8
HP and Moonlighting as a Crazy Polack
白天惠普上班，夜晚疯狂兼差
This much I know for sure: I was meant to be an engineer who designs computers, an engineer who writes software, an engineer who tells jokes, and an engineer who teaches other people things.
我相当清楚自己要成为一位设计电脑的工程师，一位编写软件的工程师，一位风趣的工程师，一位愿意教授他人的工程师。
Now, finally, there was a time in my life - a time right after that third year at Berkeley - that I finally got my dream job. But it wasn't a job building computers. It was a job designing calculators at Hewlett-Packard. And I really thought I would spend the rest of my life there. That place was just the most perfect company.
就在伯克利分校的第三学年的生活结束后，我终于得到自己梦想的工作——但不是制造电脑，而是在惠普设计计算器。我真的以为自己的下半生都会在此度过，因为这是一家完美无缺的公司。
This was January of 1973, and for an engineer like me, there was no better place to work in the world. Unlike a lot of technology companies, Hewlett-Packard wasn't totally run by marketing people. It really respected its engineers. And that made sense, because this was a company that had made engineering tools for years -meters, oscilloscopes, power supplies, testers of all types, even medical equipment. It made all the things engineers actually used, and it was a company driven by engineers on the inside so far as what engineers on the outside needed. Man, I loved that.
就在1973年的1月，对于我这样的工程师，世界上没有比这更好的公司了。与大多技术公司不同，惠普完全不由市场部控制，而是非常尊重它的工程师们。这是一件很有意义的事。因为这家公司数年来都经营工程工具——计量器、示波器、电源和各种测试仪，甚至医学设备。它几乎制造所有工程师所用的工具。因其内部由工程师领导，所以深知外界的工程师所需。噢，我喜欢这样。
For just a few months before that, right after I finished Berke ley in June, I worked at a much, much smaller company, called Electroglas. That was a blast, too. Getting that job was almost too easy. I'd looked in the newspaper ads, and the first ad I saw was for an electronics technician for $600 a month, or close to that. I called them up and they said, "Come on down for an interview." Well, I went down and they gave me this incredibly easy written test -you know, with electronic formulas and all. Of course, I knew that stuff. I'd known it forever. They interviewed me and instantly hired me, so I had a job. And they paid me enough that I was actually able to get my first apartment. It was in Cupertino, just a mile from my parents' house. And it was just the greatest, greatest thing.
7月从伯克利分校毕业后，我先在一家叫做伊智（Electroglas）的小公司工作，之后再进入惠普。在伊智不过临时工作，得来全不费工夫。我在报纸上看到的第一条广告就是招聘电子工程师，月薪600美元，我便合上报纸，打给了那家公司。他们说：“来面试吧。”我去后，他们出了一些简单得不能再简单的题目给我——也就是那些电子方程等等。当然，对我来说是不费吹灰之力。他们面试后马上就雇佣了我，就这样我有了一份工作。收入充足，我也因此能拥有自己的第一套公寓，位于库比提诺，与我父母家只相隔1英里。这对我而言可是件非常开心的事。
But six months later I heard from my old friend Allen Baum, who by then was working as an intern at Hewlett-Packard. He was excited, telling me he was actually hanging around the guys who'd designed the HP 35 calculator. This, to me, was the most incredible invention of all time.
然而，6个月后，正于惠普实习的亚伦·波美兴奋地告诉我：他现在正与设计过惠普35计算器的工程师一起工作。我认为惠普35可是最惊人的发明。
I'd been a slide rule whiz in high school, so when I saw the calculator, it was just amazing. A slide rule was kind of like a ruler - you had to look at it precisely to read the values. The most accurate number you could get was only three digits long, however, and even that result was always questionable. With a calculator, you could punch in precisely the digits you wanted. You didn't have to line up a slider. You could type in your numbers exactly, hit a button, and get an answer immediately. You could get that number all the way out to ten digits. For example, the real answer might be 3.158723623. An answer like that was much more precise than anything engineers had ever gotten before.
高中时，我是计算尺能手，所以面对计算器时也有说不出的惊喜。计算尺类似直尺——必须精确地读出它的值。所能获得最精确的数字仅有3位数。但是，即便如此，结果也不一定完全精确。而有了计算器，就无需计算尺，只需准确地按键，就会立即得到答案，还可精确到10位数。例如，假设答案是3.158723625，都比此前工程师计算的更为精确。
Well, the HP 35 was the first scientific calculator, and it was the first in history that you could actually hold in your hand. It could calculate sines and cosines and tangents, all the trigonometric and exponential/logarithmic functions engineers use to calculate and to do their jobs. This was 1973, and back then calculators -especially handheld calculators -were a very, very big deal.
而惠普35则是第一代科学计算器，也是有史以来第一代的掌中计算器。它能用于工程师在工作中所需的所有计算，比如正弦、余弦、对数等所有几何运算，以及指数/对数的函数。计算器在1973年备受关注，尤其是便携式计算器的出现更是万众瞩目。
So Allen's internship was working in the calculator group. He told me he'd told Ms managers all about me, that I was a great designer and had designed all these computers and things, and all of a sudden I found myself interviewing with a vice president of engineering, and the people under him, and the people under them. I guess they were impressed, because they made me an offer right away to come work there. They told me I could help design scientific calculators at HP. I thought, Oh my God.
亚伦那时就在计算器部门实习。他告诉我，他跟经理谈过我的情况，我擅长设计，设计了各种类型的电脑。于是，很突然的，公司的副总裁就面试了我，我还与他的员工们见了面。我想他们都对我印象深刻，因为我很快就收到了他们的聘书。他们说我可以参与惠普科学计算器的设计。我当时的感觉就是：噢，上帝！
I did love my job at Electroglas. I got to stand up all day, which I like, and help test and repair circuits. (A lot of their chips went bad because, instead of sockets, they used the soldered resistor- transistor logic [RTL] method of attaching chips.) I liked everyone I worked with and I'd made a lot of good friends. So when I told them about the job offer at HP, man, they did everything to keep me. They told me they'd make me a full engineer, they would up my salary over what HP had offered, and I felt bad because I really did love that company.
