The final agreement was reached in January 1986. It provided that, for his $10 million investment, Jobs would own 70% of the company, with the rest of the stock distributed to Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, and the thirty-eight other founding employees, down to the receptionist. The division’s most important piece of hardware was called the Pixar Image Computer, and from it the new company took its name.

1986年1月，他們達成了最終協議。協議約定，喬布斯投資1000萬美元后，可持有該公司70%的股份，其他股份分配給埃德·卡特穆爾、阿爾維·雷·史密斯及其他38名創始員工，包括前臺接待。該部門最重要的硬件是皮克斯圖像電腦（PixarImagesComputer），新公司便以此命名。最后的問題就是在哪里簽合同，喬布斯想在自己位于NeXT的辦公室，而盧卡靳影業的人想在天行者牧場。最后，雙方都作出了妥協，在舊金山一家律師事務所會面。

For a while Jobs let Catmull and Smith run Pixar without much interference. Every month or so they would gather for a board meeting, usually at NeXT headquarters, where Jobs would focus on the finances and strategy. Nevertheless, by dint of his personality and controlling instincts, Jobs was soon playing a stronger role. He spewed out a stream of ideas—some reasonable, others wacky—about what Pixar’s hardware and software could become. And on his occasional visits to the Pixar offices, he was an inspiring presence. “I grew up a Southern Baptist, and we had revival meetings with mesmerizing but corrupt preachers,” recounted Alvy Ray Smith. “Steve’s got it: the power of the tongue and the web of words that catches people up. We were aware of this when we had board meetings, so we developed signals—nose scratching or ear tugs—for when someone had been caught up in Steve’s distortion field and he needed to be tugged back to reality.”

有那么一段時間，喬布斯沒有進行過多干預，讓卡特穆爾和史密斯自行掌管皮克斯。每隔一個月左右，他們就會進行一次董事會會議，通常是在NeXT的總部，喬布斯主要關注財務和戰略。然而，由于個性使然以及控制本能的驅使，喬布斯很快就變成了強勢的角色，顯然比卡特穆爾和史密斯預想的更為強勢。針對皮克斯公司硬件和軟件的未來，他提出了一堆想法，有的合理，有的古怪。而他雖然只是偶爾前往皮克斯的辦公室，但每次出現他都能讓人心潮澎湃。“我從小就加入了美南浸信會（SouthernBaptist），我們經常同那些生活腐化但卻極具蠱惑力的牧師們一起開培靈會。”阿爾維·雷·史密斯說，“史蒂夫顯然精于此道，深知口舌的力量和語言的網絡能讓人陷進去。開董事會會議的時候，大家意識到了這個問題，于是我們發展出一套信號——抓鳧子或拽耳朵，如果有人陷入了史蒂夫的現實扭曲力場，需要被拉回現實，我們就會使用這個信號。”

Jobs had always appreciated the virtue of integrating hardware and software, which is what Pixar did with its Image Computer and rendering software. It also produced creative content, such as animated films and graphics. All three elements benefited from Jobs’s combination of artistic creativity and technological geekiness. “Silicon Valley folks don’t really respect Hollywood creative types, and the Hollywood folks think that tech folks are people you hire and never have to meet,” Jobs later said. “Pixar was one place where both cultures were respected.”

喬布斯一直都很欣賞硬件和軟件的整合，皮克斯的圖像電腦和渲染軟件就是如此。事實上，皮克斯還擁有另一個要素：它制作出色的內容，如動畫電影和圖像。這三種要素都得益于喬布斯將藝術創意和技術的結合。“硅谷的人并不尊重好萊塢的創意特質，而好萊塢的人則認為技術人員是那些只需雇用而無需見面的人。”喬布斯后來說道，“皮克斯則同時尊重好萊鳥和硅谷的文化。”

Initially the revenue was supposed to come from the hardware side. The Pixar Image Computer sold for $125,000. The primary customers were animators and graphic designers, but the machine also soon found specialized markets in the medical industry (CAT scan data could be rendered in three-dimensional graphics) and intelligence fields (for rendering information from reconnaissance flights and satellites). Because of the sales to the National Security Agency, Jobs had to get a security clearance, which must have been fun for the FBI agent assigned to vet him. At one point, a Pixar executive recalled, Jobs was called by the investigator to go over the drug use questions, which he answered unabashedly. “The last time I used that . . . ,” he would say, or on occasion he would answer that no, he had actually never tried that particular drug.

