Translations:Prologue/21/zh-cn

Around that time, someone had loaned Lakeside a computer called a PDP-8, made by Digital Equipment Corp. This was 1971, and while I was deep into the nascent world of computers, I had never seen anything like it. Up until then, my friends and I had used only huge mainframe computers that were simultaneously shared with other people. We usually connected to them over a phone line or else they were locked in a separate room. But the PDP-8 was designed to be used directly by one person and was small enough to sit on the desk next to you. It was probably the closest thing in its day to the personal computers that would be common a decade or so later—though one that weighed eighty pounds and cost $8,500. For a challenge, I decided I would try to write a version of the BASIC programming language for the new computer.

大约在那个时候，有人向湖滨（Lakeside）借了一台名为PDP-8的计算机，这台计算机由数字设备公司（Digital Equipment Corp.）制造。那是1971年，尽管我正沉浸在计算机这个新兴世界中，但我从未见过像它这样的东西。在此之前，我和朋友们只使用过大型主机计算机，这些计算机需要与其他用户共享。我们通常通过电话线连接到它们，或者它们被锁在单独的房间里。但PDP-8的设计是供单人直接使用，体积小到可以放在你旁边的桌子上。在当时，它可能是最接近十年后将普及的个人计算机的东西——尽管它重达八十磅，价格为8500美元。为了挑战自己，我决定尝试为这台新计算机编写一个BASIC编程语言的版本。