雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(69)
Wilkes visited the NPL a week later, on 27 November, to discuss his plans. On 2 December he wrote again:
I have been thinking over in more detail the subject we were discussing last Wednesday and what I have now in mind is that I should build up a group here containing about eight people of varying grades in addition to the mechanic and boy who are at present in the workshop.
上週三我們討論的事，我已經認真考慮過了。我需要組建一個團隊，除了我現有的人員和技工，還要再加8個人員。This would involve an annual wage bill of something like 2,500 pounds. In addition there will be cost of materials and getting things made outside.
每年的工資總共需要大約2500英鎊，另外還有材料費用，以及其它一些開銷。
I am quite convinced that the construction of a pilot model of some sort is an essential step in designing ACE.
我非常肯定，對於ACE注來說，首先開發某種原型，這是至關重要的步驟。I am attaching a note I have written on the design of the pilot model.
我已經做了一份原型設計，附在此信之後。It does not follow that no part of ace may be ordered until the pilot model is finished but there will be many matters which it will be hard to settle, without experience at least of trying to get a pilot model working.
我希望你能儘快決定與我們簽訂合同，這將會非常有益。如果不先開發原型，我們在某些方面就無法獲得經驗，這會使很多問題無法解決。But the attached note outlined the specification of a computer on the EDVAC model, and thus entirely different from the ACE.
附件中的原型設計，大體上是基於EDVAC模型，與ACE完全不同。Not only did it employ a central accumulator, but it ran counter to the Turing philosophy of keeping the hardware as simple as possible, and putting the work into the programming.
它不僅採用了中心累加器，而且在很多方面都與圖靈的設計哲學恰恰相反。Instead, it made the programming as easy as possible, at the cost of requiring electronic circuits to do the work of recognising and executing the various arithmetical instructions.
圖靈的原則是儘量簡化硬件，把工作交給編程，而這份設計卻儘量簡化編程，引入了大量的硬件設備來識別和執行各種算術指令。