我也喜欢在伊智的工作，整天忙于测试和修复电路，并且乐在其中。我与同事相处融洽，也交了许多好朋友。所以当我透露惠普给我的聘书时，他们都竭尽全力地挽留我。他们允诺完全给我工程师待遇，并提供与惠普同样多的薪水。我喜欢那家公司，所以当时很是难过。
But even though Electroglas was what I considered to be a great job, it was nothing compared to what I considered to be the ideal job in the whole world: working on handheld scientific calculators at the only company in the world that could build a product like that. How could you beat that
尽管伊智的工作很棒，但不能与全世界最完美的工作相媲美：在一家全世界独一无二的公司开发便携式科学计算器，没有人可以拒绝。
I was already a big fan of Hewlett-Packard. When I was at Berkeley, I'd even saved up to spend $400 (that's about $2,000 in today's money) on the HP 35.
早在伯克利分校时，我就是惠普迷了。我甚至用400美元（相当于现在的2000美元）买下惠普35。
There was no doubt in my mind that calculators were going to put slide rules out of business. (In fact, two years later you couldn't even buy a slide rule. It was extinct.) And now all of a sudden I'd gotten a job helping to design the next generation of these scientific calculators. It was like getting to be a part of history.
毫无疑问，计算器会让计算尺在商界销声匿迹。事实上，2年后甚至都买不到计算尺了，它已完全过时。突然我就有机会参与下一代计算器的设计，感觉这也是在创造历史。
This was the company for me because, like I said, I'd already decided that I wanted to be an engineer for life. It was especially neat because I got to work on a product that at the time was the highlight product of the world - the scientific calculator. To me, it was the luckiest job I could have.
在惠普，我完全是如鱼得水。就如我所说，我早已准备好立志成为一名工程师。在这里工作实在太妙，因为我研发的是当时全世界都为之瞩目的产品——科学计算器。对我而言，这是我所能拥有的最幸运的工作。
As an example of how great a company HP was, consider this. During this time - the early 1970s - the recession was going on and everyone was losing their jobs. Even HP had to cut back 10 percent on its expenses. But instead of laying people off, HP wound up cutting everyone's salary by 10 percent. That way, no one would be left without a job.
如果要举例说明惠普是家多棒的公司，以下则可以体现。就在20世纪70年代，即大萧条时期，失业率极大。即使是惠普公司，也会必须降低自己10%的开支。但是，它不是通过解雇员工，而是让每位员工的工资减少10%，这样的话，就没有人会失业。
You know, my dad had always told me that your job is the most important thing you'll ever have and the worst thing to lose.
父亲总这样教育我：工作是你拥有的最重要的东西，最糟糕的事情莫过于失去它。
I still think that way. My thinking is that a company is like a family, a community, where we all take care of each other. I never agreed with the normal thinking, where a company is more competition driven, and the poorest, youngest or most recently hired workers are always the first to go.
我也持有同样的看法。我认为公司就像一个大家庭，在这里我们要相互关心。我从不赞同普遍的观点，认为公司由竞争所驱动，首先解雇的总是最差、最年轻和资历最短的员工。
By the way, I was twenty-two when I got that job at Hewlett- Packard.
顺便说一句，我进入惠普时仅仅22岁。
- o -
Once I got into HP, I met a lot of people there and became good friends with the engineers, the technicians, even some of the marketing people. I loved the environment. It was just very free. I still had long hair and a beard, and no one seemed to mind. At HP, you were respected for your abilities. It didn't matter how you looked.
进入惠普后，我遇到很多人，与他们都成为了好朋友，其中有工程师、技师，甚至还有市场部人员。我喜欢这一氛围，非常自由。我仍留有长发和胡子，似乎无人介意。在惠普，员工因能力而得到尊重，而不是外表。
We had cubicles, I remember. For the first time, I sat in a cubicle and was free to walk around and talk to other people. During the day, you could throw out ideas about products and debate them. And HP made it easy to do that. Every day, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., they wheeled in donuts and coffee. That was so nice. And smart, because the reason they did it was so everyone would gather in a common place and be able to talk, socialize, and exchange ideas.
我还记得有间小屋以供休息，第一次进去就觉得轻松自由，可以走来走去，与他人聊天。大家还可以随意对产品表达自己的见解，并与他人争论。而惠普也让这种方式变得轻松自如。每天上午10点和下午2点，都供应油炸圈饼和咖啡。这种作法既贴心又精明，因为所有人都可在此交流自己的观点。
A few years before, during those long walks I took during high school, I'd decided that I was into truth and facts and solid calculations. I knew I never wanted to play social games. The Vietnam War only solidified that attitude. That's why I was sure, even at twenty-two, that I didn't want to switch from engineering to management, ever. I didn't want to go into management and have to fight political battles and take sides and step on people's toes and all that stuff.
数年前，在上学途中，我就决定了自己将忠于事实，从事计算类工作。我清楚自己从不想玩社交游戏。即使到22岁，我也如此肯定自己并不想从工程领域跳至管理层。我不愿进入管理层，进行政治性的争斗，或是踩着别人的肩膀往上爬。
I knew I could do that at HP - that is, have a long career without ever having to get into management. I knew this because I'd met a couple of engineers who were a lot older than me, and they had no desire to be in management either. So after I met them, I knew that was possible.
我知道在惠普我能如愿——也就是，做长期工程师，而永远不进入管理层。得知这一可能是因为我遇到年资甚高的工程师，而他们也不想参与管理。自从我遇到他们，就相信自己的愿望有可能实现。
More on HP
关于惠普的更多信息
Stanford 1934 graduates Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded Hewlett-Packard in their garage in 1939. Now, a lot of people confuse that story with Apple's, saying that we started Apple in a garage. Not true. HP started in a garage, true. But in the case of Apple, I worked in my room at my apartment and Steve worked in his bedroom in his parents' house. We only did the very last part of assembly in his garage.
斯坦福1934年的毕业生布尔·休利特和戴维·帕卡德于1939年在他们的车库里创建了休利特－帕卡德（惠普）。如今有很多人都将此与苹果的创立相混淆，以为苹果也是在车库创建起来的。事实并非如此。惠普的确是创建于车库。而苹果，则是由我在自己公寓的房间、斯蒂夫在他的卧室完成。直到最后，我们才在斯蒂夫的车库里共同完成。
But that's how it goes with stories.
