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Timothy Mauch, former Submarine sonar Chief Petty Officer at United States Navy (1976-1991)
蒂莫西·毛奇，前美國海軍潛艇聲吶軍士長（1976-1991）
“Why is it so hard for old people to understand how incredible the technology of today is?”
Why? I’m almost 60. I guess I’m old (when I was 18, my girlfriend called me an “old fuddy-duddy”), so I’ll give it a try. I’ll stick to electronics.
When I was young, Black & White TV was the norm (one per house, and some houses had none, because TVs were very expensive.) and very few TV shows were broadcast in Color. The inside of a TV was full of glowing vacuum tubes. When you turned the TV on, you had to wait a while for the tubes to warm-up, before you saw a picture. There were four networks Three were commercial (ABC, NBC, CBS) and one was educational (PBS). Only very, very expensive TVs had remote control (on/off & channel up/down. It was ultrasonic, and if you jangled a key-chain in the room, the noise would make the TV change channels). Our remote control was Dad yelling at me to get up and change the channel. Everybody watched whatever Dad wanted to watch. When the TV broke, you called the TV repair shop (there was just one telephone in the house, with wires, and it belonged to the only phone company )Pacific Northwest Bell, for us), and a repairman came to fix it. He carried a wooden box (looked like a tool box) FULL of tubes and knew everything about the TV’s circuitry. His van had thousands of tubes and books with the circuitry of every TV.
“為什么老人難以理解當(dāng)今的科技究竟有發(fā)達？”
為什么？我快要60歲了。我想我大概已經(jīng)老了(在我18歲的時候，我的女朋友就叫我“老古董”)，因此我嘗試一直堅持使用電子產(chǎn)品。
我小時候那會，黑白電視是常態(tài)(一戶人家一個，當(dāng)然有些人家沒有，因為電視很貴)，而且很少有彩色的電視節(jié)目。電視的機箱里充滿了發(fā)光的電子管。你打開電視后，需要等上一會兒讓管子發(fā)熱，然后才能看到畫面。當(dāng)時有四個電視網(wǎng)，其中三個是商業(yè)的(ABC，NBC，CBS)，一個是教育的(PBS)。當(dāng)時只有非常非常昂貴的電視機配有遙控器(開/關(guān)/調(diào)上個頻道/下個頻道。遙控器采用的是超聲波技術(shù)，哪怕你在房間里用鑰匙鏈發(fā)出一些聲音，噪音就會讓電視換頻道)。至于我家的遙控方式——我爸對我大吼幾聲，讓我起來換頻道。家里每個人都只能看爸爸想看的節(jié)目，不論他想看的是什么。如果電視機壞了，你需要打電話給電視修理店(我家那會只有一個電話，有電話線的那種，它屬于當(dāng)時唯一的電話公司：西北太平洋貝爾電話公司)，會有一個修理工來修理它。他對電視的線路了如指掌，帶著一個里頭裝滿管子的木盒 (看起來像一個工具箱)。他的面包車?yán)镉袩o數(shù)根電子管，無數(shù)本關(guān)于電視電路的書籍。
Black & white TV
黑白電視機
Color TV
彩色電視機
TV Repairman
電視修理工
That’s what got me interested in electronics. Two neighbors were amateur radio operators. One was a women who used it to talk to her husband, serving in Vietnam. That’s what got me interested in amateur radio. In junior high school, our “industrial arts” department had more than just the traditional wood shop and metal shop. It had an electrician shop (including a wooden telephone pole to climb, and a power transformer at the top), and an electronics shop. The electronics shop started at the beginning of broadcast radio, and ended with an AM and Shortwave radio. The building had a long outdoor wire antenna, just like what was used when broadcast radio was first invented, in the ‘20s.
這使得我對電子學(xué)感興趣。我的兩個鄰居都是業(yè)余無線電操作員。其中一位是個女士，她通過無線電和在越南服役的丈夫通訊。由此，我也產(chǎn)生了對業(yè)余無線電的興趣。在初中學(xué)校，我們的“工藝美術(shù)”系不僅僅配有傳統(tǒng)的木工車間和金屬加工車間，還有一個電工車間(包括一個可供攀爬木制的電話線桿，頂部還有一個電源變壓器)和一個電器商店。這家電器商店始于廣播電臺興起之時，在調(diào)頻廣播和短波無線電通信的時代關(guān)門。這座大樓頂上有一根很長的天線，就像無線電廣播在20年代剛剛被發(fā)明時所使用的一樣。
Old ham radio
老式業(yè)余無線電設(shè)備
Ham Radio Tower
業(yè)余無線電電塔
o MY first radio was a “crystal” radio, built on a breadboard, using the power of the radio broadcast to put the sounds into a crystal headset.
