雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(96)
But these anarchic developments were overtaken by Darwin's decision.
He had become reconciled to the fact it would not be possible now, as it might have been during the war, to farm out the ACE to other organisations.
達爾文終於接受了一個事實：現在不是戰爭時期，他不可能再把ACE的工程部分外包給其它組織了。Hitherto he had resisted setting up an electronics section within the NPL.
與威爾克斯的聯繫在4月10日徹底中止了，郵政實驗室那邊的項目也取消了。
But now it had become clear that there would be no single national computer, as had been expected in 1946, but various installations of which the NPL, if it was lucky, would have just one.
目前的局面與1946年預想的很不同，現在英國不只有一個計算機項目，而是有好幾個。His new plan was for a prototype to be constructed at the NPL, whereupon it would go to English Electric.
於是，爲了能讓ACE原型機儘快完成，達爾文決定成立一個電子部門。Instead, during the summer of 1947, a new Electronics section of the Radio Division was set up, under a certain H.A. Thomas.
1947年夏天，在H·A·托馬斯的領導下，無線電部門的電子分部成立了。But these were two drawbacks to the new policy.
但是這裏面有兩個問題。The first was that Thomas's interest lay in the industrial application of electronics, and not in computers.
第一，托馬斯感興趣的是電子技術的工業化應用，而不是電子計算機。The second was that he had little knowledge of the use of electronics for pulse or digital techniques.
第二，他在脈衝和電子計算機方面懂得很少。It was not that he refused to make any concession at all to the ACE project, for indeed he very quickly produced a report (with which Womersley was 'in full agreement') on how a computer should be built.
但是儘管如此，他還是很快就提交了一份報告（得到了沃默斯利"完全同意"），關於應該如何建造計算機。But this made little reference to the Turing scheme.
在這篇報告中，他幾乎沒有提到圖靈。Then Thomas imported some enormous cathode ray tubes from Germany.
然後，托馬斯從德國進口了一些大型的陰極射線管，He intended them for use as digital display tubes.
打算將它們用作數字顯示管。The staff from the ACE section dutifully went and stared at these, but with some amazement, for they seemed completely irrelevant to the plans for the computer.
ACE團隊的人員對此非常關注，但是心裏卻犯了一些嘀咕：這玩意跟計算機有什麼關係？