也许传闻就由此而来。
HP's first product was a precision audio oscillator, called the Model 200A. It generated sound waves and cost under $50, which was a quarter of the price of other companies1 less reliable oscillators. And here's a cool fact. One of HP's earliest clients was Walt Disney Productions, which used eight Model 200B audio oscillators for testing the sound system for the movie Fantasia.
惠普第一个产品是精密音频振荡器，叫做模型200A。它用于测量声波，成本只需50美元，相当于其他公司价格的四分之一，且质量更值信赖。很酷的一件事是，沃特·迪斯尼是惠普的最早期客户之一，他们将8个模型200B音频振荡器用于测试电影《幻想曲》（Fantasia）的声音系统。
I worked at HP for quite a while - about four years. I didn't have a college degree yet, but I promised my managers I would work toward one by taking night classes at San Jose State nearby.
我在惠普工作了近四年，却还没有大学学位。我向经理许诺自己会在附近的圣·荷塞州立大学上夜校来获取学位。
I couldn't imagine quitting my job and going back to school full-time, because what I was doing was too important.
我无法想象辞掉工作，整天学习，因为我所做的事太过重要。
- o -
At HP, I got into calculator circuits and how they were designed. I looked at the schematics of the engineers who had invented this calculator processor, and I was able to make modifications to those chips.
我在惠普研究计算机电路，学习他们如何设计，学习发明这些计算处理器的工程师的基本思维。同时，我也能对那些零件加以修改。
But the longer I worked there, the more I found myself drifting away from the computers of my past: computers and processors, registers, chips, gates, building all these things I used to be fascinated by. Everything was so good in my life; I just set my computer ambitions aside.
但我在那里工作越久，就越感觉自己远离了以前的电脑爱好：电脑、处理器、记录、零件和逻辑门，它们建立了所有我曾为之着迷的东西。此时我的生活虽顺顺利利，但我却把对电脑的追求放置一旁。
I'd even missed the fact that microprocessors - the brain of any modern computer today -were getting more and more powerful and more and more compact. I lost track of the chips that were coming up. I lost track of the fact that we were almost at the point where you could get all of a computer's main brainpower -its central processing unit (or CPU) -onto just one small chip.
我甚至不知道，现代电脑的大脑——微处理器在那时已逐步完善且作用强大。我错过集成块的出现，甚至错过当时的一件重要事情——电脑的主要作用部件，即中央处理器（CPU）已可置于一小片集成电路板中。
I stopped following computer developments so closely. And I didn't really think of our calculators as computers, though of course they were. They did have a couple of chips inside that added up to a little microprocessor - a veiy strange one, I admit, but in those days you had to design things strangely and come up with weird techniques. Your chips could really do only one thing at a time. Back then, chips were simpler, you couldn't fit more than a thousand or so transistors on a chip, compared to more than a billion today.
我不再紧跟电脑的发展步伐。事实上，我也不认为计算器是电脑，尽管它们是。它们内部也有一些零件可放于微处理器——我承认这有点怪，但那时你就得别出心裁，出奇制胜。那时的集成块都更为简单，无法把100多个晶体管安置于上面，就更别提如今的数亿个晶体管了。
So everything was weirder then. And because I was so happy in my job, I didn't know what I was missing.
那时一切还很落后。因为对于工作，我是如此的乐于其中，以致从未察觉自己失去了什么。
- o -
What's a CPU
什么是CPU？
You hear the letters "CPU" thrown around a lot, but CPU, short for central processing unit, is a term that's usually used interchangeably with "microprocessor." That is, provided the CPU is on one chip. When I first started building computers, like the Cream Soda Computer, there was no such thing as a CPU on a chip - that is, a microprocessor.
关于CPU，你可能已很耳熟，但它真正是什么呢？而它的发明又给如今的电脑革新带来了什么改变？ CPU为中央处理（centralprocessingunit）的缩写，通常也叫做“微处理器”，即位于一块芯片的中央处理器。当我初次制造电脑时，比如“奶油苏打电脑”，还没有位于一块芯片的CPU，即微处理器。
As it turned out, Intel came out with the first true micro- processor in the mid-1970s. It was called the 4004.
英特尔于20世纪70年代中期推出第一代真正的微处理器，叫做4004。
The whole purpose of the CPU, which really is the brains of a computer, is to seek and execute all the instructions someone stored in the computer as a program. Say you write a program that spell-checks a document. Well, the CPU is capable of finding that program (which is represented in the machine as the binary numbers 1 and 0) and communicating with the other components of the computer to make it run.
CPU相当于电脑的大脑，它的任务就是找到并执行电脑中储存的指令，即程序。如果你编写了一个对文件进行拼写检查的程序，CPU能够找到这一程序（程序在机器中都以二进制1和0表示），并让电脑的其他部件运行该程序。
Sometimes a bunch of us engineers would take small planes and fly to lunch somewhere. A lot of us had our pilot's licenses. For my first flight ever in a small plane, I ended up in Myron Tut- tle's plane. Myron was a design engineer, like me, a guy who worked with me in my cubicle. That day he let me sit in the copilot's seat, which I thought was so cool.
有时候，我们一群工程师会驾驶一辆小型飞机去某个地方吃顿午饭。我们中大多人都有飞行员执照。我的第一次飞行驾驶是在麦隆·塔特尔的飞机上。麦隆也和我一样是位设计工程师，我们一同在工作室工作。那天他让我坐在副驾驶位置上，我觉得太棒了。
I remember there were two people in the back, other people in our group. So here we are, flying for lunch to Rio Vista, near Sacramento.
当时后座上还有三位我们部门的其他同事。我们几人前往萨克拉门托的RioVista共进午餐。
When Myron landed, we just bounced and bounced and bounced. I had never been in such a small plane before, so I just thought, Oh, this is interesting. So this is how a small plane is. Really bumpy when you land.
麦隆着陆时，我们都从座位上弹起来好几次。之前我从未坐过这样的小飞机，所以我想，这真是太有趣了。因此这也许就是小飞机的特点，着陆时颠簸不堪。
At lunch, the other pilots had this private conversation. (I found out later they were trying to decide whether they would let Myron fly us back!) Well, it turned out they decided, okay, it was just one flight, and the runway in San Jose was 10,000 to 12,000 feet long. They thought maybe Myron would be able to do a better job on the return flight.
