乔布斯传 第255期:卢卡斯影业的电脑部门(1)

 　　Lucasfilm's Computer Division

　　卢卡斯影业的电脑部门

　　When Jobs was losing his footing at Apple in the summer of 1985,

　　1985年夏天，乔布斯在苹果公司正处于失势中。

　　he went for a walk with Alan Kay, who had been at Xerox¹ PARC and was then an Apple Fellow.

　　一天，他和艾伦·凯一起散步，凯曾在施乐PARC工作，当时是苹果公司职员。

　　Kay knew that Jobs was interested in the intersection² of creativity and technology,

　　凯知道，乔布斯对创意与技术的交融很感兴趣，

　　so he suggested they go see a friend of his, Ed Catmull,

　　于是建议他一同拜访自己的朋友埃德·卡特穆尔。

　　who was running the computer division of George Lucas's film studio.

　　卡特穆尔当时是乔治·卢卡斯电影制片厂电脑部门的负责人。

　　They rented a limo and rode up to Marin County to the edge of Lucas's Skywalker Ranch³,

　　乔布斯他们租了一辆豪华轿车，驾车前往马林郡，来到卢卡斯天行者牧场的边上，

　　where Catmull and his little computer division were based.

　　卡特穆尔及其电脑部门就在这里。

　　"I was blown away, and I came back and tried to convince Sculley to buy it for Apple," Jobs recalled.

　　“我感到很震撼，回公司以后就试图说服斯卡利把它收购下来。”乔布斯回忆道，

　　"But the folks running Apple weren't interested, and they were busy kicking me out anyway."

　　“但是管理苹果公司的那帮家伙对此不感兴趣，而且他们正忙着把我赶出去。”

　　The Lucasfilm computer division made hardware and software for rendering⁴ digital images,

　　卢卡斯影业电脑部门由使图像数字化的软硬件团队、

　　and it also had a group of computer animators making shorts,

　　还有一个电脑动画团队制作动画短片，

　　which was led by a talented cartoon-loving executive named John Lasseter.

　　由极具天赋的动画导演约翰·拉塞特带领。

　　Lucas, who had completed his first Star Wars trilogy, was embroiled⁵ in a contentious⁶ divorce, and he needed to sell off the division.

　　卢卡斯当时已经完成了他的《星球大战》三部曲的第一部，正陷入一场争吵不断的离婚案中，他需要卖掉这个电脑部门。

　　He told Catmull to find a buyer as soon as possible.

　　卢卡斯叫卡特穆尔尽快找到买家。

1 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。

2 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

3 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

4 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

5 embroiled   

adj.卷入的；纠缠不清的

参考例句：

• He became embroiled in a dispute with his neighbours. 他与邻居们发生了争执。
• John and Peter were quarrelling, but Mary refused to get embroiled. 约翰和彼得在争吵，但玛丽不愿卷入。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。