"We are inventing the future," Jobs told him at the end of a three-hour pitch. “我们正在创造未来,”乔布斯在长达3个小时的劝说接近尾声时表示,
"Think about surfing on the front edge of a wave. It's really exhilarating. “想象一下在海浪的最前端冲浪是什么感觉,一定很兴奋刺激吧;
Now think about dog- paddling at the tail end of that wave. It wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun. 再想象一下在浪的末尾学狗刨游泳,一点儿意思都没有。
Come down here and make a dent1 in the universe." 来苹果吧,你可以吸引全世界的目光。”
Atkinson did. With his shaggy hair and droopy moustache that did not hide the animation2 in his face, Atkinson had some of Woz's ingenuity3 along with Jobs's passion for awesome4 products. 阿特金森入伙了。蓬松的头发和长长的胡子并不能掩盖阿特金森脸上的活力,他有着沃兹的创造天赋和乔布斯追求卓越产品的热情。
His first job was to develop a program to track a stock portfolio5 by auto-dialing the Dow Jones service, getting quotes, then hanging up. 他的第一份工作是开发一个程序,该程序可以自动拨打道琼斯的服务热线,获取报价,然后挂断电话,以此来追踪股票投资组合。
"I had to create it fast because there was a magazine ad for the Apple II showing a hubby at the kitchen table looking at an Apple screen filled with graphs of stock prices, “我必须尽快完成,因为一本杂志刊登的Apple II广告上出现了这样的场景:丈夫在厨房的餐桌旁盯着满是股价图表的Apple II屏幕,
and his wife is beaming at him--but there wasn't such a program, so I had to create one." 而妻子正对着他微笑--实际上根本就没有这样的程序,所以我必须创造一个。”
Next he created for the Apple II a version of Pascal, a high-level programming language. 接下来他又成功地将Pascal语言移植到Apple II上,这是一种髙级编程语言。
Jobs had resisted, thinking that BASIC was all the Apple II needed, but he told Atkinson, "Since you're so passionate6 about it, I'll give you six days to prove me wrong." 乔布斯起初很抵制Pascal,因为他觉得Apple II有BASIC就足够了,但他告诉阿特金森:“既然你对这个有这么大的热情,我就给你66天时间来证明我是错的。”
He did, and Jobs respected him ever after. 阿特金森做到了,从此乔布斯对他很是尊敬。
By the fall of 1979 Apple was breeding three ponies7 to be potential successors to the Apple II workhorse. 到1979年的秋天,Apple II的潜在继任者已经有了三种机型。
There was the ill-fated Apple III. There was the Lisa project, which was beginning to disappoint Jobs. 有命运凄惨的Apple III,还有已经开始让乔布斯失望的丽萨项目。
And somewhere off Jobs's radar8 screen, at least for the moment, there was a small skunkworks project for a low-cost machine that was being developed by a colorful employee named Jef Raskin, a former professor who had taught Bill Atkinson. 另外一个是乔布斯当时还不知道的一个小项目。这个项目致力于制造一款廉价的电脑,研发代号为“安妮”,开发者名叫杰夫·拉斯金,他曾是个教授,还教过比尔·阿特金森。
Raskin's goal was to make an inexpensive "computer for the masses" that would be like an appliance--a self-contained unit with computer, keyboard, monitor, and software all together—and have a graphical interface9. 拉斯金的目栋是制造价格低廉、就像家用电器一样的“大众电脑”--整合了电脑、键盘、显示器和软件的全功能设备--并且拥有图形界面。
He tried to turn his colleagues at Apple on to a cutting-edge research center, right in Palo Alto, that was pioneering such ideas. 他试图让苹果的同事们关注一家优秀的研究中心,这家研究中心就坐落在帕洛奥图,是图形界面技术的先驱。
1 dent [dent] 第10级 | |
n.凹痕,凹坑;初步进展 | |
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2 animation [ˌænɪˈmeɪʃn] 第8级 | |
n.活泼,兴奋,卡通片/动画片的制作 | |
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3 ingenuity [ˌɪndʒəˈnju:əti] 第7级 | |
n.别出心裁;善于发明创造 | |
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4 awesome [ˈɔ:səm] 第8级 | |
adj.令人惊叹的,难得吓人的,很好的 | |
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5 portfolio [pɔ:tˈfəʊliəʊ] 第9级 | |
n.公事包;文件夹;大臣及部长职位 | |
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6 passionate [ˈpæʃənət] 第8级 | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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7 ponies [ˈpəuniz] 第8级 | |
矮种马,小型马( pony的名词复数 ); £25 25 英镑 | |
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