Hope Light from a Korean TV Factory

However, difficulties were in the road to dream at the beginning. Since we spent too much capital in design and production of circuit boards for game, nothing was left from the initial USD 9,000 for the production of even one circuit board.

The bigger problem was the monitor. Monitors for game were only available from Motorola. Moreover, they were not game monitors, but TV monitors in 19-inch which were very expensive, usually about three times the price of the same size TV.

Even such a monitor was in short supply. Large companies such as Atari dared not complain in order to ensure the supply of the monitor. A humble small company like ours was impossible to be in the supply list of Motorola. Because I was really poor, I had no qualification to complain about even that turn-away employee from Motorola. As the old saying goes“the disaster never comes along alone”. Even some of my colleagues felt frustrated:

“I'm sorry, we can not go on.”

“Let's stick a little longer since we can not get monitors, how about selling finished products. We change the operating direction, and just sell game cards to game companies.”

“This is also a problem. Which company will believe us and buy our products without hesitation?”

My colleague's prediction was right. We had no capital to produce finished products, and no company would purchase our products to produce the finished game console. I left the garage to send two colleagues to the garage door, seized their shoulders, and sometimes could not remember how to encourage them.

Within six months, USD 9,000 was all gone. During this period, I did not even take a penny home. Even those incomes from small shops were all put in. My wife led two young daughters, staying in the small shop for almost 20 hours a day in order to save money to hire employees.

I painted design drawings for the game card for a whole day that day, and back into the small shop late. Two daughters who could not leave their mom slept on the mat on the floor behind the counter. I looked at the children and my heart could not help but shaken. Simply stop it, or return to work in the company, regular salary of every month was least worrying of the ... I had a variety of ideas in my mind.

I bowed my shoulders, staring at TV behind the counter. Suddenly, I got an idea. Yes, that is TV. Just adjusted the black-and-white TV, it seemed to be a game monitor. Moreover, if I made the monitor myself, I could reduce the cost and make game console.

I immediately went to the garage and to design the drawings for the black and white monitor. I bought a TV and opened it, and it could be changed into a monitor with a few adjustments. I saw the hope immediately. But, where could I make monitors? It is impossible to complete it in the present garage. And how to make monitors without even one dollar?

I found the solution finally after a few days of hard thinking. The Korean TV factory might be the solution. 7 factories in South Korea were producing black and white TVs. I thought that as long as we could contact one of the manufacturers, we could be able to find the place to produce monitors. It was impossible for me to make them myself, but I could find the manufacturers to do so.

I flied to South Korea the next day. Taking the monitor drawings for game in my bag, I could not wait to meet those decision-makers to sign the contract, so as to rescue my“dying cause”. The long flight time seemed to be even longer. However, I was over optimistic. I had hoped that at least one factory would sign the contract, I had thought that any company would be happy to accept my proposal, but my hope became bubbles. LG, Sky, Samsung ... all six companies refused.

“What are these drawings?”

“The drawing of monitor for computer games. I mean game based on computers.”

“Computers can be used for entertainment? But we don't know how to play computers ...”

“Situations in the United States are completely different, computer games are quite popular. As long as you produce monitors for us, I can sell them once they are equipped with game cards.”

“But, I do not think it is so simple ...”

It was 1976 then, and computers were manufactured in South Korea six years later in 1982. Most people just thought that computer was“super calculating machine” which was able to carry out complicated operations. All the electronic companies that I contacted did not believe that computers could not be used for game-playing.

After being refused for six times, I knocked the gate of TAIHAN which was my last hope. I had to return to America and clear up my garage if I was refused by TAIHAN, and my entrepreneurial dream had to be completely dispelled. I explained my plan to the person who was in charge of this project, and my voice was a bit hoarse:

“The market for video games is immeasurable. It is impossible to produce game consoles without monitors. Please think about it, if game monitors you produced are sold in the United States, what will happen.”

“But we do not know much about computers.”

“We'll provide technical support, and you'll just have to produce.”

They maybe touched by my sincerity. Perhaps TAIHAN was considering to learn advanced technology from the United States, so it agreed to have a try. They finally accepted my proposal. I was not only relieved, but also got rid of the disappointment. Now we should consider the production.

I had thought that only a little adjustment is needed to make a monitor with already existing production technology of black and white TVs. However, the case was not as easy as our imagination. To convert a TV monitor into a game monitor, several difficulties had to be overcome. Once a problem was solved, there was another one. After 3 months of R&D, we finally completed the trial of monitors. Although imperfections still existed, our own game monitor was finally produced.