追憶短暫的英國計算機創新 Nostalgia for the shortlived era of British computer innovation

Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer By Tom Lean Bloomsbury/Sigma ￡16.99

《電子夢：20世紀80年代英國人如何迷上計算機》(Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer)，湯姆•利恩(Tom Lean)著，Bloomsbury/Sigma出版，售價16.99英鎊。

In 1983 Britain proudly boasted the highest level of computer ownership in the world, technology historian Tom Lean tells us in his entertaining and affectionate, if for the most part nostalgic, book on the country’s relationship with computers. About one in 10 UK homes, he writes, had a computer, more than in the US or Japan.

1983年英國自豪地宣稱擁有全球最高的計算機普及率，科技史學家湯姆•利恩在他的書中寫道。這本書有趣、深情，以大篇幅的懷舊，敘寫了英國和計算機之間的淵源。他寫道，大約每10個英國家庭就有1家擁有計算機，超過當時的美國或日本。

At the same time, the UK had several computer manufacturers, one of which was making more of them than any other company in the world — Sir Clive Sinclair’s Sinclair Research. There was even a Welsh computer, the Dragon 32. And the UK had an early version of the internet, Prestel, set up by the Post Office. It trialled an early version of Ocado et al, with the wonderfully terrible name, The Armchair Grocer.

同時，英國當時有數家計算機制造商，其中一家的計算機產量超過世界上的任何其他公司，這就是克萊夫•辛克萊爵士(Sir Clive Sinclair)的Sinclair Research公司。當時甚至還有一種名爲Dragon 32的威爾士產計算機。英國還出現了互聯網的雛形——英國郵局(Post Office)建立的視訊系統Prestel。Prestel試驗了類似Ocado等在線超市的雛形系統，就是名字蹩腳了點兒，叫“扶手椅雜貨鋪”(The Armchair Grocer)。

Another remarkable fact from Electronic Dreams: which UK company would you imagine was, by 1951, the world’s first to use a computer for business, and started making computers for other companies?

《電子夢》還展示了另一個令人驚訝的事實：你能想象在1951年是哪家英國企業在全世界率先將計算機應用於商業、並開始爲其他公司製造計算機嗎？

It was J. Lyons and Co, the teashop chain. Its computer business, LEO, kept going until 1963. Lyons’ role as a computer manufacturing pioneer is the more astonishing — at least to anyone old enough to remember the ostensibly low-tech J. Lyons cafés — in that there was stiff competition from within the UK; companies such as Ferranti, Elliott Brothers, English Electric and British Tabulating Machinery were all selling British boffin-made computers globally.

那就是連鎖茶商J. Lyons and Co。其計算機業務LEO一直經營至1963年。Lyons作爲計算機制造業先驅更爲令人震驚的是（至少對年紀足夠大的人而言是如此，他們還記得Lyons看起來科技含量很低的咖啡館），當時Lyons在英國面臨激烈的競爭。Ferranti、Elliott Brothers、英國電氣(English Electric)以及英國製表機械(British Tabulating Machinery)等公司都在向全球出售着英產計算機。

Britain’s role in computing, as it emerges in Lean’s book, is similar to England’s place in the history of football. At each juncture, from the work of Alan Turing to Sir Clive to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, even to Sir Alan Sugar at a stretch, the UK was a prime innovator, only later to become a minor player.

在利恩的書中，英國在計算機領域的地位，堪比英格蘭之於足球史。在每一個轉折點上，從艾倫•圖靈(Alan Turing)的研究，至克萊夫爵士，再至蒂姆•伯納斯•李爵士(Sir Tim Berners-Lee)，直至艾倫•休格爵士( Sir Alan Sugar)，英國一度都是計算機行業的創新先鋒，後來卻變得無足輕重。

Yet while the average non-Brit would probably regard Britain’s part in computing history to be about as interesting as, say, Portugal’s, the UK does still punch significantly above its weight. While few in Britain, you would suspect, used a British computer between around 1995 and the emergence of the Raspberry Pi in 2012, UK tech companies such as ARM, which has its roots in Acorn Computers, are still of global importance.

不過，雖然對那些並非英國人的大衆而言，在計算機史上英國就跟葡萄牙一樣名不見經傳，英國卻仍然在這一領域盡力而爲。難以想象在1995年左右至2012年卡片式電腦樹莓派(Raspberry Pi)誕生之間，在英國還有人使用國產電腦，然而，英國的科技公司，比如起源於Acorn計算機公司(Acorn Computers)的ARM，在全球仍然舉足輕重。

But the British are slightly in love with stories of national failure, and it is hard for a true Brit not to giggle slightly reading that the Post Office picked up only 6,000 Prestel users in its first year, peaking at 90,000, with just 12,000 when it died in 1991. The French pre-internet computer network equivalent, Minitel, peaked at 9m.

但英國人對於講英國失敗的故事會有一種微妙的喜愛，讀到Prestel的興衰史每個真正的英國人都會忍俊不禁。在Prestel建立的頭一年，英國郵局只網羅到6000名該系統的用戶，Prestel巔峯時期的用戶量是9萬，到1991年倒閉時是1.2萬。而法國與之對應的互聯網前身Minitel，用戶量的巔峯值是900萬。

This book is nevertheless very much for British readers, mostly of a certain age. I enjoyed reminiscences of people starting British computer magazines and shops in the 1970s, but as history it is a little niche.

不過這本書在很大程度上是爲英國人而寫，特別是某特定年齡段的英國人。我就很喜歡其中追憶上世紀70年代英國計算機雜誌及商店創始者的部分。但作爲歷史類書籍，這本書略顯小衆。

When it steers, however, towards the colourful history of Sir Clive — especially reminding us of the 1984 fight in a Cambridge pub with his erstwhile right-hand man, Chris Curry, by then at rival Acorn — it is glorious stuff. Lean accuses the British tabloid press of overblowing the incident, but I still feel it was a bit underblown.

書中對克萊夫爵士的精彩軼事描寫尤爲精湛，使我們對1984年劍橋小酒館發生的衝突記憶猶新，在那裏克萊夫爵士與他曾經的得力助手、當時爲競爭對手Acorn效力的克里斯•柯里(Chris Curry)發生爭執。利恩指責英國小報對這一事件過分渲染，但我仍覺意猶未盡。

It prompted a marvellous 2009 BBC drama, Micro Men, but had it happened in Palo Alto, it would have made a Hollywood movie.

由這段插曲還衍生出一部精彩的BBC電視電影《英國電腦鼻祖》(Micro Men)，如果它發生在帕羅奧圖(Palo Alto)，一部好萊塢電影說不定會應運而生。