Veterans of the Mac team had learned that they could stand up to Jobs. If they knew what they were talking about, he would tolerate the pushback, even admire it. By 1983 those most familiar with his reality distortion field had discovered something further: They could, if necessary, just quietly disregard what he decreed. If they turned out to be right, he would appreciate their renegade attitude and willingness to ignore authority. After all, that’s what he did.

Mac团队的资深成员意识到，他们可以勇敢地面对乔布斯。如果他们清楚自己在说什么的话，乔布斯就能容忍反对的声音，甚至微笑面对、表达赞赏之情。到1983年，那些最熟悉他现实扭曲力场的人有了进一步的发现：如果必要的话，他们可以不动声色地忽略他的命令。如果事实证明他们是正确的，乔布斯就会欣赏他们的叛逆态度和敢于无视权威的意愿。毕竟，他自己就是这么做的。

By far the most important example of this involved the choice of a disk drive for the Macintosh. Apple had a corporate division that built mass-storage devices, and it had developed a disk-drive system, code-named Twiggy, that could read and write onto those thin, delicate 5?-inch floppy disks that older readers (who also remember Twiggy the model) will recall. But by the time the Lisa was ready to ship in the spring of 1983, it was clear that the Twiggy was buggy. Because the Lisa also came with a hard-disk drive, this was not a complete disaster. But the Mac had no hard disk, so it faced a crisis. “The Mac team was beginning to panic,” said Hertzfeld. “We were using a single Twiggy drive, and we didn’t have a hard disk to fall back on.”

迄今为止，乔布斯的叛逆精神影响的最重大的一次事件，是在为麦金塔选择磁盘驱动器这件事上。当时苹果公司有一个部门是生产大容量存储设备的，他们幵发了一套磁盘驱动系统，代号崔姬（Twiggy），它可以读写那些纤薄、精致的5.25英寸软盘，年长一些的读者（那些还记得模特崔姬是谁的人）一定还能回想起那种软盘。但到了1983年春天，丽萨准备上市的时候，崔姬系统的高故障率已经很明显了。因为丽萨还带有一个硬盘驱动器，所以对它来说情况并不算太糟。但Mac没有硬盘，所以它就面临着危机。“Mac团队开始感到惊慌了，”赫茨菲尔德说，“我们只用了一个崔姬系统作为软盘驱动器，又没有硬盘可以备用。”

The team discussed the problem at the January 1983 retreat, and Debi Coleman gave Jobs data about the Twiggy failure rate. A few days later he drove to Apple’s factory in San Jose to see the Twiggy being made. More than half were rejected. Jobs erupted. With his face flushed, he began shouting and sputtering about firing everyone who worked there. Bob Belleville, the head of the Mac engineering team, gently guided him to the parking lot, where they could take a walk and talk about alternatives.

1983年1月，在卡梅尔的那次度假中，他们讨论了这个问题，黛比·科尔曼把崔姬系统故障率的数据给了乔布斯。几天之后，乔布斯开车来到苹果公司在圣何塞的工厂，视察崔姬的生产过程。生产中的每一个流程，都有超过一半的产品不合格。乔布斯愤怒了。他的脸气得通红，开始咆哮，气急败坏地说要开除那儿所有的员工。Mac工程团队的负责人鲍勃·贝尔维尔平静地把他带到了停车场，在那儿他们一边散步一边讨论替代方案。

One possibility that Belleville had been exploring was to use a new 3?-inch disk drive that Sony had developed. The disk was cased in sturdier plastic and could fit into a shirt pocket. Another option was to have a clone of Sony’s 3?-inch disk drive manufactured by a smaller Japanese supplier, the Alps Electronics Co., which had been supplying disk drives for the Apple II. Alps had already licensed the technology from Sony, and if they could build their own version in time it would be much cheaper.