午餐时，其他人都在私下议论。（我后来发现他们在决定回去时是否还让麦隆驾驶飞机。）最后他们决定，这只不过一次飞行，而且圣·荷塞的机场跑道约有10000～12000英尺长，麦隆回程时可能会飞得好一点。
So we flew back after lunch - and there it was again, another one of those really, really bouncy landings. Again I just thought that's how you land in small planes. There was a first bounce, then a second bounce that was pretty hard, then a scraping sound, and then it bounced, bounced, bounced, and bounced again for what seemed like the millionth time down the runway.
因此，午饭后，我们又飞了回去。但那仍是一个非常颠簸的着陆，我再一次将此归咎于这是一架小飞机。第二次抖得着实厉害，随后又听到刮擦的声音，之后就开始不停地抖动，仿佛有100万次才降落于跑道。
I must've been white as a sheet, I think everyone was. And not one of us could say a word. We taxied around the runway for a few minutes, and still the three of us didn't say a word to Myron. Not one word.
我的脸像纸一样惨白，我想每个人都一样。大家一句话都说不出来。哪怕在出租车里的几分钟，我们三人仍是无语，一个字也没有说。
That silence was uncomfortable. Finally I felt like I had to say something, just anything technical, because he's an engineer and all. So after we got out of the plane, I said to Myron, "Hey, that's interesting that they bend the propeller like that鈥 攊s that for aerodynamic reasons"
这种沉默让人不安。最后我觉得必须得说些什么，就算只是一些关于纯技术的事情，毕竟他只是一名工程师。在我们走出飞机后，我对麦隆说：“真是有趣，螺旋桨能折成那样，是因为空气动力学的原因吗？”
And Myron said, "They don't." That's all he said.
麦隆回答：“不是。”然后再也没说什么。
I realized I had just said the worst possible thing.
我意识到自己说了最坏的可能。
Myron had bent his propeller on that landing.
麦隆是在着陆时弄折了螺旋桨。
To be fair to Myron, it's not impossible that I did something in my copilot seat that made the bounce worse. It's possible that in my own fright I touched something I shouldn't have.
公平地讲，我在副驾驶座位上做了什么而导致抖动更厉害，也不无可能，或是由于惊吓而碰到了不该碰的东西。
At any rate, I heard Myron never flew again after that. As for the propeller he bent, he had to buy it. We mounted it on the lab wall, something for us to always look at and remember. Like it was a joke.
无论如何，麦隆在那以后就不再驾驶飞机。他也不得不买下弄折的螺旋桨。我们将其挂在实验室墙上，作为那天的纪念，仿佛只是一个笑话而已。
- o -
I think most people with day jobs like to do something totally different when they get home. Some people like to come home and watch TV. But my thing was electronics projects. It was my passion and it was my pastime.
大多上白班的人都喜欢在回家后做些完全不同的事情。有些喜欢在家看电视，但我则喜欢做电子工程。我热衷于此，并以此为娱乐。
Working on projects was something I did on my own time to reward myself, even though I wasn't getting rewarded on the outside, with money or other visible signs of success.
在业余时间做工程项目是我对自己的奖励，尽管在外我从未得过什么奖，没有什么奖金或是其他物质奖励。
One such project I called Dial-a-Joke. I started it about two weeks before I went to work at HP, and it went on for a couple of years after that.
其中一个项目叫做“拨号听笑话”。它开始于我进入惠普的2周后，此后并继续了数年。
Now, a lot of people start companies, and I know a lot of people will probably be reading this book only because I started Apple. But what I wish more people knew about me is what I think I should really be famous for: creating the very first Dial-a-Joke in the Bay Area, which was one of the first in the world.
很多人要建立自己的公司，所以很多人读这本书可能仅仅是因为我创建了苹果公司。但我却希望更多的人是通过以下事情而了解到我：创立了湾区第一条“拨号听笑话”热线。
A dial-a-joke service was something I had wanted to do for a while, mostly because I'd been calling dial-a-joke numbers (remember Happy Ben) all around the world with my Blue Box. So I knew there were dial-a-joke lines in places like Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles, but there were none in the San Francisco Bay Area. How could that be I couldn't believe it. And you know me; I always like to be in the forefront of things. So I decided I was going to be the first one to do it.
“拨号听笑话”服务是我那时很想做的一件事，主要因为我曾用蓝盒子拨打全世界的笑话热线——还记得“快乐的本”吗？因此，我也清楚很多地方都有笑话热线，比如悉尼、澳大利亚和洛杉矶，但旧金山湾区却没有。怎么会这样？我几乎不能相信。相信你们都了解我，我总喜欢站在时代的前方，所以我决定首当其冲地建立热线。
Before long I really did have the first dial-a-joke in the Bay Area, and it was unbelievably popular. In fact, it had so many calls that I could only keep doing it for a couple of years. I was fielding thousands of calls a day by the end of it. Eventually I couldn't afford it anymore.
不久，我的确在湾区创立了第一条“拨号听笑话”，而且受到出奇的欢迎。事实上，由于打进的电话太多，我只能坚持几年。后来我每天都要接上数千个电话，终于再也应付不过来了。
- o -
To do a dial-a-joke system, the first thing was to get an answering machine. You couldn't just buy them. It was illegal to connect one to your phone line without actually renting it from a phone company. Keep in mind that there were no phone jacks in the walls back then. Just wires connected to screws.
要做“拨号听笑话”热线，首先需要有一个电话答录机。不能购买，私自与电话线连接是违法行为，所以只能从电话公司租用一个。请记住那时墙上并没有电话线插孔，线都直接与螺钉相连。
I knew movie theaters had answering machines, though. That was for prerecording movie titles and showtimes. Somehow I managed to rent one of those machines for about $50 a month. That was pretty expensive for a young guy like me. But I wanted to do it for fun, and money wasn't going to stop me. Well, at least not at first.
我知道电影院有电话答录机，他们用来预先录好电影标题和播放时间。无论如何，我都尽力要租一个，每月须付50美元。对我这样的年轻人来说，这真是价格不菲。但为了快乐，绝不能让钱成为我的拦路虎。至少，最初是如此。
Next, I needed jokes. I got them from The Official Polish- Italian Joke Book, by Larry Wilde. That book was the best-selling joke book of all time.
