当苹果开始着手研发麦金塔电脑时，乔布斯前去拜访盖茨。

Microsoft had written some applications for the Apple II, including a spreadsheet program called Multiplan,

微软曾为苹果的Apple II电脑编写过一些应用程序，其中包括名为“Multiplan”的电子表格程序。

and Jobs wanted to excite Gates and Co. about doing even more for the forthcoming Macintosh.

这一次，乔布斯想鼓动盖茨和微软为其即将推出的麦金塔电脑编写更多程序。

Sitting in Gates's conference room, Jobs spun an enticing vision of a computer for the masses,

坐在盖茨位于西雅图华盛顿湖边的会议室中，乔布斯勾画出一幅诱人的图景，

with a friendly interface, which would be churned out by the millions in an automated California factory.

加利福尼亚的某家自动化工厂将会大批量生产界面友好的大众电脑。

His description of the dream factory sucking in the California silicon components

在他的描述中，硅元件被送进工厂，完整的麦金塔电脑鱼贯而出。

and turning out finished Macintoshes caused the Microsoft team to code-name the project "Sand."

微软团队因此给该项目取了个代号，叫“沙”。

They even reverse-engineered it into an acronym, for "Steve's amazing new device."

他们甚至又把它演绎成了一句话的缩略词：史蒂夫的神奇新机器

乔布斯传 比尔盖茨

Gates had launched Microsoft by writing a version of BASIC, a programming language, for the Altair.

盖茨创立微软，是源于为阿尔泰计算机编写BASIC语言版本。

Jobs wanted Microsoft to write a version of BASIC for the Macintosh,

乔布斯希望微软为麦金塔电脑编写BASIC程序

because Wozniak--despite much prodding by Jobs--had never enhanced his version of the Apple II's BASIC to handle floating-point numbers.

因为尽管乔布斯多次敦促，沃兹尼亚克从未改进Apple II的BASIC语言版本以提髙处理浮点数的能力。

In addition, Jobs wanted Microsoft to write application software--such as word processing and spreadsheet programs--for the Macintosh.

此外，乔布斯还希望微软能为麦金塔电脑编写一些应用软件，如文字处理软件、图表和电子表格程序。

At the time, Jobs was a king and Gates still a courtier:

当时，乔布斯已功成名就，盖茨还只是个跟班：

In 1982 Apple's annual sales were $1 billion, while Microsoft's were a mere $32 million.

1982年，苹果公司的年销售额达10亿美元，而微软只有3200万美元。

Gates signed on to do graphical versions of a new spreadsheet called Excel, a word-processing program called Word, and BASIC.

盖茨签下了合同，除BASIC程序外，还为苹果公司开发图形界面版本的软件--文字处理程序Word和全新的电子表格软件Excel。

Gates frequently went to Cupertino for demonstrations of the Macintosh operating system, and he was not very impressed.

盖茨经常去库比蒂诺观看麦金塔操作系统的演示，但是并没有多大触动。

"I remember the first time we went down, Steve had this app where it was just things bouncing around on the screen," he said.

“我记得第一次去的时候，史蒂夫运行了一个应用程序，不过就是一些东西在屏幕上跳来跳去，”他回忆说，

"That was the only app that ran."

“这是唯一能够在他们机器上运行的应用程序。”

Gates was also put off by Jobs's attitude.

此外，乔布斯的态度也令盖茨反感。

"It was kind of a weird seduction visit, where Steve was saying,

“我们此行有点儿被诱骟的诡异感觉。史蒂夫说，

'We don't really need you and we're doing this great thing, and it's under the cover.'

我们也不是真的需要你们，我们正在做的这个东西很伟大，它还处于保密之中。

He's in his Steve Jobs sales mode, but kind of the sales mode that also says, 'I don't need you, but I might let you be involved.'"

这是他自己惯用的销售方式，潜台词是'我不需要你，但可能会让你参与进来。'”

The Macintosh pirates found Gates hard to take.

麦金塔团队的“海盗们”也觉得盖茨令人难以忍受。

"You could tell that Bill Gates was not a very good listener.

“你会发现，比尔·盖茨不是个很好的听众

He couldn't bear to have anyone explain how something worked to him

他不接受任何人向自己解释某个东西如何运作，

he had to leap ahead instead and guess about how he thought it would work," Hertzfeld recalled.

他要抢在别人前面提出他对这个东西如何运转的推断，猜想他觉得这个是怎么运作的。”赫茨菲尔德回忆道。

They showed him how the Macintosh's cursor moved smoothly across the screen without flickering.

他们向盖茨展示麦金塔电脑的光标如何不闪烁而能在屏幕上流畅地移动。

"What kind of hardware do you use to draw the cursor?" Gates asked.

盖茨发问“你们用什么硬件来绘制光标？”盖茨发问“你们用什么硬件来绘制光标？”

Hertzfeld, who took great pride that they could achieve their functionality solely using software, replied,

赫茨菲尔德感到非常自豪，因为他们只依靠软件就实现了这个功能。他回答说：

"We don't have any special hardware for it!"

“我们没有用任何特殊的硬件！”

Gates insisted that it was necessary to have special hardware to move the cursor that way.

盖茨不信，坚持认为必须有某种特殊硬件的支持，光标才会出现这样的移动效果。

"So what do you say to somebody like that?" Bruce Horn, one of the Macintosh engineers, later said.

麦金塔团队的一位工程师布鲁斯·霍恩后来说：“你还能跟这样的人说什么呢？

"It made it clear to me that Gates was not the kind of person that would understand or appreciate the elegance of a Macintosh."

这件事让我明白，盖茨不是那种能够理解或欣赏麦金塔电脑优雅之处的人。”