有一个办法，也是贝尔维尔一直在探索的，就是使用索尼公司刚刚研发的新型3.5英寸磁盘。这种磁盘被包裹在更加牢固的塑料中，并且可以塞进衬衫口袋。还有一个办法，就是使用日本的一家小供应商——阿尔卑斯电子公司（theAlpsElectronicsCo.）生产的索尼3.5英寸磁盘的仿制品，这家公司一直为AppleII供应磁盘驱动器。阿尔卑斯电子公司当时已经获得了索尼的技术授杈，如果他们能及时生产出自家版本的驱动器的话，价格将便宜不少。

Jobs and Belleville, along with Apple veteran Rod Holt (the guy Jobs enlisted to design the first power supply for the Apple II), flew to Japan to figure out what to do. They took the bullet train from Tokyo to visit the Alps facility. The engineers there didn’t even have a working prototype, just a crude model. Jobs thought it was great, but Belleville was appalled. There was no way, he thought, that Alps could have it ready for the Mac within a year.

乔布斯和贝尔维尔，以及苹果的资深员工罗德·霍尔特（帮乔布斯设计AppleII第一款电源的人）一起飞到了日本，寻求解决问题的办法。他们从东京乘坐高速列车前往阿尔卑斯电子公司的工厂。那里的工程师甚至连一件可以使用的样机都没有，只有一个未完工的模型。乔布斯觉得不错，但贝尔维尔对这种状况感到震惊。他认为，阿尔卑斯电子公司绝不可能在一年之内将它准备就绪，然后应用到Mac上。

As they proceeded to visit other Japanese companies, Jobs was on his worst behavior. He wore jeans and sneakers to meetings with Japanese managers in dark suits. When they formally handed him little gifts, as was the custom, he often left them behind, and he never reciprocated with gifts of his own. He would sneer when rows of engineers lined up to greet him, bow, and politely offer their products for inspection. Jobs hated both the devices and the obsequiousness. “What are you showing me this for?” he snapped at one stop. “This is a piece of crap! Anybody could build a better drive than this.” Although most of his hosts were appalled, some seemed amused. They had heard tales of his obnoxious style and brash behavior, and now they were getting to see it in full display.

他们又接着参观了另外几家日本公司，乔布斯的举止十分粗鲁。他穿着牛仔裤和运动鞋去跟那些穿深色西装的日本经理会面。他们会按照惯例，郑重地递给乔布斯一些小礼物，但这些礼物经常被乔布斯丢在一边，他也从没有回赠礼物给对方。成排的工程师们列队欢迎他，对他鞠躬，然后恭敬地送上自己的产品供他检查，他只会冷笑一声。乔布斯既讨厌他们的产品，又讨厌他们的谄媚。“你绘我看这个干什么？”他在一家工厂的时候厉声问道，“这就是一块垃圾！随便找个人做出来的驱动器都比这个好。”虽然接待方的大多数人都会对他的举止感到震惊，但有一些人似乎被他逗乐了。他们事先听说过关于他令人讨厌的作风和鲁莽行为的故事，现在亲眼见到了。

The final stop was the Sony factory, located in a drab suburb of Tokyo. To Jobs, it looked messy and inelegant. A lot of the work was done by hand. He hated it. Back at the hotel, Belleville argued for going with the Sony disk drive. It was ready to use. Jobs disagreed. He decided that they would work with Alps to produce their own drive, and he ordered Belleville to cease all work with Sony.

参观的最后一站是坐落在东京一处死气沉沉的郊区的索尼工厂。在乔布斯看来，这家工厂很杂乱，要价也很髙，很多工作都是手工完成的。他痛恨这些。回到酒店后，贝尔维尔主张使用索尼的磁盘驱动器，因为它们已经可以直接用到Mac上了。乔布斯不同意，他决定跟阿尔卑斯电子公司合作，生产他们自己的驱动器，同时命令贝尔维尔停止与索尼的一切合作。

Belleville decided it was best to partially ignore Jobs, and he asked a Sony executive to get its disk drive ready for use in the Macintosh. If and when it became clear that Alps could not deliver on time, Apple would switch to Sony. So Sony sent over the engineer who had developed the drive, Hidetoshi Komoto, a Purdue graduate who fortunately possessed a good sense of humor about his clandestine task.

