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The autumn of 1949 saw what was to be Alan's only titbit of hardware design for the Ferranti machine.
1949年秋天，图灵对弗兰蒂机器的硬件设计，提出了很少的一些建议。
One of the hardware functions on which he had insisted was that of a random number generator - a feature not included in his ACE design.
比如他建议加装一个随机数产生器，这是他的ACE设计中所没有的。
His own electronic knowledge stopped short of the necessary practical detail, but with Geoff Tootill's collaboration he was still able to design his own system.
他自己的电子知识很有限，缺乏一些必要的实践经验，但如果在托蒂尔的协助下，他就完全能够设计出这个系统。
It was one that produced truly random digits from noise, as opposed to something like a cipher key generator that would produce apparently random but actually determined digits.
这个发生器可以根据噪声，产生真正的随机数，而不是像密钥产生器那样，看起来随机，实际上却是确定的数。
(That, if he wanted it, he would surely program for himself.) Perhaps he based his design on the circuit that produced the Rockex key-tapes at Hanslope.
（如果图灵想要后者，他完全可以自己做一个。）也许他的设计是基于汉斯洛普的为劳凯克斯机生产密钥的电路。
Geoff Tootill was interested in Alan's ideas, but some of them were particularly impractical in view of the limited time and effort available.
托蒂尔对图灵的想法很感兴趣，但其中一些想法，从时间和资源的角度来看，是非常不现实的。
There was, for instance, a scheme he devised for computer character recognition, which would involve an elaborate system with a television camera in order to transfer a visual image to the cathode ray tube store, and reduce it to a standard size.
比如说，图灵为计算机设计了一个符号识别系统，这个设计非常复杂，包括一个摄像机，用来把视觉图像转换成阴极射线管的信号，并把它缩放至标准大小。
Geoff Tootill was probably the most tolerant of such dreams, but to him as to all on the engineering side, Alan Turing was the brilliant mathematician (or so they heard), but embarrassingly half-baked engineer.
托蒂尔也许是最能接受这类梦想的人，但是对他来说，图灵虽然是最卓越的数学家（至少听说是如此），但在工程方面却是个半吊子。
The year 1949 meant the end of his groping efforts to be the academic engineer;
在这一年，图灵试图成为专业工程师的努力，彻底以失败告终了；
Meanwhile, the more theoretical side of computer development had become a more public question.
与此同时，计算机的理论方面的发展，成了更加一般化的问题。
In 1948, Norbert Wiener had published a book called Cybernetics, defining this word to mean 'Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine'.
1948年，诺伯特·维纳出版了一本书，名为《控制论》，他给这个词的定义是“关于在动物和机器中进行控制和通信的科学”。
It meant the description of the world in which information and logic, rather than energy or material constitution, was what mattered.
这是在信息和逻辑的层面上描述世界，而不是能量或物质。