接下来需要的便是笑话。我的笑话都来源于拉里·王尔德的《官方波兰人及意大利人笑话大全》，这本书一直都是笑话书籍的销售冠军。
So I hooked up the machine and recorded a joke. Using my best Slavic accent, I'd say: "Alio. Tenk you fur dialing Dial-a- Joke." Then: "Today's joke ees: Ven did a Polack die drinking milk Ven de cow sat down! Ah, ah. Tenk you fer dialin' Dial-a- Joke."
所以，我连好机器，录下笑话，用我最擅长的斯拉夫口音，说道：“你好。欢迎拨打‘拨号听笑话’。”然后又说：“今天的笑话是：知道波兰人为什么死于喝牛奶吗？因为奶牛坐了下来！哈哈。谢谢拨打‘拨号听笑话’。”
The first day, I just gave the number to a few people at work and told them to let their kids try it.
刚开始我只将号码给了一些同事，让他们叫孩子们试试。
The next day, I read another joke into the machine. And every day I'd do that, reading a new Polish joke into the machine. You wouldn't believe how fast Dial-a-Joke ramped up. The first day, there were just a couple of calls. Then there were ten. The next day, there were maybe fifteen. And then suddenly it spiked up to a hundred calls, then two hundred calls a day. Within two weeks, the line was busy all day. I would call it from work and I couldn't even get through. After school let out that year, there were like two thousand calls a day on a single line phone number. I made a point of keeping my jokes as short as I could -under fifteen seconds -just so I could handle more calls a day. I couldn't believe how popular it got!
接着我又在机器中录了个新笑话，此后每天更新一次。打入“拨打听笑话”线路的电话难以置信地越来越多。第一天时只有几个电话，然后到十几个，第二天，大约有15个。然后就突然飙升到100个，之后每天都有200多个电话。两周后，这条线就一直忙个不停。工作时，我打过去竟然都难以接通。那年当学校放假时，这一号码打进的电话达到了每天2000个。我决定把笑话尽量缩短到15秒以内，这样一天中就能接收更多的电话。难以相信，这条线如此受欢迎。
I started to really have a blast with it. Every now and then, just for fun, I'd take live calls when I got home from work. I'd say, "Alio. Tenk you fur dialing Dial-a-Joke." I got to talk to lots of people and hear weird things about their schools and teachers and other students. I took notes. That way, if I asked someone (in my Polish accent, of course) what high school do you go to, and they answered "Oak Grove," I could say, "Hey, does Mr. Wilson still wear those weird red pants"
那真正是一次快乐而兴奋的经历。下班回家后，我还时常在线接听，与人们开开玩笑。我会说：“你好。谢谢拨打‘拨号听笑话’。”我与很多人进行交谈，并收集他们学校、老师和其他学生的奇闻趣事。例如，我问别人在什么高中就读——当然是用我的波兰口音，他们回答“橡树林学校。”我就会说：“嗨，威尔逊老师还穿那条奇怪的红裤子吗？”
So they were amazed by me. They heard the recordings and they knew I actually picked up the phone sometimes - they thought this old Polish guy knew everything about them! I told them my name was Stanley Zebrazutsknitslci.
他们会因此而大吃一惊。他们收听录音，但也知道我有时在线。他们感到惊奇的是，这个波兰老头竟知道他们的一切！我说我的名字叫斯坦利·泽巴拉如斯克尼斯基。
At one point I bought two books of insults -2,001 Insults, volumes 1 and 2. A lot of these insults were really funny. Sometimes I would say something a little critical to a caller - like, "You not so bright, are you" -just to get them going. Usually they would retort by calling me something nasty, like an old fart. That's when I could start reading the insults out of the book, ones that were so clever no one could come back with anything good. As hard as anyone tried, I would always win the insult battle.
那时，我还买了些讽刺性笑话书——两卷本的《2001则讽刺笑话》，其中大部分笑话都很有趣。有时我会对拨打人发表一些批评，比如：“你不太聪明，是吗？”只是想让他们清醒一点。通常他们也会反驳，对我说一些难听的话，比如放屁之类。当我开始讲书中的讽刺故事时，聪明人会出言不逊。但是，不论他们如何努力，我总能在口角之战中取得胜利。
Somewhere around that time, I got complaints from the Polish American Congress that the jokes defamed people of Polish descent. Being a Polish Wozniak who tells and laughs at Polish jokes, I asked them if they would mind if I switched to Italian jokes. They said that would be fine.
就在那时，我受到波兰美国人大会的抗议，说我破坏了波兰人的名誉。身为波兰人，却又讲述波兰人的笑话，于是我问他们是否可以换成意大利笑话，他们同意了。
See, the notion of political correctness didn't exist back then. The Polish-Americans didn't care if I told ethnic jokes as long as they weren't about Polish people!
瞧，那时可并没有识时务的概念。只要无关波兰人，波兰美国人并不介意我的种族笑话。
Want to Hear a Dial-a-Joke
想了解笑话热线吗？
The first dial-a-joke service is rumored to have been created by New York Bell in the early 1970s. Want to hear some examples You can hear archived recordings at http://www.dialajoke.com .
第一条笑话热线据说是由纽约的贝尔在20世纪70年代早期创立的。想听吗？登录http://www.dialajoke.com，你就可以听到当时的一些录音资料。
And you know what Twelve years later the same Polish American Congress gave me its Heritage Award, its highest award for achievements by a Polish-American.
有趣的是，12年后，同样是波兰美国大会颁给了我“传承奖”——奖给波兰美国人的最高奖项。
- o -
As it happened, most of my callers were young teenagers. Adults don't have the time or the patience to keep dialing a busy number over and over to get through.
由于我的大多听众都是青少年，成年人没有时间和耐性不断拨打一个总也接不通的电话。
But the kids, because they were dialing it over and over, frequently misdialed the number. One time, on a weekend, I took a live call from this woman who said, "Please, you've got to stop that machine. My husband works nights and he's got to sleep days, and we're getting a hundred calls a day that are meant for you." So the next day I called the phone company and had them change the number. I did that just for her.