我的第一臺收音機是臺礦石收音機，建立在一塊底板上，利用無線電的力量把聲音傳送到耳機里。
Breadboard tube radio experiment.
板管收音機試驗
o Then, I added a vacuum tube diode, to make it more reliable.
o A vacuum tube triode added amplification, to make it more sensitive (to hear weaker radio stations). New circuitry made it more selective (to separate the different stations).
o Another vacuum tube was added to make the sounds strong enough to drive a loudspeaker. So, I had a three-tube radio that I built from scratch, just like what people used in the ‘30s.
o Finally, I bought a kit that would become a five-tube radio, operating on the AM broadcast band (to hear local stations), AND on an international shortwave band (to hear broadcasts from other countries).
然后，我添加了一個真空二極管，使它更可靠。
添加一個真空三極管增加放大率，使它更加靈敏(接收更微弱的廣播電臺)。新的電路使它更有選擇性(劃分不同的廣播電臺)。
第三個被添加的真空管，用來使聲音大到足夠驅(qū)動一個擴音器。這樣，我有了一個我自己親手制作的三管收音機，它就跟30年代的人使用的一樣。
最后，我買了一套能讓它變成五管收音機的設(shè)備，能接收到AM廣播波段(聽當(dāng)?shù)仉娕_)以及國際短波波段(聽其他國家的廣播)。
Vacuum Tube Kit Radio
成套電子管收音機
In high school I went to computer programming class to learn how to program our school district’s IBM mainframe computer (which was downtown at school district headquarters) in FORTRAN (one of several languages used on mainframes, the ancestors of today’s C++). The programs were punched onto paper cards, with a key-punch machine we stole from the business department. Each card was one line in the program (such as IF X=5 THEN GOTO 15). The program results came back on wide computer paper (computer monitors were very rare, green characters on a black screen, and only in the computer center, to control the computer). We sent one program per week, on Friday, in a big box. Our programs were run in the middle of the night on a weekend, when computer time was cheapest. The print-outs came back on Monday. Networking hadn’t been invented, yet.
高中時，我上了計算機編程課，學(xué)習(xí)如何用FORTRAN語言（這是在大型機上使用的幾種語言之一，是今天的C++的祖先。譯者注： Fortran誕生于上世界五十年代，是世界上第一個高級編程語言）給學(xué)區(qū)內(nèi)的IBM（在市中心，是學(xué)區(qū)內(nèi)IBM的總部，譯者注：IBM,International Business Machines Corporation，IT公司-國際商業(yè)機器公司）的大型計算機編寫程序 。這些程序被我們用一臺從營業(yè)部門偷來的鍵控穿孔機打在了紙卡（譯者注：應(yīng)該是打孔卡）上，一張卡片一行代碼(如：X=5后轉(zhuǎn)到15)。程序的結(jié)果會輸出到計算機用紙上(計算機顯示器非常少見，只有計算機中心有，黑色的屏幕上會有綠色的字符，用來操作計算機)。每周五，我們會用一個大盒子運送一個我們的程序。我們的程序會在周末的一個午夜運行計算，因為那個點計算機使用時間是最便宜的，計算結(jié)果會在周一出來。那時，網(wǎng)絡(luò)還沒有被發(fā)明出來。
Mainframe Computer Center
大型計算機中心
Keypunch Machine
鍵控穿孔機
I joined the Navy, and went into advanced electronics (sonar, specifically), and was trained to repair all of a submarine’s auxiliary equipment (things like fathometer, underwater communications, sound measurement and analysis), which meant I could serve on any submarine in the fleet (not specialized and restricted). Some equipment was very old, still using vacuum tubes, some was recent digital state-of-the-art. My first two submarines were the oldest in the Navy, with very old equipment sitting next to the newest. Eventually, I moved up to the newest and best equipment and submarine, and even helped to construct the newest and best submarine in the world. After that, I went back to the latest school, to teach young new men everything I knew.
