9月，康懋达电脑公司的查克·佩德尔来到乔布斯家中观看他的演示。

"We'd opened Steve's garage to the sunlight, and he came in wearing a suit and a cowboy hat," Wozniak recalled.

“我们打开了史蒂夫家的车库门，让阳光照射进来，查克走了进来，穿着西装，戴着牛仔帽。”沃兹回忆道。

Peddle loved the Apple II, and he arranged a presentation for his top brass a few weeks later at Commodore headquarters.

佩德尔非常喜欢Apple II，他于数周后在公司总部为高层人员安排了一场演示。

"You might want to buy us for a few hundred thousand dollars," Jobs said when they got there.

“你也许有兴趣花几十万买下我们公司。”乔布斯到那儿后说了这样一句话。

Wozniak was stunned by this "ridiculous" suggestion, but Jobs persisted.

沃兹尼亚克记得当时自己被这个“荒唐的”建议惊得目瞪口呆，但乔布斯坚持要这么做。

The Commodore honchos called a few days later to say they had decided it would be cheaper to build their own machine.

几天之后，康懋达公司打来电话说，他们认为研发自己的电脑更加省钱。

Jobs was not upset.

乔布斯并不沮丧，

He had checked out Commodore and decided that its leadership was "sleazy."

他全面考察了康懋达公司后，认为该公司的管理层太“卑劣”了。

Wozniak did not rue the lost money,

沃兹尼亚克对于失去了这笔投资并不感到遗憾，

but his engineering sensibilities were offended when the company came out with the Commodore PET nine months later.

但是当99个月后，该公司推出了他们自己的电脑“Commodore PET”的时候，他作为一名工程师，在感情上受到了极大的伤害。

"It kind of sickened me. They made a real crappy product by doing it so quick.

“那玩意儿让我觉得恶心，”他说，“他们太急于求成了，所以做出这么一个蹩脚的产品。

They could have had Apple."

他们本来可以拥有苹果的。”

The Commodore flirtation brought to the surface a potential conflict between Jobs and Wozniak:

对康懋达公司的这次出售未果也让一直暗藏在乔布斯与沃兹尼亚克间的冲突浮出水面：

Were they truly equal in what they contributed to Apple and what they should get out of it?

他们对苹果公司的贡献真的一样多吗？他们之间的利益又该如何分配？

Jerry Wozniak, who exalted the value of engineers over mere entrepreneurs and marketers,

杰里·沃兹尼亚克一直都认为工程师的价值要远超过企业家和营销人员，

thought most of the money should be going to his son.

他觉得大多数钱都应该归他儿子所有。

He confronted Jobs personally when he came by the Wozniak house.

乔布斯来家里作客时，杰里当面向他提出了自己的不满。

"You don't deserve shit," he told Jobs.

“你不配得到这么多”，他告诉乔布斯，

"You haven't produced anything." Jobs began to cry, which was not unusual.

“你没有做出过任何产品。”乔布斯哭了起来，这在他身上是很常见的事情。

He had never been, and would never be, adept at containing his emotions.

他一直都不擅长控制自己的情绪--以后也不会擅长。

He told Steve Wozniak that he was willing to call off the partnership.

乔布斯告诉沃兹尼亚克，愿意停止他们的合作关系。

"If we're not fifty-fifty," he said to his friend,

“如果我们不能对半分账的话，”他对自己的朋友说，

"you can have the whole thing."

“你可以全部收为己有。”

Wozniak, however, understood better than his father the symbiosis they had.

然而，沃兹尼亚克比自己的父亲更加了解自己与乔布斯之间的共生关系。

If it had not been for Jobs, he might

如果不是乔布斯的话，

still be handing out schematics of his boards for free at the back of Homebrew meetings.

他可能还在家酿计算机俱乐部的会议上免费发放自己设计的电路板的原理图，

It was Jobs who had turned his ingenious designs into a budding business, just as he had with the Blue Box.

是乔布斯将他的技术工程天赋转化成了蓬勃发展的生意，正如当年的蓝盒子一样。

He agreed they should remain partners.

他同意继续保持合作关系。

It was a smart call.

这是个明智的决定。

To make the Apple II successful required more than just Wozniak's awesome circuit design.

要想让Apple II取得成功，需要的不仅仅是沃兹尼亚克杰出的电路设计能力。

It would need to be packaged into a fully integrated consumer product,

Apple II需要成为一台完整的全功能消费产品，

and that was Jobs's role.

这就需要乔布斯施展拳脚了。

He began by asking their erstwhile partner Ron Wayne to design a case.

他第一步便是请以前的合伙人罗恩·韦恩设计一个箱子。

"I assumed they had no money,

“我想他们没什么钱，

so I did one that didn't require any tooling and could be fabricated in a standard metal shop," he said.

于是我就做了一款不需要使用工具加工的箱子，普通的五金商店就能制造出来。”他说。

His design called for a Plexiglas cover attached by metal straps and a rolltop door that slid down over the keyboard.

他的设计结果出来了：一个有机玻璃制成的壳子，附带有金属条以及一扇可以盖住键盘的卷门。

重点讲解：

1.top brass 领导层

例句：Apparently, all the company's top brass, from Lord Stokes downwards, agreed.

很明显，该公司的所有高级官员，以斯托克斯勋爵为首，一直往下，全都同意。

2.be stunned by 惊叹于;被吓呆

例句：We, the generation brought up under the Red Bannet, being too simple to be riotous, are stunned by the bizarre and motel today.

我们红旗下长大的一代人不乏单纯，缺少斑斓，面对当今的光怪陆离，不免愕然。

3.come out with 提出；出版

例句：They are going to come out with a great, new, dictionary next year.

明年他们将出版一本大型的新词典。

4.adept at 熟练于；善于；擅长

例句：The child is adept at appeasing her parents' anger with a joke or compliment.

这孩子善于以一个玩笑或赞美来平息父母的怒气。