雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(40)
Taking these four problems in order, Dr Turing said that a storage system must be both economical and accessible.
Teleprinter tape provided an example of a highly economical but inaccessible system.
電傳打字機的磁帶系統，就是一個高度經濟但卻不具有可訪問性的例子，It was possible to store about ten million binary digits at a cost of 1 pound, but one might spend minutes in unrolling tape to find a single figure.
其成本大約是每花費1英鎊可以存儲10, 000, 000個二進制位，但要想訪問其中的某一位，卻需要花費好幾分鐘。
Trigger circuits incorporating radio valves on the other hand provided an example of a highly accessible but highly uneconomical form of storage;
相反，真空管觸發電路則是一個高度可訪問，但卻不具有經濟性的例子，the value of any desired figure could be obtained within a microsecond or less, but only one or two digits could be stored for 1 pound.
它可以在一微秒內訪問到任何需要的數值，但其成本卻高達每英鎊僅能存儲一兩位。A compromise was required; one suitable system was the 'acoustic delay line' which provided storage for 1000 binary digits at a cost of a few pounds, and any required information could be made available within a millisecond.
我們需要在這二者之間找到平衡，因此"延遲線"是一個比較合適的方案，它存儲1000個二進制位所需的成本只有幾英鎊，而且可以在一毫秒內訪問到任何需要的信息。But explaining excitedly to the committee how the delay line was to work, he rapidly became too technical and was cut off before even touching upon the question of devising 'tables of instructions'.
接下來，圖靈開始激情洋溢地給委員們講解延遲線的原理，結果這使他的形象迅速地變得過於專業，以至於還沒講到"指令表"，就直接被打斷了。Darwin was therefore sceptical, reasonably enough.
然後達爾文提出質疑：The Director asked what would happen, in cases where the machine was instructed to solve an equation with several roots.
主任提問，如果用該機器來求解多根方程會怎麼樣，Dr Turing replied that the controller would have to take all the possibilities into account, so that the construction of instruction tabies might be a somewhat 'finicky' business.
圖靈博士的回答表明，這需要操作者事先考慮到所有可能出現的情況，因此，指令表的編寫工作會顯得無比繁瑣。