最初，皮克斯公司希望硬件能帶來收入。皮克斯圖像電腦售價12.5萬美元，主要購買者是動畫師和平面設計師，不過這款電腦也在醫療行業和情報領域找到了特殊市場。（醫療CAT掃描數據能夠被轉換成三維圖形；來自偵察飛機和衛星的信息也能通過該款電腦進行轉換。）由于要銷售給美國國家安全局，喬布斯必須接受安全調查，對于被指派來調查他的FBI（美國聯邦調查局）特工來說一定感覺有趣極了。據一位皮克斯髙管講述，有一次，調查員打來電話詢問毒品使用問題，喬布斯如實回答，絲毫不加掩飾。他會說“我上回用這種毒品是在……”，偶爾他也會回答不，他從未用過那種毒品。

Jobs pushed Pixar to build a lower-cost version of the computer that would sell for around $30,000. He insisted that Hartmut Esslinger design it, despite protests by Catmull and Smith about his fees. It ended up looking like the original Pixar Image Computer, which was a cube with a round dimple in the middle, but it had Esslinger’s signature thin grooves.

喬布斯要求皮克斯開發一款成本更低的圖像電腦，售價在3萬美元左右。他堅持由哈特穆特·艾斯林格進行設計，盡管卡特穆爾和史密斯對其收費價格表示反對。最后，這款新電腦跟皮克斯圖像電腦很相似，是一個立方體，中間有一處圓形凹陷，但帶有艾斯林格招牌式的纖細紋路。

Jobs wanted to sell Pixar’s computers to a mass market, so he had the Pixar folks open up sales offices—for which he approved the design—in major cities, on the theory that creative people would soon come up with all sorts of ways to use the machine. “My view is that people are creative animals and will figure out clever new ways to use tools that the inventor never imagined,” he later said. “I thought that would happen with the Pixar computer, just as it did with the Mac.” But the machine never took hold with regular consumers. It cost too much, and there were not many software programs for it.

喬布斯想要把皮克斯的電腦賣給大眾市場，于是他讓皮克斯的人員在各大城市開辟銷售辦事處，辦事處的設計由他本人審核通過。他的想法是，有創意的人很快會想到使用這款電腦的各種方法。“我認為，人是創造性動物，面對工具，他們能想出發明者未曾想過的各種聰明的使用方法，”喬布斯后來說道，“我覺得這會同樣適用于皮克斯電腦，就像Mac—樣。”但是，皮克斯電腦從未完全進入普通消費者市場。它們售價太髙，專門為之編寫的軟件應用程序也不多。

On the software side, Pixar had a rendering program, known as Reyes (Renders everything you ever saw), for making 3-D graphics and images. After Jobs became chairman, the company created a new language and interface, named RenderMan, that it hoped would become a standard for 3-D graphics rendering, just as Adobe’s PostScript was for laser printing.