但孩子们由于一遍又一遍地拨打电话，很容易就拨错号码。有次，在周末，我接到一位女士的电话，她说：“请停止这条热线吧。我丈夫上夜班，白天需要睡觉。而我们白天却接到一百多个找你的电话。”所以为了她，第二天我就让电话公司给我换了号码。
I didn't hear any more complaints for the next month, so I assumed the phone number switch worked. But a manager at the phone company called me to tell me that a lot of other people were complaining.
此后的一个月里，我再没听到任何报怨，我想是换号码起了作用。但电话公司的经理却告诉我许多人怨声载道。
And that was frustrating to me because I didn't want to make trouble for anyone. So I started thinking about getting an easy- to-dial number. I was in Cupertino where one of the prefixes was 255, so I thought, How about 255-5555 That would be easy to dial -you could keep dialing the same touch-tone, and your finger wouldn't have to leave the space. I tried calling this number, and I found out that no one had it. I also found out that nobody had 255-6666.
这让我极为沮丧，因为我并不想制造麻烦。所以我想使用一个更易拨打的号码。由于我住在库比提诺，号码以255开头，所以我想255－5555怎样？这很易于拨打。后面只需连续按同一个键，不再移动。我试着拨打了一下，发现是空号。同时还发现255－6666也是空号。
I called a manager at the phone company -Dial-a-Joke was such a big deal by now that even shy Steve Wozniak could talk to phone company managers. I suggested that the remedy for all the misdialing should be an easy-to-dial phone number. I asked first for the 255-5555 number, but they weren't allocating numbers in the 5000 range. So I said, "How about 255-6666" He checked and said, "Fine." And he gave it to me.
我打给电话公司经理——“拨号听笑话”如此轰动，以至于害羞的斯蒂夫·沃兹都会与电话公司经理通话。我提议，换一个易拨号码就可解决误打的现象。我先问255－5555是否可以，但他们不能给予5000范围内的号码。于是我就，“那255－6666呢？”他查询后回答：“可以。”就给了我这个号码。
I ended up getting some cards printed up that said: "The Crazy Polack. Heard a good one lately Call 255-6666."
然后，我张贴了一些告示：“疯狂波兰人。最近在听吗？请拨打255－6666。”
I figured that would be the end of the misdialing problems, but it wasn't. I remember coming home from Hewlett-Packard to the apartments in Cupertino, where I lived, and there were three people waiting. They said they worked at Any Mountain, which was and still is a major ski supply shop in California. And their number was 255-6667, one digit different. They said they were getting so many crank calls and weird people and kids calling they were afraid to answer their own phone! I was kind of proud of the fact that my little operation was able to affect that big a business, but I really did want to change my number again to protect them. So I did that. I changed it to a 575 prefix -575-1625 - but that 575 prefix was actually set up for high- volume calls like radio station contests and that kind of thing. And I had that number until the end of Dial-a-Joke a couple of years later.
我以为误打问题就此结束，但仍是存在。还记得那天从惠普回到库比提诺的家，有三人正等着我，他们说是“任意一座大山”的员工，那是一家加州的滑雪用具店，如今还在。他们的号码是255－6667，只有一字之差。他们说最近总接到一些奇怪的电话，大多来自一些古怪的人和小孩，以至于他们不能接听自己的电话！我甚至有点骄傲，自己的小答录机竟能影响这么大的商店。但是，我也真的很愿意改变自己的号码而保护他们的利益。所以我这样做了，将前面三位换成575，然后是575－1625。575实际上都是用于热线电话，像电台比赛之类。这个号码一直用至“拨号听笑话”停止。
But Dial-a-Joke was hurting for money. The cost of the answering machine alone was breaking me.
但“拨号听笑话”的费用颇大，仅是答录机的费用就足以让我捉襟见肘。
At one point I thought maybe I could get money from the callers to help pay for Dial-a-Joke. I added the message, "Please send money to P.O. Box 67 in Cupertino, California." In three months I received only $11. Only once did I get a whole dollar. Usually I'd get a nickel, dime, or quarter taped to a piece of paper.
我曾想，也许从听众那里我可以收取一些“拨号听笑话”的费用。于是我写了一条便条，“请将钱寄往加州库比提诺邮局67号信箱。”3个月内我仅收到11美元。只有一次得到的是1美元，通常只是用报纸包好的5分、1角或25分的硬币。
- o -
The biggest problem with Dial-a-Joke, like I said, was the expense. Not only did renting the machine cost a lot of money, but I was constantly having to rent new machines from the phone company.
正如我所说，“拨号听笑话”最大的问题就是费用。不仅租用答录机需要大笔费用，我还经常不得不从电话公司租用一些新机器。
To give you an idea, in theaters, these machines lasted years. But with me, they were lasting, like, a month. So every month I'd have to call up the phone company and say, "You've got to come over here to fix your answering machine, it's no good."
这么说吧，在剧院里，这些机器可用上几年，但在我这里，它们只能用1个月。所以每个月我都不得不告诉电话公司，“你们必须到这里来修修答录机，有问题了。”
And really I loved doing that because they were charging me so much to rent it, it seemed only right that I wouldn't have to be stuck with it once it broke down. I liked to see them lose money, too. So this guy would show up at 5 p.m., when I got home from work, with a whole new machine. I'd meet the guy, let him into the apartment, he'd install the machine, and that was that.
我实在喜欢这样做。因为他们收的租金太多，一旦机器坏了，我没必要忍受下去，当然，我也喜欢他们破费。这样我下班回家后，修理工就会在下午5点带一个全新机器来。我会让他到我的公寓去把机器装好。
One month, when I got home that day after five when the repairman was supposed to be there, there was instead a note from him saying he'd been there at 2 p.m.
有一个月，我回家后，没有修理工等我，而仅有一张纸条，说他是在下午2点过来的。
Two p.m. I called up the phone company. "He's always supposed to come after five. You better have him come after five tomorrow." Well, the next day I got a note saying he'd been there at 3 p.m. So now I called the phone company almost livid - and that is really unusual for me - and I said something like: "You'd better tell him to be there at 5 p.m. this time." But then the next day, again, there was a note saying he'd been there at 2 p.m. What was going on I had no idea.
