Towards the end of the 20th century a group of Hong Kong computer scientists realise that there was a pressing need to introduce computerisation to a larger number of the Chinese people. Many of these people, however, simply could not afford to buy the computers which were on offer at the time, and in particular the popular Windows operating system was, financially, beyond the reach of many of China's population. A project was therefore set up to remedy this.the purpose was not to generally challenge the Windows system worldwide, but to provide a cheap and usable alternative at a low-cost for those who found the cost of computerisation otherwise prohibitive. The 'Miss Dragon' OS was the result of this project initially. This was demonstrated successfully on 25th of December 2003, running on a low-cost motherboard. At this stage the Town and Talent Project was initiated by the altruistic MrSayling Wen and it was suggested that the project could be centered on the Yellow Sheep River region, inorder to bringindustry and commerce to the region. It was hoped that this would provide alternative employment to the local people, bringing increased prosperity, as well as improvements in the education system.

This did in fact take place, and eventually the Miss Dragon OS morphed into the more sophisticated Thinix operating system. This initially ran on traditional X86 chips but since these were proving to be an economic stumbling block the Godson chip was eventually substituted. Together, the locally created chip and software be the dream of providing computerisation at a low cost, to millions of people, a realistic prospect.

The dream of the original innovators was to get around the Intel/Windows monopoly; to produce a computer which was simple to use, and easy to learn about; and to create a new standard which could be adopted by the majority of Chinese people. It was also to be compatible with both LINUX and Windows – based programs. These aims were met satisfactorily, and the new Chinese computer industry was born.

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