乔布斯传 第176期:一落千丈

 Falling

一落千丈

After the burst of excitement that accompanied the release of Macintosh,

麦金塔电脑刚发布时引发了一阵热潮，

its sales began to taper¹ off in the second half of 1984.

但到1984年下半年，其销量就开始急剧下滑。

The problem was a fundamental one:

问题是根本性的。

It was a dazzling but woefully slow and underpowered computer,

这是一台虽然精美却运行缓慢、动力不足的电脑，

and no amount of hoopla could mask that.

再多的宣传也无法掩盖它的缺点。

Its beauty was that its user interface² looked like a sunny playroom

它的美丽之处在于，其界面看上去像一间阳光明媚的游戏室，

rather than a somber³ dark screen with sickly green pulsating⁴ letters and surly command lines.

而不是一块闪烁着绿色字母和呆板命令行的幽暗屏幕。

双语有声读物 乔布斯传

But that led to its greatest weakness:

然而，这也造成了麦金塔最大的弱点。

A character on a text-based display took less than a byte of code,

采用文本方式显示，一个字符只占用不到一个字节；

whereas when the Mac drew a letter, pixel by pixel in any elegant font you wanted,

而Mac采用像素方式显示用户想要的优雅字体，

it required twenty or thirty times more memory.

这样，每个字符所需要的内存就比前者多出二三十倍。

The Lisa handled this by shipping⁵ with more than 1,000K RAM⁶, whereas the Macintosh made do with 128K.

丽萨电脑为了解决这一问题，将内存扩展至1000K以上，而麦金塔的内存只有128K。

Another problem was the lack of an internal hard disk drive.

另一个问题在于，没有内置硬盘驱动。

Jobs had called Joanna Hoffman a "Xerox⁷ bigot" when she fought for such a storage device.

乔安娜·霍夫曼曾坚持，要使用内置硬盘作为存储设备，乔布斯因此称她为“施乐偏执狂”

He insisted that the Macintosh have just one floppy⁸ disk drive.

麦金塔只有一个软盘驱动器，

If you wanted to copy data,

你如果想要复制数据，

you could end up with a new form of tennis elbow from having to swap⁹ floppy disks in and out of the single drive.

有可能会落下肘关节发炎的毛病，因为你得来回装卸软盘。

In addition, the Macintosh lacked a fan, another example of Jobs's dogmatic stubbornness.

此外，麦金塔没有风扇，这是乔布斯武断顽固的又一佐证。

Fans, he felt, detracted from the calm of a computer.

他觉得，风扇会增大电脑的嗓音。

This caused many component¹⁰ failures

没有风扇散热造成了很多组件故障，

and earned the Macintosh the nickname "the beige toaster,"

并让麦金塔赢得了“米色烤面包机”的绰号，

which did not enhance its popularity.

而这一绰号显然无益于提髙产品的流行度。

It was so seductive that it had sold well enough for the first few months,

麦金塔电脑外形诱人，因而在发布的头几个月，销量非常好；

but when people became more aware of its limitations, sales fell.

但当人们逐渐认识到这款电脑的局限后，销量便逐渐减少。

As Hoffman later lamented¹¹,

霍夫曼后来感叹道：

"The reality distortion field can serve as a spur, but then reality itself hits."

“现实扭曲力场可以作为一种鞭策，但最后总是要被现实打破的。”

At the end of 1984, with Lisa sales virtually nonexistent and Macintosh sales falling below ten thousand a month,

1984年底，丽萨电脑销量几乎为零，麦金塔的销量跌至每月10000台以下，

Jobs made a shoddy, and atypical, decision out of desperation.

乔布斯在绝望之下作出了一个低劣、不合规矩的决定。

He decided¹² to take the inventory¹³ of unsold Lisas, graft¹⁴ on a Macintosh-emulation program,

他决定在库存的丽萨电脑上安装麦金塔仿真程序，

and sell them as a new product, the "Macintosh XL."

并作为新产品出售，命名为“麦金塔XL”。

Since the Lisa had been discontinued and would not be restarted,

由于丽萨电脑已停产，且不会再投入生产，

it was an unusual instance of Jobs producing something that he did not believe in.

因此乔布斯这次要做自己都不看好的东西，就有点反常。

"I was furious because the Mac XL wasn't real," said Hoffman.

“我很愤怒，因为它根本就不是什么Mac XL。”霍夫曼说道，

"It was just to blow the excess Lisas out the door.

“这么做的目的就是为了把剩下的丽萨电脑都卖出去。

It sold well, and then we had to discontinue the horrible hoax¹⁵, so I resigned."

它卖得很好，但接下来我们不得不停止这个可怕的骗局，我也因此辞职了。”

1 taper   

n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小

参考例句：

• You'd better taper off the amount of time given to rest.你最好逐渐地减少休息时间。
• Pulmonary arteries taper towards periphery.肺动脉向周围逐渐变细。

2 interface   

n.接合部位，分界面；v.(使)互相联系

参考例句：

• My computer has a network interface,which allows me to get to other computers.我的计算机有网络接口可以与其它计算机连在一起。
• This program has perspicuous interface and extensive application. 该程序界面明了，适用范围广。

3 somber   

adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• He had a somber expression on his face.他面容忧郁。
• His coat was a somber brown.他的衣服是暗棕色的。

4 pulsating   

adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动

参考例句：

• Lights were pulsating in the sky. 天空有闪烁的光。
• Spindles and fingers moved so quickly that the workshop seemed to be one great nervously-pulsating machine. 工作很紧张，全车间是一个飞快的转轮。 来自子夜部分

5 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

6 ram   

(random access memory)随机存取存储器

参考例句：

• 512k RAM is recommended and 640k RAM is preferred.推荐配置为512K内存，640K内存则更佳。

7 xerox   

n./v.施乐复印机，静电复印

参考例句：

• Xerox and Lucent are two more high-tech companies run by women.施乐和朗讯是另外两家由女性经营的大科技公司。
• You cannot take it home,but you can xerox it.你不能把它带回家，但可以复印。

8 floppy   

adj.松软的，衰弱的

参考例句：

• She was wearing a big floppy hat.她戴了顶松软的大帽子。
• Can you copy those files onto this floppy disk?你能把那些文件复制到这张软盘上吗？

9 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

10 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

11 lamented   

adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• her late lamented husband 她那令人怀念的已故的丈夫
• We lamented over our bad luck. 我们为自己的不幸而悲伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 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。

13 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

14 graft   

n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接

参考例句：

• I am having a skin graft on my arm soon.我马上就要接受手臂的皮肤移植手术。
• The minister became rich through graft.这位部长透过贪污受贿致富。

15 hoax   

v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧

参考例句：

• They were the victims of a cruel hoax.他们是一个残忍恶作剧的受害者。
• They hoax him out of his money.他们骗去他的钱。