下午2点？我打给电话公司。“他只该在下午5点后过来。你最好让他明天下午5点后来。”而第二天，仍是只有一张纸条，说是他3点过来的。我非常生气——我很少生气成这样，又打给电话公司，说道：“你们最好让他5点后来。”但接下来的一天，等着我的仍是一张纸条，上写：他下午2点来过。怎么回事？我实在不知道。
But I had gone three days with a nonworking machine that I was paying for, and that was no joke to me.
但是，机器连着3天都不能工作，我却还为此而付费，这可并不好笑。
Now, I decided to play the game a different way. I called them and this time just very politely asked them to get the guy there at five. I hooked up an illegal but working answering machine to my Dial-a-Joke phone and left a message in my Slavic voice that told all the kids the machine was broken because of the phone company, and if they liked Dial-a-Joke they better call 611 (the number for telephone repair) to complain. And I told them to have all their friends call, too.
因此我决定玩一个游戏。我再次打给了他们，非常礼貌地问是否可以让修理工5点来。然后，我非法接上了一台答录机，用斯拉夫口音留下口讯给孩子们，告诉他们机器坏了，只因电话公司，如果他们喜欢“拨号听笑话”，最好拨打611（即电话维修电话）投诉，并让他们转告其朋友。
The next day I was pretty much in meetings all day at Hewlett- Packard, but I got home at 4:45 p.m., just in time to disconnect the illegal answering machine before the telephone guy got there. Then I called 611 and said, "I have a complaint."
次日，我整天都在惠普开会，回家时已是下午4:45，刚好可以在修理工来之前断开非法答录机的连接。然后，打给611说：“我要投诉。”
She said, "I know. Dial-a-Joke."
对方马上说，“又是‘拨号听笑话’。”
How did you know I asked.
“你何以得知？”我问。
“今天几乎每个电话都是为了‘拨号听笑话’打来。”她回答，听起来甚是沮丧，而我喜笑颜开，感觉这是自己制造的欢乐时刻。
那天，修理工的确5点就到了，还与他的上司一起。我让修理工进去换上新机器，却把他的上司留在雨中，读一本K·奥珀瑞·斯通的《对不起，你要的垄断缺货》。这是一本言词锋利的书，但我认为他值得一读。
A Good Number Is Hard to Find
好号码总是让你百转千回
I told you about 255-6666. That was the first good phone number of my life. Many years later, I got the home number 996- 9999, which had six digits the same. That was a milestone for me. When I lived in Los Gatos, I got numbers like 353-3333 and 354-4444 and 356-6666 and 358-8888.
我提到过255－6666，这是我此生中第一个好号码。多年后，我的住宅电话为996－9999，有6个数字相同，这是我的又一里程碑。当我住在加州洛思佳时，我的号码有353－3333、354－4444、356－6666和358－8888。
My main goal with phone numbers was to someday get a number with all seven digits the same. The way they divided phone numbers between San Jose and San Francisco, all of those numbers went to San Francisco. For example, 777-7777 was the San Francisco Examiner. But as the area codes started running out of phone numbers, they started duplicating the prefixes, allowing San Jose's area code to someday have numbers that started with 222, 333, 444, or whatever.
在电话号码上，我的目标是，得到一个7位都相同的号码。圣·荷塞和旧金山的电话号码都划分在旧金山地区。例如，777－7777是《旧金山观察家报》（San Francisco Examiner）的电话。但是，由于电话号码都以区号开头，所以前几位数都相同。除非圣·荷塞区某日的电话号码以222、333、444此类开头，我的愿望才可能得以实现。
In the early days of cell phones, I had a scanner that would let you listen to people's cell phone calls. It would show me the phone numbers of callers. One day my friend Dan spotted a number in our 408 area code starting with 999. I immediately called the phone company to get 999-9999 for myself. Unfortunately, they couldn't pull that number out of a larger group of numbers someone else had reserved.
手机推出的早期，我就有一个能让我听到人们手机呼叫的扫描器。它能显示出呼叫者的电话号码。有一天，我的朋友丹发现我们408号区可以以999为开头。我立即打给电话公司，想要获得999－9999这一号码。不幸的是，有人已预订了那一组号码。
A few weeks later, Dan spotted a number starting with 888. This time I lucked out.
几周后，丹又发现了以888开头的号码，这次我成功了。
I got the numbers 888-8800, 888-8801, up to 888-8899. So by about 1992, I had achieved my lifetime goal of having the ultimate phone number. I put the number 888-8888 on my own cell phone, but something went wrong. I would get a hundred calls a day with no one on the line, not once. Sometimes I would hear shuffling sounds in the background. I would yell, whistle, but I could never get anyone to speak to me.
888－8888就这样成了我的手机号码。但是不太顺心。因为我一天可接到100个电话，而且都无人应答。有时我可以听到些支吾的声音。我会大喊大叫或是吹口哨，但还是无人回应。
Very often I would hear a tone being repeated over and over, and then it hit me. It was a baby, pressing the 8 button over and I did a calculation that concluded that perhaps one-third of the babies born in the San Jose 408 area code would eventually call my number. And basically this made my phone unusable.
通常，我都会听到不停的按键音，这让我想起，可能是个婴儿，在一遍又遍地按8这个键。我大概计算了一下，圣·荷塞408号区可能有三分之一的婴儿都曾拨打过我的电话。这让我放弃了这一号码。
I'll tell you about one last number. It was 221-1111. This number has a mathematical purity like no other. It's all binary numbers -magic computer numbers. Powers of two. But the real purity was how small the digits were, 1s and 2s. By the rules of allocating phone numbers in the United States, no other phone number could have only two 2s and the rest 1s. In that sense, it was the lowest number you could get.
我想告诉你的最后一个号码是221－1111，它极具数学风格。全部都是二进制数字——神奇的电脑数字。但更有意思的是，这个数字很小，只有1和2；根据美国电话号码的排列，没有号码能比221－1111更小了。也就是，它是能得到的最小电话号码。
It was also the shortest dialing distance for your finger to move on a rotary phone,
在拨盘电话上，这个号码所需手指移动的距离也是最短的。
As with 888-8888, I got so many wrong phone numbers every day. One day I was booking a flight and noticed that Pan American Airlines had the number, 800-221-1111.