在軟件方面，皮克斯有一個渲染程序，名為雷耶斯（Reyes，RendersEverythingYouEverSaw），意為渲染你所見的一切，用于制作3D圖形和圖像。喬布斯擔任董事長后，皮克斯開發了一種新語言和界面，名為RenderMan。他們期望這款軟件能夠成為3D圖形渲染領域的標準，就像Adobe公司的PostScript①之于激光打印那樣。

As he had with the hardware, Jobs decided that they should try to find a mass market, rather than just a specialized one, for the software they made. He was never content to aim only at the corporate or high-end specialized markets. “He would have these great visions of how RenderMan could be for everyman,” recalled Pam Kerwin, Pixar’s marketing director. “He kept coming up with ideas about how ordinary people would use it to make amazing 3-D graphics and photorealistic images.” The Pixar team would try to dissuade him by saying that RenderMan was not as easy to use as, say, Excel or Adobe Illustrator. Then Jobs would go to a whiteboard and show them how to make it simpler and more user-friendly. “We would be nodding our heads and getting excited and say, ‘Yes, yes, this will be great!’” Kerwin recalled. “And then he would leave and we would consider it for a moment and then say, ‘What the heck was he thinking!’ He was so weirdly charismatic that you almost had to get deprogrammed after you talked to him.” As it turned out, average consumers were not craving expensive software that would let them render realistic images. RenderMan didn’t take off.

喬布斯認為，皮克斯的軟件也應該像硬件那樣，嘗試進入大眾市場，而不是僅限于專業市場。只針對企業市場或髙端專業市場的做法，他從來都沒興趣。“他非常沉迷于大眾市場產品，”帕姆·克爾溫（PamKerwin）說，她是皮克斯的營銷總監，“他會構造一些宏大的愿景，想象RenderMan能夠怎樣為所有人服務。他在會議中不斷產生新想法，設想普通用戶將如何用它做出驚人的3D圖形和逼真的圖像。”皮克斯團隊試圖勸阻他，他們認為RenderMan并不像Excel或AdobeIllustrator那樣易于使用。這時，喬布斯就會走到一塊白板前，告訴他們如何把它做得更簡單，更便于使用。“我們不禁頻頻點頭，興奮地說：‘是的，是的，這樣很棒！’”克爾溫回憶說，“等他走了以后，我們又考慮了一會兒，覺得‘他想的都是些什么鬼主意！’他身上的奇特魅力實在是強大，你和他交談之后就幾乎被洗腦了。”后來事實證明，普通消費者對于這種能讓他們渲染出逼真圖像的昂貴軟件并無興趣。RenderMan沒有成功進入大眾市場。

There was, however, one company that was eager to automate the rendering of animators’ drawings into color images for film. When Roy Disney led a board revolution at the company that his uncle Walt had founded, the new CEO, Michael Eisner, asked what role he wanted. Disney said that he would like to revive the company’s venerable but fading animation department. One of his first initiatives was to look at ways to computerize the process, and Pixar won the contract. It created a package of customized hardware and software known as CAPS, Computer Animation Production System. It was first used in 1988 for the final scene of The Little Mermaid, in which King Triton waves good-bye to Ariel. Disney bought dozens of Pixar Image Computers as CAPS became an integral part of its production.

不過，倒是有一家企業渴望將動畫師的繪畫自動渲染成彩色圖像用于電影拍攝。羅伊·迪士尼（RoyDisney）在迪士尼公司發動了一場董事會革命，他是該公司創始人沃爾特·迪士尼的侄子。迪士尼公司的新任CEO邁克爾·艾斯納（MichaelEisner）問羅伊想要擔任什么角色，羅伊表示他想要重振公司歷史悠久卻日漸衰落的動畫部門。他的首輪舉措之一就是設法將動畫流程計算機化，而皮克斯贏得了迪士尼的這份合同。皮克斯為迪士尼量身定做了一款軟硬件套裝，名為CAPS,即電腦動畫制作系統（ComputerAnimationProductionSystem）。1988年，這套設備首次投入使用，負責制作動畫片《小美人魚》（TheLittleMermaid）中的最后一幕——國王特里同揮別愛麗兒。在此之后，CAPS就成了迪士尼極為依賴的設備，迪士尼為此又購買了數十臺皮克斯圖像電腦——

注釋：

①PostScript是一種主要用于電子產業和桌面出版領域的頁面描述語言和編程語言。