January 24, 1984

1984年1月24日

On the morning that he and his teammates completed the software for the Macintosh, Andy Hertzfeld had gone home exhausted and expected to stay in bed for at least a day. But that afternoon, after only six hours of sleep, he drove back to the office. He wanted to check in to see if there had been any problems, and most of his colleagues had done the same. They were lounging around, dazed but excited, when Jobs walked in. “Hey, pick yourselves up off the floor, you’re not done yet!” he announced. “We need a demo for the intro!” His plan was to dramatically unveil the Macintosh in front of a large audience and have it show off some of its features to the inspirational theme from Chariots of Fire. “It needs to be done by the weekend, to be ready for the rehearsals,” he added. They all groaned, Hertzfeld recalled, “but as we talked we realized that it would be fun to cook up something impressive.”

和同事完成麦金塔软件的那个早晨，安迪·赫茨菲尔德到家时已筋疲力尽，他想，自己或许会在床上至少躺上一天。但是当天下午，仅仅睡了6个小时后，他就开车回到了办公室。他想要确认软件是否存在任何问题，而大多数同事也和他一样。乔布斯走进来时，他们正躺在地板上，昏昏沉沉但又兴奋不已。“嘿，赶紧起来，还没完呢！”他说道，“我们需要为麦金塔电脑做一个演示！”乔布斯计划在一大群观众面前戏剧性地掲开麦金的面纱，并且想在电影《烈火战车》（ChariotsofFire）鼓舞人心的主题曲中，向人们展示机器的特性。“这周末就要完成，为预演作好准备。”他补充道。赫茨菲尔德回忆说，办公室里的人听了他的话都呻吟起来，“但是我们讨论了一阵子就意识到，如果能做出令人印象深刻的东西，肯定很有意思。”

The launch event was scheduled for the Apple annual stockholders’ meeting on January 24—eight days away—at the Flint Auditorium of De Anza Community College. The television ad and the frenzy of press preview stories were the first two components in what would become the Steve Jobs playbook for making the introduction of a new product seem like an epochal moment in world history. The third component was the public unveiling of the product itself, amid fanfare and flourishes, in front of an audience of adoring faithful mixed with journalists who were primed to be swept up in the excitement.

麦金塔的发布仪式定在8天之后的1月24日，与苹果年度股东大会同期举行，地点在迪安扎社区学院的弗林特礼堂。除了电视广告和疯狂的媒体预热，发布仪式也是其新产品发布的一个组成部分——乔布斯能将新消费产品的发布变成具有划时代意义的时刻，产品在一片热闹与喧嚣中正式掲晓，观众推崇备至，记者也被兴奋席卷。

Hertzfeld pulled off the remarkable feat of writing a music player in two days so that the computer could play the Chariots of Fire theme. But when Jobs heard it, he judged it lousy, so they decided to use a recording instead. At the same time, Jobs was thrilled with a speech generator that turned text into spoken words with a charming electronic accent, and he decided to make it part of the demo. “I want the Macintosh to be the first computer to introduce itself!” he insisted.

赫茨菲尔德完成了一个了不起的壮举——在两天时间内编了一个音乐播放器程序，让电脑能够播放《烈火战车》的主题曲。但乔布斯听过后觉得很糟糕，于是他们决定用录音代替。另一方面，乔布斯完全被语音发生器所折服，这个程序能够将文本转变为迷人的电子语音。他决定以此作为演示的一部分：“我要麦金塔成为第一台可以自我介绍的电脑！”乔布斯邀请“1984”广告的文案史蒂夫·海登来撰写脚本。史蒂夫·卡普斯设法让“麦金塔”这个词在屏幕上以大字体滚动展示，苏珊·卡雷（SusanKare）则设计出了开场画面。

At the rehearsal the night before the launch, nothing was working well. Jobs hated the way the animation scrolled across the Macintosh screen, and he kept ordering tweaks. He also was dissatisfied with the stage lighting, and he directed Sculley to move from seat to seat to give his opinion as various adjustments were made. Sculley had never thought much about variations of stage lighting and gave the type of tentative answers a patient might give an eye doctor when asked which lens made the letters clearer. The rehearsals and changes went on for five hours, well into the night. “He was driving people insane, getting mad at the stagehands for every glitch in the presentation,” Sculley recalled. “I thought there was no way we were going to get it done for the show the next morning.”

