Chapter 1757: Summer in Fool

Shiler decided to buy himself a computer.

In his previous life, Shiler also had a computer. When he went abroad to study, he assembled a desktop computer himself. After becoming a professor, he basically only used the office laptop uniformly distributed by the school.

All of Shiler's electronic assembly levels were basically the same. As for how they were, one had to ask the trash can at S. H. I. E. L. D. that contained many discarded parts.

Assembling a computer in this era wasn't just about buying good parts and installing them into the case. Assembling could be equated to building by hand, so assembling a desktop computer wasn't in Shiler's range of choices from the beginning.

Then only buying a finished machine remained. But Shiler was still more inclined to buy a laptop, so he could solve the two problems of having no computer in the office and the manor at the same time. Although the laptops of this era weren't light or thin, it was okay to carry them by car.

Greed did have a laptop he got from Marvel placed at the Gray Mist. But this laptop was manufactured by Stark for him, and throwing it out could smash through the moon. It was too advanced for Shiler, who just wanted to use it to check emails, so Shiler still planned to buy one himself.

Shiler and Merkel drove to the commercial street in the South District. The Cat Getan Electronic Equipment Procurement Center was located right here.

Thanks to the vigorous development of Cat Getan's logistics industry, this place had also become the largest electronic component warehousing center on the East Coast. Many large electronic equipment groups had set up logistics warehouses here. The retail electronic industry facing civilians had developed far beyond other cities on the East Coast within just two years.

Not many people owned computers in this era, and mobile phones were basically only affordable for the rich. But people were still entering the electronic information age. Refrigerators, televisions, fax machines, video recorders, stereos, electronic doorbells—Cat Getan families with slightly better living conditions all had one or two of these.

The Cat Getan Electronic Equipment Procurement Center was in a whole commercial building. Just as Shiler drove the car nearby, he found that the parking spaces here were overcrowded. He could only circle two more streets and came to the back alley of the building before finding a parking space.

After getting off the car and before entering the building, he saw bustling crowds coming and going at the entrance, mostly young people and families, all dressed very fashionably.

Cat Getan couldn't be called a fashion capital, but in this crazy city, people's daily lives were fashionable enough. Shiler even saw some photographers who looked like out-of-towners taking street photos in the square in front of the door.

Finally, there was some atmosphere of the new millennium, Shiler thought, and walked into the building of the Electronic Equipment Procurement Center.

This wasn't an electronic hypermarket, but different offices set up by brand. Each company would put the promotional brochures of their flagship products on the newspaper rack at the entrance of the office. One could finish reading them outside the door before deciding whether to go in.

There were also some companies that set up exhibition stands, mostly concentrated on the first floor, which was also the place with the most people. Shiler's goal was clear, so he didn't have the mood to stroll around. He went directly to the elevator and came to the fourth floor, finding the two largest offices here.

These two offices belonged to two companies, one was the Wei En Group, and the other was the Luthor Group.

Where else could one go to buy electronic products in the DC world? The most famous computer system in the world right now wasn't the Microsoft system, but the Wei En system. Brands like Apple and Sony also had to stand aside. Whether it was hardware or software, these two companies, Wei En and Luthor, were the true giants.

This wasn't strange either. Bruce Wei En didn't busy himself with Batman's career as soon as he debuted, but dawdled and studied for several years in college. In these years, he didn't spend much time on psychology, but he researched all disciplines other than psychology to the peak, naturally including computer software and hardware research and development.

The Wei En Group launched a brand-new laptop equipped with the Wei En 1994 system at the beginning of 1994. That's right, the boot pattern was a bat.

Shiler suspected that Bruce very likely developed technology similar to Windows 95 that entered the GUI interface directly just to let the bat pattern appear in front of everyone's eyes without any defense when booting up.

And it was even more likely that he researched the computer system just to let the bat pattern be seen by the whole world.

Shiler picked up the Wei En Group's product manual and looked at it, discovering that the Wei En Group operated almost all categories of electronic products, including various household appliances. And the first page of the promotional manual was printed with the brand-new laptop.

Unlike the laptops with 16-inch screens that were everywhere now, the laptops of this era were more like notebooks—a square little box. The screen was small, the keyboard also compressed its volume as much as possible, and the overall appearance was matte jet black, with a Wei En Group logo printed in the center of the front.

Shiler believed Bruce definitely thought about changing this logo to a bat. If he didn't succeed, it might be because other shareholders of the Wei En Group blocked it desperately. After all, the bat had bad connotations in some regions, which might affect the computer's sales.

After finishing the product manual, Shiler didn't make a decision immediately. He came to the front of another company's office. The Luthor Group's laptop was much more normal.

Just about two months ago, the Luthor Group also launched their latest laptop, "Light of Humanity L2," which was also equipped with the brand-new Luthor system.

