雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第9章:退隱山林(3)
They had been able to store 2048 spots on the tube by the principle of regenerating them periodically, but in the end had settled on using just 1024, arranged in thirty-two 'lines' each of thirty-two spots.
Each line would represent either an instruction or a number.
每條線可以表示一條指令，或者一個數值。A second cathode ray tube served as the logical control, storing the instruction currently being executed, and the address of that instruction.
第二個射線管，負責邏輯控制，它存儲當前要執行的指令，以及該指令的地址。
A third acted as the accumulator, the shunting station for the arithmetical operations.
第三個射線管是累加器，用來執行算術運算。It was a 'one-address' system, so that each act of shunting in, or of shunting out, constituted a full instruction—an arrangement entirely different to that envisaged for the ACE.
這是一個"單地址"系統，每次移入或移出，就是一條指令，這與ACE完全不同。Physically, the Manchester computer was embodied in a straggly jumble of racks and valves and wires, with three screens glowing in the gloom of a room with dirty brown tiles which Williams was fond of describing as 'late lavatorial' in style.
物理上看，曼徹斯特計算機由許多的機架、真空管注和電線組成，有三臺顯示器在閃爍，部署在一個褐色磚塊砌成的陰鬱房間裏，威廉姆斯說，這個地方的風格，很像一箇舊式的廁所。But this was enough. As Williams described4 the day of triumph:
但是這就已經足夠了，在勝利的那天，威廉姆斯描述：When first built, a program was laboriously inserted and the start switch pressed. Immediately the spots on the display tube entered a mad dance.
第一次運行時，很費勁地輸入一個程序，並按下開始開關，顯像管上的點立刻開始瘋狂地跳舞。In early trials it was a dance of death leading to no useful result, and what was even worse, without yielding any clue as to what was wrong.
在早期的試驗中，這種跳舞無法產生任何有用的結果，更糟糕的是，也無法給出關於錯誤的任何線索。But one day it stopped and there, shining brightly in the expected place, was the expected answer.
但是有一天，那些閃光終於停在了期望的位置上，那正是期望的結果。