在发布仪式前夜的预演中，这一切都没能顺利进行。乔布斯讨厌动画在屏幕上滚动的方式，不断要求做出调整。此外他对舞台灯光也不满意，他让斯卡利在礼堂的不同座位上感受各种调整带来的效果并给出意见。斯卡利从来没有对舞台灯光的变化考虑过多，也没想过自己要不断给出调试意见，就像病人要告诉眼科医生哪个镜片能更清晰地看到视力表。预演和调试持续了5个小时，直到深夜。“我当时都以为我们没法为第二天上午的展示作好准备。”斯卡利说道。

Most of all, Jobs fretted about his presentation. Sculley fancied himself a good writer, so he suggested changes in Jobs’s script. Jobs recalled being slightly annoyed, but their relationship was still in the phase when he was lathering on flattery and stroking Sculley’s ego. “I think of you just like Woz and Markkula,” he told Sculley. “You’re like one of the founders of the company. They founded the company, but you and I are founding the future.” Sculley lapped it up.

最主要的是，乔布斯为自己的演示很是焦躁。“他扔掉了幻灯片，”斯卡利回忆，“他把人都逼疯了，发言展示中有一点儿问题他都要对舞台工作人员发火。” 斯卡利自认为是个优秀的作家，于是他建议乔布斯对讲稿作一些改动。据回忆，乔布斯对此有些烦躁，但是两人的关系当时仍然很好，乔布斯不断赞扬和激励斯卡利。“我觉得你就像沃兹和马库拉一样，”他告诉斯卡利，“你就像苹果公司的又一个创始人。他们创立了苹果，但是我和你在创造未来。”斯卡利欣然接受了乔布斯的鼓舞，多年后，他仍然能复述乔布斯的这些话。

The next morning the 2,600-seat auditorium was mobbed. Jobs arrived in a double-breasted blue blazer, a starched white shirt, and a pale green bow tie. “This is the most important moment in my entire life,” he told Sculley as they waited backstage for the program to begin. “I’m really nervous. You’re probably the only person who knows how I feel about this.” Sculley grasped his hand, held it for a moment, and whispered “Good luck.”

次日上午，可容纳2600人的弗林特礼堂被挤得水泄不通。乔布斯穿着一件蓝色双排扣西装外套，里面是一件笔挺的白衬衫，打着浅绿色领结。“这是我人生中最重要的时刻，”在后台等待活动开始时，乔布斯对斯卡利说，“我真的很紧张。你可能是唯一知道我对这次发布会感受的人。”斯卡利抓住他的手，握了片刻，低声说了句好运。

As chairman of the company, Jobs went onstage first to start the shareholders’ meeting. He did so with his own form of an invocation. “I’d like to open the meeting,” he said, “with a twenty-year-old poem by Dylan—that’s Bob Dylan.” He broke into a little smile, then looked down to read from the second verse of “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” His voice was high-pitched as he raced through the ten lines, ending with “For the loser now / Will be later to win / For the times they are a-changin’.” That song was the anthem that kept the multimillionaire board chairman in touch with his counterculture self-image. He had a bootleg copy of his favorite version, which was from the live concert Dylan performed, with Joan Baez, on Halloween 1964 at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall.

作为苹果公司的董事长，乔布斯首先登台，宣布股东大会正式开始。他用自己的方式开场：“我想用迪伦——鲍勃·迪伦20年前的一首歌来开场。”他笑了笑，然后低下头开始诵读《时代在变》（TheTimesTheyAreA-Changin-）的第二段。在诵读这十行歌词时，他的声音髙尤，语速很快，直至结尾：“……现在的失败者/会成为以后的赢家/因为时代在变。”这首歌让乔布斯这位千万富豪董事长保持住了自己反主流文化的自我形象。他最喜欢的版本来自迪伦与琼·贝兹的一场现场演唱会——1964年万圣节在林肯中心交晌音乐厅举行，他还有这场演唱会的盗版录音带。