The sales clerk on the Luthor Group side was quite enthusiastic. Seeing someone looking at the product manual, he immediately rushed out of the office. Before Shiler said what he wanted to buy, they had already brought over the latest laptop.

The sales clerk immediately opened the laptop to show Shiler the interface. The interface of the Luthor Group's laptop was quite flashy, and the user interaction was also very advanced. It looked like the XP system.

Shiler was a bit hesitant. Originally, anyone who knew Batman's technical ability would definitely choose the Wei En Group's products as much as possible, because the quality of Bat-tech was definitely guaranteed.

But Shiler really couldn't stand the backward user interaction system of this era. No matter what one wanted to do, one had to input a series of codes.

Everyone thought Shiler didn't like receiving emails because he was rigidly unwilling to accept advanced electronic equipment. Only Shiler himself knew that he didn't want to be tortured by these backward old-fashioned machines.

"Sir, if you have requirements for convenience and family interaction, you must choose this L2 of ours. It greatly improved the convenience of the user interaction interface compared to L1, simplified the operation process as much as possible, and also built in functions such as multi-webpage operation saving, email account and password saving, etc. If you check emails frequently, this one is truly the best choice."

The sales clerk saw with sharp eyes that Shiler was a buyer with purchasing power and was moved by this product, so he pushed the sale quite hard. He immediately took out the price tag and introduced:

"We are within the three-month promotion period, and can give you a 30% discount. The original price of 9,200 USD only needs 6,440 USD after the discount. This is the tax-inclusive price. You absolutely cannot miss it..."

Shiler looked back at the square black box of the Wei En Group, then looked at the silver-gray device designed by the Luthor Group with no logo at all, and a trace of hesitation arose in his heart.

Ten minutes later, Merkel put the box with the Wei En logo into the trunk of the car. He sat in the driver's seat, while Shiler sat in the passenger seat, and the two drove back to Rodriguez Manor.

After returning, Shiler called Harley and Barry, who were dirty from playing in the garden, and let Merkel take them to wash up and change clothes, and then put the box containing the computer on the coffee table.

"Wow, you bought a computer?!!" Harley immediately shouted and jumped onto the computer box, saying, "Quick, quick, quick! Open it, I want to play games!"

Shiler sat on the sofa opposite and took a sip of coffee, then said: "Help me pull up the email interface first. After I finish checking the emails, you can use it as you please."

Barry and Harley were busy dismantling the computer box. Before long, they took out the square black laptop from it. Harley held the laptop, which weighed about seven pounds, with some effort, and flipped it over to look at it.

"I bet the boot pattern is a bat."

"Don't bet on such obvious facts."

Harley and Shiler looked at each other and sighed in unison. Harley put the laptop on the coffee table. Merkel brought the power supply. After the plug was plugged in, the screen lit up quickly.

Harley and Barry frowned and began to fiddle with the computer. After about ten minutes, Harley looked up and said: "The interactivity of this system is a piece of shit."

Barry also sighed and said: "This is too troublesome. If you want to visit a webpage, you have to write an access code yourself."

Shiler took the notebook handed over by Merkel, wrote down his email address on it with a pen, and handed it to Harley. After Harley tapped the keyboard for a long time, she turned the laptop over and said: "Okay, this is your mailbox. Call us after you finish reading it. We'll go eat something first."

After speaking, Harley pulled Barry away, and Shiler began to fiddle with this laptop alone.

Merkel stood behind Shiler with coffee, watching Shiler clicking various parts of the screen very clumsily.

Many people might not understand that there was no such thing as UI design in relatively backward webpages. Whether a place could be clicked or not was only known after clicking it. There was fundamentally no smooth design of modern webpages where buttons had click animations when the mouse hovered over them.

Shiler was busy for a long time, and Merkel felt tired just watching. After taking a sip of coffee, he asked: "Sir, why didn't you buy the Luthor Group's laptop? That looks much more convenient."

Shiler took a sip of coffee, sighed, and said: "Maybe it's because I like black."

The rumbling sound of thunder sounded on the horizon, and dark clouds gathered again over the city. Within a few minutes, a torrential rain descended. Gothamites finally experienced what it meant to have sweet dew after a long drought. A hearty rain fell from the afternoon until the evening, until it made Cat Getan's night cool and humid again.

When Shiler looked up again, lights were lit up all over the manor, casting warm, hazy halos in the humid air.

Shiler moved his neck, which was a bit sore, and said with both anger and depression: "This computer has the beauty of a supercomputer."

Just at this moment, a "click" sound and two children's screams came from the back garden.

When Merkel and Shiler walked to the door leading to the back garden, they saw a familiar figure on that familiar tree branch as expected—it was Batman.

At this moment, Merkel had a new understanding of Batman's ability to run into the muzzle of a gun. ===== CHAPTER 1758 =====

At this moment, Merkel gained a new understanding of Batman's ability to walk straight into the line of fire.