乔布斯传 第25期:乔布斯和蓝盒子(1)

 　　The Blue Box

　　蓝盒子

　　The ultimate combination of pranks¹ and electronics—and the escapade that helped to create Apple—was launched one Sunday afternoon when Wozniak read an article in Esquire that his mother had left for him on the kitchen table.

　　恶作剧与电子技术的终极结合----也是促成苹果公司成立的疯狂表演---在一个周日的下午启动了，当时沃兹尼亚克看到了母亲给他留在厨房桌子上的《君子》(Esquire) 杂志上的一篇文章。

　　It was September 1971, and he was about to drive off the next day to Berkeley, his third college.

　　当时是1971年的9月，他正准备第二天出发去伯克利，他的第三所大学。

　　The story, Ron Rosenbaum's "Secrets of the Little Blue Box," described how hackers³ and phone phreakers had found ways to make long-distance calls for free by replicating⁴ the tones that routed signals on the AT&T network.

　　那篇文章——罗恩·罗森鲍姆（Ron Rosenbaum)写的《小蓝盒的秘密》——描绘了黑客和电话飞客是如何通过模拟AT&T (美国电话电报公司）网络上接通线路的特定音频免费拨打长途电话的。

　　"Halfway⁵ through the article, I had to call my best friend, Steve Jobs, and read parts of this long article to him," Wozniak recalled.

　　“这篇长文刚读到一半的时候，我就给我最好的朋友乔布斯打电话，然后读了一部分给他听。”沃兹尼亚克回忆说。

　　He knew that Jobs, then beginning his senior year, was one of the few people who would share his excitement.

　　他知道，那时候已经开始读高中四年级的乔布斯一定也会非常兴奋。

　　A hero of the piece was John Draper, a hacker² known as Captain Crunch⁶ because he had discovered that the sound emitted by the toy whistle that came with the breakfast cereal was the same 2600 Hertz tone used by the phone network's call-routing switches.

　　文中有一个关键人物：约翰·德雷珀（John Draper)，他是一名黑客，外号“咔嚓船长” 这是因为，他发现早餐麦片附赠的哨子发出的声音与电话网络中用以传输呼叫的开关发出的音频是一样的，都是2600赫兹。

　　It could fool the system into allowing a long-distance call to go through without extra charges.

　　这样就可以骗过系统，允许长途电话接通，而不产生额外的费用。

　　The article revealed that other tones that served to route calls could be found in an issue of the Bell System Technical Journal, which AT&T immediately began asking libraries to pull from their shelves.

　　文章中还提到，其他一些可以作为内部线路控制的单音频信号的信息，可以在《贝尔系统技术期刊》中找到。而AT&T公司立刻要求各地图书馆将这本期刊下架。

　　As soon as Jobs got the call from Wozniak that Sunday afternoon, he knew they would have to get their hands on the technical journal right away.

　　那个周日的下午，乔布斯接到沃兹的电话后，立刻意识到他们必须马上找到那本技术期刊。

　　"Woz picked me up a few minutes later, and we went to the library at SLAC （the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center） to see if we could find it," Jobs recounted.

　　“几分钟之后沃兹就来接我，我们去了斯坦福大学线性加速器中心的图书馆，想看看能不能找到。”乔布斯回忆道。

　　It was Sunday and the library was closed, but they knew how to get in through a door that was rarely locked.

　　那天是周日，图书馆关门了，但他们穿过一扇很少上锁的门进到了里面。

　　"I remember that we were furiously digging through the stacks, and it was Woz who finally found the journal with all the frequencies.

　　“我记得我们在书架上猛翻，最后是沃兹找到了那本期刊，上面有所有的频率。

　　It was like, holy shit, and we opened it and there it was. We kept saying to ourselves, 'It's real. Holy shit, it's real.'

　　那种感觉简直就是‘天哪！ ’我们翻开它，所有信息都有。我们一直对自己说：‘这是真的，天哪！这是真的！ ’

　　It was all laid out—the tones, the frequencies."

　　所有信息都写得清清楚楚——音调，频率。”

　　Wozniak went to Sunnyvale Electronics before it closed that evening and bought the parts to make an analog⁷ tone generator⁸.

　　那天晚上，沃兹尼亚克在森尼韦尔电子商店关门之前跑了过去，买到了制造模拟声音发生器需要的零部件。

　　Jobs had built a frequency counter when he was part of the HP Explorers Club, and they used it to calibrate⁹ the desired tones.

　　乔布斯之前在惠普探索者俱乐部的时候就傲过一个频率计数器，他们用这个计数器来调校他们需要的声音。

　　With a dial, they could replicate¹⁰ and tape-record the sounds specified¹¹ in the article. By midnight they were ready to test it.

　　只要一拨号，他们就能复制并录下文章中指定的声音。到了午夜，他们准备好测试了。

　　Unfortunately the oscillators they used were not quite stable enough to replicate the right chirps¹² to fool the phone company.

　　很不幸，他们使用的振荡器不够稳定，无法准确复制能够骗过系统的声音。

　　"We could see the instability using Steve's frequency counter," recalled Wozniak, "and we just couldn't make it work.

　　“我们使用史蒂夫的频率计数器可以发现振荡器的不稳定性，”沃兹尼亚克说，“但就是没办法让它工作。

　　I had to leave for Berkeley the next morning, so we decided¹³ I would work on building a digital version once I got there."

　　我第二天一早就要去伯克利了，所以我们决定，等我到那儿之后，就着手制造一个数字版的蓝盒子。”

1 pranks   

n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Frank's errancy consisted mostly of pranks. 法兰克错在老喜欢恶作剧。 来自辞典例句
• He always leads in pranks and capers. 他老是带头胡闹和开玩笑。 来自辞典例句

2 hacker   

n.能盗用或偷改电脑中信息的人，电脑黑客

参考例句：

• The computer hacker wrote that he was from Russia.这个计算机黑客自称他来自俄罗斯。
• This site was attacked by a hacker last week.上周这个网站被黑客攻击了。

3 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

4 replicating   

复制( replicate的现在分词 )； 重复； 再造； 再生

参考例句：

• Applications create these partitions for storing and replicating data. 应用程序创建这些分区用来储存和复制数据。
• The closest real things to these creatures were bits of self-replicating RNA. 最贴近这些造物的实物是能做一点微不足道的自复制的核糖核酸。

5 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

6 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

7 analog   

n.类似物，模拟

参考例句：

• The analog signal contains high-frequency video information,which helps make up the picture.模拟信号包括有助于构成图像的高频视频信息。
• The analog computer measures continuously,without proceeding step by step.模拟计算机不是一步一步地进行，而是连续地进行量度。

8 generator   

n.发电机，发生器

参考例句：

• All the while the giant generator poured out its power.巨大的发电机一刻不停地发出电力。
• This is an alternating current generator.这是一台交流发电机。

9 calibrate   

校准；使合标准；测量（枪的）口径

参考例句：

• Pesticide levels in food are simply too difficult to calibrate.食品中杀虫剂的含量很难精确测定。

10 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

11 specified   

adj.特定的

参考例句：

• The architect specified oak for the wood trim. 那位建筑师指定用橡木做木饰条。
• It is generated by some specified means. 这是由某些未加说明的方法产生的。

12 chirps   

鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的第三人称单数 )； 啾； 啾啾

参考例句：

• The linnet chirps her vernal song. 红雀吱喳鸣叫着她春天的歌。
• She heard nothing but the chirps and whirrs of insects. 除了虫的鸣叫声外，她什么也没听见。

13 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。