与888－8888一样，这一号码所出的错误也是层出不穷。有天我定机票时发现泛美航空公司的电话是800－221－1111。
The next phone call I got, I heard someone start to hang up after I said hello. I shouted, "Are you calling Pan Am" And a woman came on the line and said, "Yes." I asked her what she wanted and booked my first flight for a Pan Am passenger that day.
我接到过一个电话，有人在我说“你好”时就准备挂上电话。于是我高呼：“你在拨打泛美航空的电话吗？”一位女士回答，“是的。”然后我问她需要什么服务，并为她定下了泛美航空的机票，这是我第一次这样做。
Over the next two weeks, I booked dozens of flights. I made up a game to see how crazy I could make prices and flight times and still have people book it. After a couple of weeks, I started feeling guilty. And vulnerable. I didn't want to get arrested. So for the next two years, I answered every phone call with, "Pan Am, International Desk. Greg speaking." My friends would have to yell, "Hey, Steve, it's me," when they called. I would trick people into booking the craziest things, but I would always tell them it was a prank and that I was not really Pan Am.
接下来的两周里，我预定了许多机票。我完全视为游戏，看看到底能多么疯狂地定价和航班时间，却还是有人预订。再过几周，我开始感到内疚，易于自责。我不想被逮捕。所以此后两年，接通每个电话我都会说：“泛美航空，国际服务台。我是格雷格。”我的朋友们打来时，不得不大叫：“嗨，斯蒂夫，是我。”我会开人们的玩笑，让他们疯狂地预订，但此后总会告诉他们这不过一个恶作剧，这里并不是泛美航空。
For example, I might tell them that their flight would leave San Jose at 3 a.m., so a lot of times they would be really relieved. I started booking callers on what I called the "Grasshopper Special." If they flew through our lesser-used airports, it would reduce their fare. I almost always told them to fly to Billings, Montana, down to Amarillo, Texas, then up to Moscow, Idaho, then to Lexington, Kentucky, and then to their destination. Boston.
例如，我会告诉他们，航班会于凌晨3点在圣·荷塞起飞，所以大多时候他们都会放弃。我还让他们参与“草蜢特惠”，即如果他们飞往荒废的机场，将会降低费用。我总叫他们先飞往蒙大拿州的比林斯市，再到德克萨斯州的阿马里洛市，此后又折回到爱达荷州的莫斯科，之后再去肯塔基州的莱克星顿市，最后才到他们的目的地——波士顿。
Hundreds of people took me up on this. Hundreds, maybe thousands, over the course of two years. Anyone who knows me saw me taking reservations constantly. I also booked Grasshopper flights to other countries, telling people they had to stop in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Singapore to get to Sydney.
这种电话大概数百通，或许在过去2年里有上千个。任何认识我的人都知道我的电话总是占线。我还会把“草蜢特惠”扩大到其他国家，比如，我告诉他们到达悉尼前，必须先停留于香港、曼谷、东京和新加坡。
I told some callers they could fly "freight." But they had to wear warm clothing.
我还告诉一些人可以运输货物，但他们得穿厚一点。
I kept a straight face because everyone always went for the lower fare. At some point I started telling them it was cheaper to fly on propeller planes than jets. The first time I did this, I tried to book a guy on a thirty-hour flight to London. But he would have nothing to do with it. I did get a number of people to buy into a cheap twenty-hour flight from San Jose to New York City.
我一直板着面板，态度不好，因为每个人都冲着低价而来。有时，我还告诉他们螺旋桨飞机比喷气式飞机更为便宜。第一次这样做，是因为想让一个人定下通往伦敦34小时的航班，但他并不满意。我还让一些人预订下从圣·荷塞前往纽约长达20小时的航班。
The craziest one - and I still smile when I think about it -was the one I called the "Gambler's Special." I would tell them that the first leg of their flight had to go to Las Vegas. From there, they had to go to our counter at the airport. And if they rolled a "7," the next leg would be free.
最疯狂的一次让我至今想起都不禁莞尔，叫做“赌徒特惠”。我告诉他们，首先飞去拉斯维加斯，到达后，去我们机场的柜台拨打“7”，另一半飞行则可免费。
Every other call today has been for Dial-a-Joke - she said, sounding really frustrated. So I just got this big grin on my face. I felt like I had made the big time. And yes, the guy did show up that day at 5 p.m. -with his supervisor. I let the guy in to replace it, but left the supervisor out in the rain with a book to read called I'm Sorry, the Monopoly You Have Reached Is Not in Service, by K. Aubrey Stone. It's a really lousy book, actually, but I thought he deserved it.
最终，我还是不得不放弃“拨号听笑话”，因为惠普微薄的工程师薪水让我无法负担下去，尽管我非常喜欢。
Eventually I had to give up Dial-a-Joke because I couldn't keep it up on my tiny HP engineer's salary. Even though I loved it so, so much.
o -
There is one major thing I haven't yet told you about Dial-a- Joke. It is how I met my first wife, Alice. She was a caller one day when I happened to be taking live calls. I heard a girl's voice, and I don't know why but I said: I bet I can hang up faster than you!" And then I hung up. She called back, I started talking to her in a normal voice, and before long we were dating. She was really young, just nineteen at the time.
关于“拨号听笑话”，我还要告诉你们一件重要的事情。我就是这样遇到第一任妻子，爱丽丝。她也是一位听众，而当时刚好我在线。我听到一位女孩的声音，也不知道自己为何就说：“我打赌，我比你先挂。”然后我就挂断了。她再次打了过来，我就用平常口音与她交谈，不久后我们就开始约会。她那时非常年轻，只有19岁。
We met, and the more I talked to her, the more I liked her. And she was a girl. I had only kissed two girls up to that point, so even being able to talk to a girl was really rare.
见面后，与她交谈越多，我就越喜欢她，而她还是个女孩。那时我只吻过2个女孩子，甚至很少跟女孩说话。
Alice and I were married two years later. And our marriage lasted just a little longer than my career at Hewlett-Packard, which is funny in a sad way.
2年后，我们结婚了。而我们的婚姻仅比我在惠普的职业生涯长一点点，真是不幸的巧合。
Because I thought both of those arrangements were going to last forever.
因为，我以为她和惠普的工作都会伴我一生。