我加入了海軍，深入高等電子學(xué)方面(特別是聲吶)，并接受了修理所有潛艇輔助設(shè)備的訓(xùn)練(如:測深儀、水下通信、聲波測距和分析)，這意味著我可以在艦隊中的任何潛艇上服役(沒有專屬、不受限制的)。一些設(shè)備很舊，仍然使用真空管，一些則是最先進的數(shù)字技術(shù)。我最開始的兩艘潛艇是海軍中最老的型號，有著非常陳舊的設(shè)備，停靠在最新的潛艇旁。最終，我移到了有著最新穎最尖端裝備的潛艇上，甚至還為建造世界上最先進的潛艇出了一份力。在那之后，我回到了學(xué)校，教授年輕的新兵我所知道的一切。
Old Submarine Sonar Console
老式潛艇聲吶控制臺
New Sonar Consoles
新聲吶控制臺
During this time, when at home, I started experimenting with home computers. My room-mate had an Apple II, and my brother had an 8-bit PC. I started with a Timex-Sinclair, and later, a Commodore C64. My mother (she was 64) had an expanded TI-99. Another room-mate had an original Apple Macintosh (ugliest computer on the planet, EVER!) At work, we used a Tektronix 4052 and, later, an HP 9836 for auxiliary computations.
在這期間，在家的時候，我開始使用家用電腦。我的室友有一個Apple II/蘋果二代（譯者注：第二代蘋果電腦，沃茲尼亞克[就是曾經(jīng)和喬布斯合伙創(chuàng)立蘋果電腦公司的那位]70年代中期發(fā)明，是1970年代及1980年代初期銷量最佳的個人電腦），我弟弟有一臺8位的個人電腦。我從一臺Timex-Sinclair（譯者注：辛克萊研究公司發(fā)行的小型家用電腦）開始，后來用的是一臺Commodore C64/康懋達 64（注：康懋達公司1982年發(fā)行）。我的母親(她那時64歲)有一個擴展的TI-99（注：Texas Instruments expanded 99/4A，美國德州儀器1981發(fā)行的家用電腦）。另一位室友有一款原創(chuàng)的Apple Macintosh/蘋果麥金塔(絕對是有史以來最丑的電腦，絕對！)。工作的時候，我們使用了Tektronix 4052/泰克4052，后來又使用HP 9836/惠普9836來輔助計算。
Tektronix 4050 Series
泰克4050系列
HP 9836
惠普9836
Timex-Sinclair 1000
辛克萊 1000
Texas Instruments expanded 99/4A
德州儀器99/4A
Commodore C64
康懋達64
Commodore SX-64
康懋達豪華版64
Apple II
蘋果二代
Apple Macintosh
蘋果麥金塔
IBM Suitcase PC
IBM手提箱電腦（便攜式）
For my own use at work, I bought a Commodore SX64 “suitcase portable” with an outboard CP/M card for word processing, spreadsheets and databases. At home, I eventually built an 8 MHz PC/XT with MS-DOS, running Word Perfect, Lotus 1–2–3 and dBase. Online was CompuServe and Dow Jones News. I had my own online BBS, using FidoNet for email. Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet, yet (smile). I also got my ham radio license, and started experimenting with computer radio-telecommunications.
I got out of the Navy and became a Radio Broadcast Engineer. The industry was, at that time, transitioning from analog equipment (magnetic tape and vacuum tubes) to the digital of today (VoIP, networks, virtual reality).
就我自己的工作使用，我買了一臺“手提箱便攜式”Commodore SX64，帶有一個外置的CP/M(注：Control Program for Microprocessors ，第一個微機操作系統(tǒng))卡，用于操作文字處理、電子表格、數(shù)據(jù)庫。在家里，我最終用MS-DOS（注：Microsoft disk operating system，微軟磁盤操作系統(tǒng)）改裝了一臺8兆赫的PC/XT，可以完美地運行Word，Lotus 1-2-3和dBase這些軟件。線上有CompuServe（注：當(dāng)時主要通過電話連接提供網(wǎng)絡(luò)服務(wù)的一個商業(yè)組織）和道瓊斯新聞。我有自己的線上論壇，通過FidoNet來發(fā)電子郵件。但是，阿爾·戈爾還沒有發(fā)明互聯(lián)網(wǎng)（微笑）。我也得到了我的業(yè)余無線電執(zhí)照，并開始嘗試計算機無線電通訊。
之后我離開海軍，成為了一名無線電廣播工程師。那個時候，這個行業(yè)正發(fā)生著從模擬裝置(磁帶和真空管)到今天的數(shù)字化(VoIP、網(wǎng)絡(luò)、虛擬現(xiàn)實)的蛻變。
Old Radio Studio
老式播音室
New Radio Studio
新播音室
I’m still building my own PCs. I started with a 300 bps modem, 20MB hard drive and two 5–1/4″ floppies, to a 48 Mbps modem, 10 TB hard drive and blu-ray, installing my own home network and WiFi hotspot. I’m constantly modifying and upgrading everything.