贝尔维尔认为最好在一定程度上忽略掉布斯。他向迈克·马库拉解释了情况，马库拉悄悄告诉他，采取一切必要措施，确保在短时间内准备好一款磁盘驱动器——但是不要告诉乔布斯。贝尔维尔在自己的顶级工程师们的支持下，要求索尼的一名管理人员，让他们的磁盘驱动器准备好应用于麦金塔电脑上。万一阿尔卑斯电子公司无法按时供货，苹果公司就会转用索尼的产品。于是索尼把开发这款驱动器的工程师派到了苹果公司，他就是嘉本秀年（HidetoshiKomoto），毕业于普渡大学，幸运的是，他对于这项秘密任务充满了幽默感。

Whenever Jobs would come from his corporate office to visit the Mac team’s engineers—which was almost every afternoon—they would hurriedly find somewhere for Komoto to hide. At one point Jobs ran into him at a newsstand in Cupertino and recognized him from the meeting in Japan, but he didn’t suspect anything. The closest call was when Jobs came bustling onto the Mac work space unexpectedly one day while Komoto was sitting in one of the cubicles. A Mac engineer grabbed him and pointed him to a janitorial closet. “Quick, hide in this closet. Please! Now!” Komoto looked confused, Hertzfeld recalled, but he jumped up and did as told. He had to stay in the closet for five minutes, until Jobs left. The Mac engineers apologized. “No problem,” he replied. “But American business practices, they are very strange. Very strange.”

每当乔布斯离开公司办公室，前去视察Mac团队的工程师的时候——基本上是每天下午——他们都会赶紧找个地方让嘉本藏起来。有一次，乔布斯恰巧在库比蒂诺的一处报刊亭遇到了嘉本并且认出了他，两人在日本见过，但乔布斯并没有起疑心。最险的一次是有一天，乔布斯出人意料地、急匆匆地来到Mac团队的办公区，而当时嘉本正坐在一个办公隔间里。Mac的一名工程师抓起他，指了指清洁间。“快点，躲到里面去。拜托了！现在就去！”赫茨菲尔德回忆说，当时嘉本一脸迷惑，但还是跳起来一头冲进了清洁间。他在里面待了5分钟，直到乔布斯离开。Mac团队的工程师们向他道歉。“没关系，”他回答道，“但美国的商业习惯真是非常奇怪，非常奇怪。”

Belleville’s prediction came true. In May 1983 the folks at Alps admitted it would take them at least eighteen more months to get their clone of the Sony drive into production. At a retreat in Pajaro Dunes, Markkula grilled Jobs on what he was going to do. Finally, Belleville interrupted and said that he might have an alternative to the Alps drive ready soon. Jobs looked baffled for just a moment, and then it became clear to him why he’d glimpsed Sony’s top disk designer in Cupertino. “You son of a bitch!” Jobs said. But it was not in anger. There was a big grin on his face. As soon as he realized what Belleville and the other engineers had done behind his back, said Hertzfeld, “Steve swallowed his pride and thanked them for disobeying him and doing the right thing.” It was, after all, what he would have done in their situation.

贝尔维尔的预言变成了现实。1983年5月，阿尔卑斯电子公司的人承认，至少还需要18个月，才能生产出索尼驱动器的仿制品。在帕加罗沙丘休假时，马库拉追问乔布斯打算怎么办。最终，贝尔维尔打断了他们的对话，说自己可能有阿尔卑斯驱动器的替代产品，并且很快就可以投入使用。乔布斯困惑了一会儿，但很快他就明白了自己为什么会在库比蒂诺遇到索尼的顶尖磁盘设计师。“你这个混蛋！”乔布斯说，但他的语气中并没有愤怒。他咧开嘴笑了起来。赫茨菲尔德说，乔布斯在知道了贝尔维尔和其他工程师背着他做的事情后，“收起了自己的傲慢，感谢他们没有服从自己的命令，做了正确的事情”。毕竟，如果是乔布斯遇到这样的状况，他也会这么做的——

注释：

①佛教禅宗用语。