FireWire
火线
Jobs's vision that your computer could become your digital hub
乔布斯关于“计算机将成为数字中枢”这个设想,
went back to a technology called FireWire, which Apple developed in the early 1990s.
要追溯到苹果公司在20世纪90年代初开发的“火线”技术。
It was a high-speed serial port that moved digital files such as video from one device to another.
火线是一条高速的串口,能够将数字文件(比如视频)从一台设备快速转移到另一台设备。
Japanese camcorder makers adopted it,
日本的摄像机制造商采用了这一技术,
and Jobs decided to include it on the updated versions of the iMac that came out in October 1999.
之后乔布斯决定把火线用在1999年10月上市的新版iMac上。
He began to see that FireWire could be part of a system that moved video from cameras onto a computer,
他开始预见到,火线将成为苹果系统的一部分,用来把视频文件从摄像机中转移到计算机上,
where it could be edited and distributed.
然后再进行编辑和发布。
To make this work, the iMac needed to have great video editing software.
为了让这一功能得以实现,iMac需要有一款出色的视频编辑软件。
So Jobs went to his old friends at Adobe, the digital graphics company,
为此,乔布斯决定去Adobe公司找他的老朋友,Adobe是一家出品数字图像软件的公司,
and asked them to make a new Mac version of Adobe Premiere, which was popular on Windows computers.
他请他们制作一款适用于新的Mac版本的Adobe Premiere软件,当时这一软件在Windows系统中很流行。
Adobe's executives stunned Jobs by flatly turning him down.
可是,Adobe公司高层断然拒绝了他,这让乔布斯备受打击。
The Macintosh, they said, had too few users to make it worthwhile.
他们说:“麦金塔的用户太少,要单独为它做一个软件不太划算。”
Jobs was furious and felt betrayed.
乔布斯愤怒了,觉得自己遭到了背叛。
"I put Adobe on the map, and they screwed me," he later claimed.
他后来跟我说:“我让Adobe出了名,他们却这样对待我。”
Adobe made matters even worse when it also didn't write its other popular programs, such as Photoshop, for the Mac OSX,
Adobe随后又拒绝为Mac OSX系统定制其他的流行软件,比如Photoshop,
even though the Macintosh was popular among designers and other creative people who used those applications.
即使麦金塔电脑在使用这类软件的设计师和创意人士中非常受欢迎。整个局面更加糟糕了。