我還在繼續(xù)改造自己的個人電腦。我從300bps（注：bits per second，比特每秒，計算機或調(diào)制解調(diào)器的信息傳輸速度單位）的調(diào)制解調(diào)器、20MB的硬盤驅(qū)動器和兩個5–1/4的軟盤驅(qū)動器，到48 Mbps（注：million bits per second，兆比特每秒）的調(diào)制解調(diào)器、10 TB硬盤和藍光，我還安裝了我自己的家庭網(wǎng)絡(luò)和WiFi熱點。我不斷地修改和升級所有的東西。
I still have all of my old stuff.
o Computers. Timex-Sinclair~Asus PC. Floppies, modems, hard-drives, monitors, web cams, mics, speakers, headsets, routers, whatever.
o Audio. Phonograph, cassette, 8-track, reel-to-reel, MP3, DAT, CD, DVD, MiniDisk.
o Video. Betamax, VHS, laserdisc, DVD, Blu-Ray
o Camera. Polaroid Land, Kodak Instant, 35mm SLR, Pentax DSLR
o Telephones. Rotary, Touch-Tone, cordless, digital, analog cellular bag phones, digital cellular, flip phones, smart phones, Android, iOS, Windows phones, 2G, 3G, LTE.
o 2-way radio. Amateur tube~solid state, CB, GMRS, FRS, MURS, Maritime SSB, Maritime VHF, Air VHF, Morse Code, teletype, fax, Slow Scan TV, analog TV, digital TV.
我仍然留著所有的舊東西。
【電腦】：從Timex-Sinclair 到華碩。軟盤、調(diào)制解調(diào)器、硬盤驅(qū)動器、顯示器、網(wǎng)絡(luò)攝像頭、麥克風(fēng)、揚聲器、耳機、路由器等等。
【音頻】：留聲機、磁帶、八軌道磁帶、卷盤磁帶、MP3、數(shù)字錄音帶、CD、DVD、迷你碟。
【視頻】：Betamax（Beta制錄像系統(tǒng)），VHS（Video Home Syste，家用錄像系統(tǒng)），雷射影碟，DVD，藍光。
【攝像機】：寶麗來相機，柯達拍立得，35mm單反，賓得數(shù)碼單反。
【電話】：旋轉(zhuǎn)（盤）式電話、按鍵式電話、無繩電話、數(shù)字電話、模擬移動電話、數(shù)字蜂窩、翻蓋手機、智能手機、Android、iOS、Windows phone、2G、3G、LTE。
【雙向無線電收發(fā)設(shè)備】：民用管狀態(tài)的及固態(tài)的、CB（Citizens’ Band，民用波段）、GMRS（General Mobile Radio Service，通用移動無線電服務(wù)）、FRS（Family Radio Service，家庭無線電服務(wù)）、MURS（Multi-use Radio Service，多功能無線電服務(wù)）、Maritime SSB（Maritime Single Side Band航海單邊帶）、Maritime VHF（Maritime Very High Frequency）航海甚高頻、航空甚高頻、摩爾斯電碼、電傳打字機、傳真機、慢掃描電視、模擬電視、數(shù)字電視。
I guess you could say that this old codger is fully aware of the incredible technology we have. I’ve been using state-of-the-art technology for 50+ years, from vacuum tubes to micro chips, point-to-point wiring to surface mount devices, lead-cell batteries with acid burns, to lithium batteries that catch fire in your pocket. coal power plants to nuclear ones, wind and solar power. navigating by the stars to GPS, mechanical clocks to digital ones, polio to transplanting everything but your brain.
我猜你可能會說，這個怪老頭完全意識得到如今我們所擁有的技術(shù)成果有多綺麗。我持續(xù)使用頂尖技術(shù)已經(jīng)有50多年了，從真空管到微芯片，從點對點布線到表面貼裝器件，從用酸做電解液的鉛蓄電池到你的口袋里的鋰電池。從燃煤發(fā)電廠到核能發(fā)電廠，風(fēng)力發(fā)電廠和太陽能發(fā)電廠。從星辰指路到GPS，從機械鐘表到數(shù)字時鐘，將小兒麻痹癥從你的大腦移除。
And my life is only 2/3s over! What’s next? Fusion? Anti-matter? Miniature singularities? New laws of the universe that ignore the speed of light? Artificial gravity?
Wheee!
我的人生還只過了三分之二！未來還有什么在等待著我？可控核聚變？反物質(zhì)?微型奇點?無視光速的宇宙新法則？人造重力？
呦吼~~~！
