300D SLR digital camera
The image is reproduced from dpreview.com
And everyone planting grass in the forum is likely to be so-and-so macro or so-and-so telephoto. For example, the C700 released by Olympus in 2002 attracted countless fans, but in the end it did not have the money to buy it. Looking back at the parameters of the C700? 38mm-380mm equivalent 10X optical zoom, 1/2.7-inch CCD, 2.02 megapixels, what else could I think? The C700 may be a well-known model for DC's large optical zoom, and today we are ushering in the era of smartphones entering the medium-telephoto era. Today's technological advantages can only be dreamed of by traversers.
Internet: eBay fake JD sprouts
In 2003, someone said that SARS made China's e-commerce giant. SARS greatly affected the business of Liu Qiangdong's JD Multimedia over the counter store in Zhongguancun, so much so that in January 2004, JD.com, which positioned e-commerce, was officially established. However, during the SARS epidemic, Beijing 800 million time and space has begun to do similar online shopping business. Although such consumption habits were only formed in the media or among very few players, it not only added points to the smooth sale of Zol Zhongguancun Online in 2004 by 800 million time and space, but also achieved e-commerce after 2003, and even JD.com. Today, 800 million time and space has become an LCD materials company, listed on China's science and technology innovation board in 2020.
Jingdong Mall 360buy.com
The e-commerce enlightenment in 2003 is not all due to SARS, JD.com, and 800 million time and space. Rather, it is thanks to Ebay's influence on China Eachnet eBay, although in 2002-2003, we could only buy fake Nike shoes on it, fake SKII cosmetics were not deceived, but at least in Beijing that year the express delivery business service has been formed. In May 2003, Jack Ma's Alibaba had just been incorporated, and in the subsequent 2004-2005 years, we could only buy more fakes than eBay on Taobao. The fakes are far more fake than pinduoduo in recent years.
In 2003, it should still be possible to register a 9-digit QQ number, although there have been ADSL broadband and LAN access fibers [such as colleges and universities] throughout the country, but Beijing has become an obstacle to switching to ADSL due to the initial ISDN investment. Our 20 computers in an office can only use Sygate to share a 512Kbps ADSL broadband. The outbreak of SARS in Beijing has indeed made it a reality for many companies to work from home.
At the beginning of April, sina provided employees with the benefits of working at home, not only sending money to reimburse them for buying bicycles, but also installing broadband for free at home. Excited, we bought a Linksys 802.11b router, which seems to cost more than 700 yuan. At that time, there was no cloud service, and voice communication was not willing to use mobile phones, relying on cheaper landline phones, but at least it solved the problem that some company personnel were not easy to control the epidemic.
Looking back at SARS 17 years ago, we were lucky not to get sick or even far from SARS. We must not forget the efforts of the frontline workers who resisted SARS in 2003 17 years ago to save mankind, so that most of the world's human beings escaped the disaster. Remembering the past can reduce the pressure for our present, let us cherish the time, seventeen years of things are not human, everyone works together, will be bitter.
Feel free to leave a message about "The Past of 2003", and of course, if you are too young or not yet born, please leave your footprints. Soomal is ready to smoke 5 souvenirs after the epidemic. Out-of-print mouse pads, t-shirts, or headphones.