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.”

和同事完成麥金塔軟件的那個早晨，安迪·赫茨菲爾德到家時已筋疲力盡，他想，自己或許會在床上至少躺上一天。但是當天下午，僅僅睡了6個小時后，他就開車回到了辦公室。他想要確認軟件是否存在任何問題，而大多數同事也和他一樣。喬布斯走進來時，他們正躺在地板上，昏昏沉沉但又興奮不已。“嘿，趕緊起來，還沒完呢！”他說道，“我們需要為麥金塔電腦做一個演示！”喬布斯計劃在一大群觀眾面前戲劇性地掲開麥金的面紗，并且想在電影《烈火戰車》（ChariotsofFire）鼓舞人心的主題曲中，向人們展示機器的特性。“這周末就要完成，為預演作好準備。”他補充道。赫茨菲爾德回憶說，辦公室里的人聽了他的話都呻吟起來，“但是我們討論了一陣子就意識到，如果能做出令人印象深刻的東西，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.

麥金塔的發布儀式定在8天之后的1月24日，與蘋果年度股東大會同期舉行，地點在迪安扎社區學院的弗林特禮堂。除了電視廣告和瘋狂的媒體預熱，發布儀式也是其新產品發布的一個組成部分——喬布斯能將新消費產品的發布變成具有劃時代意義的時刻，產品在一片熱鬧與喧囂中正式掲曉，觀眾推崇備至，記者也被興奮席卷。

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.

赫茨菲爾德完成了一個了不起的壯舉——在兩天時間內編了一個音樂播放器程序，讓電腦能夠播放《烈火戰車》的主題曲。但喬布斯聽過后覺得很糟糕，于是他們決定用錄音代替。另一方面，喬布斯完全被語音發生器所折服，這個程序能夠將文本轉變為迷人的電子語音。他決定以此作為演示的一部分：“我要麥金塔成為第一臺可以自我介紹的電腦！”喬布斯邀請“1984”廣告的文案史蒂夫·海登來撰寫腳本。史蒂夫·卡普斯設法讓“麥金塔”這個詞在屏幕上以大字體滾動展示，蘇珊·卡雷（SusanKare）則設計出了開場畫面。

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.”

在發布儀式前夜的預演中，這一切都沒能順利進行。喬布斯討厭動畫在屏幕上滾動的方式，不斷要求做出調整。此外他對舞臺燈光也不滿意，他讓斯卡利在禮堂的不同座位上感受各種調整帶來的效果并給出意見。斯卡利從來沒有對舞臺燈光的變化考慮過多，也沒想過自己要不斷給出調試意見，就像病人要告訴眼科醫生哪個鏡片能更清晰地看到視力表。預演和調試持續了5個小時，直到深夜。“我當時都以為我們沒法為第二天上午的展示作好準備。”斯卡利說道。

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，喬布斯為自己的演示很是焦躁。“他扔掉了幻燈片，”斯卡利回憶，“他把人都逼瘋了，發言展示中有一點兒問題他都要對舞臺工作人員發火。” 斯卡利自認為是個優秀的作家，于是他建議喬布斯對講稿作一些改動。據回憶，喬布斯對此有些煩躁，但是兩人的關系當時仍然很好，喬布斯不斷贊揚和激勵斯卡利。“我覺得你就像沃茲和馬庫拉一樣，”他告訴斯卡利，“你就像蘋果公司的又一個創始人。他們創立了蘋果，但是我和你在創造未來。”斯卡利欣然接受了喬布斯的鼓舞，多年后，他仍然能復述喬布斯的這些話。

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，可容納2600人的弗林特禮堂被擠得水泄不通。喬布斯穿著一件藍色雙排扣西裝外套，里面是一件筆挺的白襯衫，打著淺綠色領結。“這是我人生中最重要的時刻，”在后臺等待活動開始時，喬布斯對斯卡利說，“我真的很緊張。你可能是唯一知道我對這次發布會感受的人。”斯卡利抓住他的手，握了片刻，低聲說了句好運。

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.

作為蘋果公司的董事長，喬布斯首先登臺，宣布股東大會正式開始。他用自己的方式開場：“我想用迪倫——鮑勃·迪倫20年前的一首歌來開場。”他笑了笑，然后低下頭開始誦讀《時代在變》（TheTimesTheyAreA-Changin-）的第二段。在誦讀這十行歌詞時，他的聲音髙尤，語速很快，直至結尾：“……現在的失敗者/會成為以后的贏家/因為時代在變。”這首歌讓喬布斯這位千萬富豪董事長保持住了自己反主流文化的自我形象。他最喜歡的版本來自迪倫與瓊·貝茲的一場現場演唱會——1964年萬圣節在林肯中心交晌音樂廳舉行，他還有這場演唱會的盜版錄音帶。