Return of the Mac

March 2005 All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.

2005 年 3 月 我认识的所有最优秀的黑客都逐渐转向使用 Mac。

My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks.

我的朋友罗伯特说，他在麻省理工学院的整个研究小组最近都给自己买了 Powerbook。

These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s.

这些人并不是 20 世纪 90 年代中期苹果公司低谷时购买 Mac 的平面设计师和奶奶。

They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get.

他们是你能找到的最硬核的操作系统黑客。

The reason, of course, is OS X.

原因当然是 OS X。

Powerbooks are beautifully designed and run FreeBSD.

Powerbook 设计精美并运行 FreeBSD。

What more do you need to know?

您还需要了解什么？

I got a Powerbook at the end of last year.

去年年底我买了一本Powerbook。

When my IBM Thinkpad's hard disk died soon after, it became my only laptop.

不久之后，我的 IBM Thinkpad 硬盘就坏了，它成了我唯一的笔记本电脑。

And when my friend Trevor showed up at my house recently, he was carrying a Powerbook identical to mine.

当我的朋友特雷弗最近出现在我家时，他带着一本和我的一模一样的 Powerbook。

For most of us, it's not a switch to Apple, but a return.

对于我们大多数人来说，这不是转向苹果，而是回归。

Hard as this was to believe in the mid 90s, the Mac was in its time the canonical hacker's computer.

尽管这在 90 年代中期令人难以置信，但 Mac 在当时是典型的黑客计算机。

In the fall of 1983,

1983年秋天，

the professor in one of my college CS classes got up and announced, like a prophet, that there would soon be a computer with half a MIPS of processing power that would fit under an airline seat and cost so little that we could save enough to buy one from a summer job.

我的一门大学计算机科学课程的教授站起来，像预言家一样宣布，很快就会出现一台处理能力为 0.5 MIPS 的计算机，它可以放在航空公司的座位下，而且成本很低，我们可以通过暑期打工攒钱买一台。

The whole room gasped.

整个房间都倒吸了一口气。

And when the Mac appeared, it was even better than we'd hoped.

当 Mac 出现时，它甚至比我们希望的还要好。

It was small and powerful and cheap, as promised.

正如承诺的那样，它体积小、功能强大、价格便宜。

But it was also

但这也曾是

something we'd never considered a computer could be: fabulously well designed .

我们从未考虑过计算机的东西可能是： 设计得非常好。

I had to have one.

我必须拥有一个。

And I wasn't alone.

我并不孤单。

In the mid to late 1980s, all the hackers I knew were either writing software for the Mac, or wanted to.

在 20 世纪 80 年代中后期，我认识的所有黑客要么正在为 Mac 编写软件，要么想要这样做。

Every futon sofa in Cambridge seemed to have the same fat white book lying open on it.

剑桥的每一张蒲团沙发上似乎都摊着一本厚厚的白书。

If you turned it over, it said "Inside Macintosh." Then came Linux and FreeBSD, and hackers, who follow the most

如果你把它翻过来，上面写着“Inside Macintosh”。然后是 Linux 和 FreeBSD，以及追随者最多的黑客

powerful OS wherever it leads, found themselves switching to Intel boxes.

强大的操作系统无论在哪里，都发现自己转向了英特尔机器。

If you cared about design, you could buy a Thinkpad, which was at least not actively repellent, if you could get the Intel and Microsoft stickers off the front.

如果你关心设计，你可以买一台 Thinkpad，如果你能把正面的英特尔和微软贴纸去掉的话，它至少不会主动排斥。

[1] With OS X, the hackers are back.

[1] 有了 OS X，黑客又回来了。

When I walked into the Apple store in Cambridge, it was like coming home.

当我走进剑桥的苹果专卖店时，就像回到了家一样。

Much was changed, but there was still that Apple coolness in the air,

发生了很大变化，但空气中仍然弥漫着苹果的清凉气息，

that feeling that the show was being run by someone who really cared, instead of random corporate deal-makers.

感觉这个节目是由真正关心的人主持的，而不是随机的公司交易撮合者。

So what, the business world may say.

商界可能会说那又怎样。

Who cares if hackers like Apple again?

谁在乎黑客是否再次喜欢苹果呢？

How big is the hacker market, after all?

黑客市场到底有多大？

Quite small, but important out of proportion to its size.

虽然很小，但其重要性与其大小不成比例。

When it comes to computers, what hackers are doing now, everyone will be doing in ten years.

说到计算机，黑客现在所做的事情，十年后每个人都会做。

Almost all technology, from Unix to bitmapped

几乎所有技术，从 Unix 到位图

displays to the Web, became popular first within CS departments and research labs, and gradually spread to the rest of the world.

显示到网络上，首先在计算机科学部门和研究实验室中流行起来，并逐渐传播到世界其他地方。

I remember telling my father back in 1986 that there was a new kind of computer called a Sun that was a serious Unix machine, but so small and cheap that you could have one of your own to sit in front of, instead of sitting in front of a VT100 connected to a single central Vax.

