TED演讲:畅想电子游戏

 　　I grew up in Northern Ireland, right up in the very, very north end of it there,  我从小在北爱尔兰长大，就在爱尔兰岛的最最北边

　　where it's absolutely freezing cold.  那里非常冷

　　This was me running around in the back garden mid-summer.  这张照片是一个夏天我在我们家后院玩的时候拍的

　　I couldn't pick a career.  我不知道该选择什么样的职业

　　In Ireland the obvious choice is the military,  在爱尔兰，最正常的选择应该是参军

　　but to be honest it actually kind of sucks.  但是，说实话，部队里太没劲了

　　My mother wanted me to be a dentist.  我妈希望我成为一个牙科医生

　　But the problem was that people kept blowing everything up.  但问题是，那个时候人们一直在到处乱扔炸弹

　　So I actually went to school in Belfast,  我去了贝尔法斯特的一个学校读书

　　which was where all the action happened.  所有的骚乱就是在那儿发生的

　　And this was a pretty common sight.  这张照片上就是当时常见的景象

　　The school I went to was pretty boring.  我上学的那个学校特别无聊

　　They forced us to learn things like Latin.  我们被逼着学了像拉丁语这样无聊的东西

　　The school teachers weren't having much fun, the sports were very dirty or very painful. 学校的老师也都很没劲，学校里的体育项目又脏又累

　　So I cleverly chose rowing, which I got very good at.  于是我就非常聪明的选择了赛艇，后来我划得还不错

　　And I was actually rowing for my school here  照片上我正代表我的学校参加赛艇比赛

　　until this fateful day, and I flipped² over right in front of the entire school.  直到灾难性的那天，我翻船了，当着全校师生的面，我翻船了

　　And that was the finishing post right there.  其实比赛的终点就在那儿

　　So this was extremely embarrassing.  那个时候我觉得特别特别尴尬

　　But our school at that time got a grant from the government,  不过后来我们学校从政府拿到一份津贴

　　and they got an incredible computer -- the research machine 3DZ --  然后他们买来一台惊人的计算机，用作研究的机器--3DZ

　　and they left the programming manuals lying around.  当时他们就把编程手册扔在那儿

　　And so students like myself with nothing to do, we would learn how to program it.  于是像我这样无所事事的学生就会去看手册学习怎样在那台计算机上编程

　　Also around this time, at home, this was the computer that people were buying. 那个时候，我家乡那里的人们都会买这样的一台计算机

　　It was called the Sinclair ZX80. This was a 1K computer,  它叫做Sinclair ZX80，是一台只有1K（内存）的计算机

　　and you'd buy your programs on cassette tape.  然后你就可以去买存在磁带上的程序来运行

　　Actually I'm just going to pause for one second,  我要在这暂停一下

　　because I heard that there's a prerequisite³ to speak here at TED¹ 我听说要在TED演讲必须有一个条件

　　you had to have a picture of yourself from the old days with big hair.  就是要有演讲者必须有一张自己以前留着蓬松长发的老照片

　　So I brought a picture with big hair.  根据要求我带来了这张照片

　　I just want to get that out of the way.  我就是想赶快先完成这个要求

　　So after the Sinclair ZX80 came along the very cleverly named Sinclair ZX81.  接着说，在Sinclair ZX80那台计算机之后，他们又推出了一台新的机器，这台机器名字很有创意叫做Sinclair ZX81

　　And -- you see the picture at the bottom?  大家看到底下的那张照片了吗？

　　There's a picture of a guy doing homework with his son.  照片上是一个人在陪他的儿子做作业

　　That's what they thought they had built it for.  这是厂商原来推出这台计算机的目的

　　The reality is we got the programming manual and we started making games for it.  而事实上，当我们拿到编程手册的时候，我们就马上开始在这台机器上做游戏了

　　We were programming in BASIC,  我们当时用的是BASIC语言编程的

　　which is a pretty awful language for games,  这个语言非常不适合用于游戏编程

　　so we ended up learning Assembly language  于是我们就开始学习汇编语言

　　so we could really take control of the hardware.  因为汇编语言可以让我们完全控制所有硬件

　　This is the guy that invented it, Sir Clive Sinclair, and he's showing his machine.  这就是发明那台机器的人，Clive Sinclair阁下，照片上他正在展示他的机器

　　You had this same thing in America, it was called the Timex Sinclair1000.  你们美国当时有一种同样的机器叫做Timex Sinclair1000

　　To play a game in those days you had to have an imagination  那个时候要玩游戏，你必须有一定的想象力

　　to believe that you were really playing "Battlestar Galactica."  要相信自己真的在玩《太空堡垒银河号》

　　The graphics⁴ were just horrible.  那个时候的图形画面非常差

　　You had to have an even better imagination to play this game,  要想玩这个游戏，你得有更强的想象力

　　"Death Rider."  这是《死亡骑士》

　　But of course the scientists couldn't help themselves.  当然，科学家们可忍不住了

　　They started making their own video games.  他们开始做自己的游戏

　　This is one of my favorite ones here, where they have rabbit breeding,  这是我最爱的游戏之一，这个游戏是关于养兔子的

　　so males choose the lucky rabbit.  雄兔选择走运的雌兔

　　It was around this time we went from 1K to 16K, which was quite the leap.  差不多这个时候，计算机从1K跳到了16K，这是一个非常大的跨越

　　And if you're wondering how much 16K is, this eBay logo here is 16K.  如果你在想16K到底有多大，这个eBAY的图标就有16K

　　And in that amount of memory someone programmed a full flight simulation program.  就在那么大的空间里，有人写出了一个完整的飞行模拟程序

　　And that's what it looked like.  那个程序看起来就像这样

　　I spent ages flying this flight simulator,  我花了好久在这上面开飞机

　　and I honestly believed I could fly airplanes by the end of it.  到后来，我真的以为我可以去开真的飞机了

　　Here's Clive Sinclair now launching his color computer.  这是Clive Sinclair发布他的彩色（屏幕）电脑

　　He's recognized as being the father of video games in Europe.  他被当作欧洲的电子游戏之父

　　He's a multi-millionaire, and I think that's why he's smiling in this photograph.  他是个千万富翁，我想这就是为什么他在照片里笑得那么开心吧

　　So I went on for the next 20 years or so making a lot of different games.  在接下来的20年里我一直在做不同的游戏

1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

3 prerequisite   

n.先决条件；adj.作为前提的，必备的

参考例句：

• Stability and unity are a prerequisite to the four modernizations.安定团结是实现四个现代化的前提。
• It is a prerequisite of entry to the profession that you pass the exams.做这一行的先决条件是要通过了有关的考试。

4 graphics   

n.制图法，制图学；图形显示

参考例句：

• You've leveraged your graphics experience into the video area.你们把图形设计业务的经验运用到录像业务中去。
• Improved graphics took computer games into a new era.经改进的制图技术将电脑游戏带进了一个新时代。