我记得早在 1986 年就告诉我父亲，有一种名为 Sun 的新型计算机，它是一台真正的 Unix 机器，但又小又便宜，你可以拥有一台自己的计算机坐在前面，而不是坐在连接到单个中央 Vax 的 VT100 前面。

Maybe, I suggested,

也许，我建议，

he should buy some stock in this company.

他应该购买这家公司的一些股票。

I think he really wishes he'd listened.

我想他真的希望自己能听进去。

In 1994 my friend Koling wanted to talk to his girlfriend in Taiwan, and to save long-distance bills he wrote some software that would convert sound to data packets that could be sent over the Internet.

1994 年，我的朋友 Koling 想和他在台湾的女朋友聊天，为了节省长途电话费，他编写了一些软件，可以将声音转换为可以通过互联网发送的数据包。

We weren't sure at the time whether this was a proper use of the Internet, which was still then a quasi-government entity.

当时我们不确定这是否是对互联网的正确使用，因为当时互联网仍然是一个准政府实体。

What he

他什么

was doing is now called VoIP, and it is a huge and rapidly growing business.

以前所做的现在称为VoIP，它是一项庞大且快速增长的业务。

If you want to know what ordinary people will be doing with computers in ten years, just walk around the CS department at a good university.

如果你想知道十年后普通人会用计算机做什么，只要去一所好大学的计算机科学系走走就行了。

Whatever they're doing, you'll be doing.

无论他们在做什么，你也会做什么。

In the matter of "platforms" this tendency is even more pronounced, because novel software originates with great hackers , and they tend to write it first for whatever computer they personally use.

在“平台”问题上，这种趋势更加明显，因为新颖的软件源自伟大的黑客，他们倾向于首先为他们个人使用的任何计算机编写它。

And

并且

software sells hardware.

软件卖硬件。

Many if not most of the initial sales of the Apple II came from people who bought one to run VisiCalc.

Apple II 的大部分（如果不是大部分的话）最初销量都来自购买运行 VisiCalc 的用户。

And why did Bricklin and Frankston write VisiCalc for the Apple II?

为什么 Bricklin 和 Frankston 为 Apple II 编写 VisiCalc？

Because they personally liked it.

因为他们个人很喜欢。

They could have chosen any machine to make into a star.

他们可以选择任何一台机器来制作明星。

If you want to attract hackers to write software that will sell your hardware, you have to make it something that they themselves

如果你想吸引黑客编写可以销售你的硬件的软件，你就必须把它变成他们自己的东西

use.

使用。

It's not enough to make it "open." It has to be open and good.

仅仅让它“开放”是不够的。它必须是开放的、良好的。

And open and good is what Macs are again, finally.

开放和优秀终于再次成为 Mac 的特色。

The intervening years have created a situation that is, as far as I know, without precedent: Apple is popular at the low end and the high end, but not in the middle.

据我所知，这几年创造了一种史无前例的情况：苹果在低端和高端市场都很受欢迎，但在中端市场却并不受欢迎。

My seventy year old mother has a Mac laptop.

我七十岁的母亲有一台 Mac 笔记本电脑。

My friends with PhDs in computer science have Mac laptops.

我拥有计算机科学博士学位的朋友拥有 Mac 笔记本电脑。

[2] And yet

[2] 然而

Apple's overall market share is still small.

苹果的整体市场份额仍然很小。

Though unprecedented, I predict this situation is also temporary.

虽然前所未有，但我预计这种情况也是暂时的。

So Dad, there's this company called Apple.

爸爸，有一家公司叫苹果。

They make a new kind of computer that's as well designed as a Bang & Olufsen stereo system, and underneath is the best Unix machine you can buy.

他们制造了一种新型计算机，其设计与 Bang & Olufsen 立体声系统一样出色，其底层是您能买到的最好的 Unix 机器。

Yes, the price to earnings ratio is kind of high, but I think a lot of people are going to want these.

是的，市盈率有点高，但我认为很多人都会想要这些。

Notes [1] These horrible stickers are much like the intrusive ads popular on pre-Google search engines.

注释 [1] 这些可怕的贴纸很像谷歌出现之前的搜索引擎上流行的侵入性广告。

They say to the customer: you are unimportant.

他们对顾客说：你不重要。

We care about Intel and Microsoft, not you.

我们关心英特尔和微软，而不是你。

[2] Y Combinator is (we hope) visited mostly by hackers.

[2] Y Combinator（我们希望）主要被黑客访问。

The proportions of OSes are: Windows 66.4%, Macintosh 18.8%, Linux 11.4%, and FreeBSD 1.5%.

操作系统的比例为：Windows 66.4%、Macintosh 18.8%、Linux 11.4%、FreeBSD 1.5%。

The Mac number is a big change from what it would have been five years ago.

Mac 的数量与五年前相比发生了很大变化。

<!--[These numbers are revised.

<!--[这些数字已被修改。

The original numbers overstated FreeBSD's market share because they included hits from us.] -->

原始数字夸大了 FreeBSD 的市场份额，因为其中包含了我们的点击率。] -->