Well we all know the World Wide Web has absolutely transformed publishing, broadcasting, commerce and social connectivity, but where did it all come from? And I'll quote three people: Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Tim Berners-Lee. So let's just run through these guys.
我們都知道全球資訊網 徹底改變了初版、廣播、 商業和社會連接, 但它究竟從何而來? 我將舉出三個人: Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart 和 Tim Berners-Lee。 因此,讓我們迅速談談這三個人。
This is Vannevar Bush. Vannevar Bush was the U.S. government's chief scientific adviser during the war. And in 1945, he published an article in a magazine called Atlantic Monthly. And the article was called "As We May Think." And what Vannevar Bush was saying was the way we use information is broken. We don't work in terms of libraries and catalog systems and so forth. The brain works by association. With one item in its thought, it snaps instantly to the next item. And the way information is structured is totally incapable of keeping up with this process.
這是Vannevar Bush。 Vannevar Bush是大戰期間,美國政府的首席科學顧問。 在1945年, 他曾經在大西洋月刊上發表過一篇文章。 文章的題目是〈恰如吾輩所思〉。 Vannevar Bush在文章中談到, 我們使用資訊的方式是殘破的。 我們並沒有運用術語庫 和目錄系統級諸如此類的工具。 大腦是以聯想的原理運行。 當思維在想着一個念頭,它一瞬間便聯想着下一個念頭。 而資訊結構化的方式 是完全無法跟上這一個運作程序的。
And so he suggested a machine, and he called it the memex. And the memex would link information, one piece of information to a related piece of information and so forth. Now this was in 1945. A computer in those days was something the secret services used to use for code breaking. And nobody knew anything about it. So this was before the computer was invented. And he proposed this machine called the memex. And he had a platform where you linked information to other information, and then you could call it up at will.
因此,他發表了一台機器, 他所謂的memex。 memex會將 一個訊息和另一個相關的訊息不斷加以鏈結。 這是在1945年的時候。 在那個年代 電腦是特務機關用來破解密碼的工具。 沒有人曉得電腦事幹嘛用的。 這是在電腦發明之前。 他發表了這台叫做memex的機器。 他有一個將資訊加以鏈結的平台, 你可以隨意調用它。
So spinning forward, one of the guys who read this article was a guy called Doug Engelbart, and he was a U.S. Air Force officer. And he was reading it in their library in the Far East. And he was so inspired by this article, it kind of directed the rest of his life. And by the mid-60s, he was able to put this into action when he worked at the Stanford Research Lab in California. He built a system. The system was designed to augment human intelligence, it was called. And in a premonition of today's world of cloud computing and softwares of service, his system was called NLS for oN-Line System.
故事繼續前進, 有個叫做Doug Engelbart的傢伙也讀了這篇文章, 他是美國的空軍軍官。 他是在遠東的空軍圖書館讀到它。 這篇文章對他產生重大的啟發, 甚至影響了他的餘生。 到60年代中期,當他在加州史丹佛大學的研究實驗室工作時 他終於有機會將想法付諸行動。 他建立了一個系統。 據稱該系統的設計目的是用於提升人類的智能。 相對於今日的 雲端運算和軟體服務而言, 他所以設計的系統稱之為 NLS 意即線上系統。
And this is Doug Engelbart. He was giving a presentation at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in 1968. What he showed -- he sat on a stage like this, and he demonstrated this system. He had his head mic like I've got. And he works this system. And you can see, he's working between documents and graphics and so forth. And he's driving it all with this platform here, with a five-finger keyboard and the world's first computer mouse, which he specially designed in order to do this system. So this is where the mouse came from as well.
這就是Doug Engelbart。 他當時正在1968年秋季聯合電腦大會上 發表簡報。 他所演示的-- 他坐在這樣的舞台上,他示範了這一個系統。 他戴著像我一樣麥克風。 來操作這一個系統。 各位可以看到,他在各種文件 和圖表之間切換作業。 而他完全是 以這個平台來操作, 透過五指操作鍵盤 和世界上第一個電腦滑鼠, 這是他為了操作這個系統而特別設計出來的。 而這也是滑鼠的由來。
So this is Doug Engelbart. The trouble with Doug Engelbart's system was that the computers in those days cost several million pounds. So for a personal computer, a few million pounds was like having a personal jet plane; it wasn't really very practical.
這就是 Doug Engelbart。 Doug Engelbart的系統遇到的麻煩是 在那個年代,電腦動輒耗資數百萬英鎊。 因此,想擁有一台個人電腦, 就像買架私人飛機一樣得花上幾百萬英鎊; 是相當不實際的。
But spin on to the 80s when personal computers did arrive, then there was room for this kind of system on personal computers. And my company, OWL built a system called Guide for the Apple Macintosh. And we delivered the world's first hypertext system. And this began to get a head of steam. Apple introduced a thing called HyperCard, and they made a bit of a fuss about it. They had a 12-page supplement in the Wall Street Journal the day it launched. The magazines started to cover it. Byte magazine and Communications at the ACM had special issues covering hypertext. We developed a PC version of this product as well as the Macintosh version. And our PC version became quite mature.
時間來到80年代, 當個人電腦終於出現, 接著就出現這種建立於個人電腦上的空間。 而我的公司,OWL 成立了一個名為蘋果麥金塔指南的系統。 我們發表了世界上第一個超文本系統。 這也刺激了後續的發展。 蘋果公司推出所謂的HyperCard, 他們亦就此大做文章。 在推出的當天,蘋果在〈華爾街日報〉刊登了長達12頁的增刊。 各大雜誌也開始來報導介紹這項產品。 Byte雜誌和國際資訊學術協會(ACM)的通信情報刊物 也針對超文本進行了特別專題報導。 本公司開發了這個產品的PC版本 以及麥金塔(Macintosh)版本。 而我們的PC版本發展得相當成熟。
These are some examples of this system in action in the late 80s. You were able to deliver documents, were able to do it over networks. We developed a system such that it had a markup language based on html. We called it hml: hypertext markup language. And the system was capable of doing very, very large documentation systems over computer networks.
這是80年代中後期這個系統在運算中的一些例子。 你可以透過電腦網路來傳送文件檔案。 我們開發了一個系統, 它有以 HTML 爲基礎的標記語言。 我們把它稱之為 HML:超文本標記語言。 透過電腦網路串聯,這個系統有能力 去處理非常,非常大的文件編製系統。
So I took this system to a trade show in Versailles near Paris in late November 1990. And I was approached by a nice young man called Tim Berners-Lee who said, "Are you Ian Ritchie?" and I said, "Yeah." And he said, "I need to talk to you." And he told me about his proposed system called the World Wide Web. And I thought, well, that's got a pretentious name, especially since the whole system ran on his computer in his office. But he was completely convinced that his World Wide Web would take over the world one day. And he tried to persuade me to write the browser for it, because his system didn't have any graphics or fonts or layout or anything; it was just plain text. I thought, well, you know, interesting, but a guy from CERN, he's not going to do this. So we didn't do it.
所以我在1990年11月下旬把這個系統 帶到巴黎附近的凡爾賽貿易展。 一個名為 Tim Beneres-Lee 的年輕男子向我走來, 說:「你是Ian Ritchie?」我說:「是啊。」 他說:「我需要和你談談。」 他告訴我那個他稱為全球資訊網的系統提案。 我當時想, 這名稱還真是自命不凡, 特別是這整個系統不過是在他辦公室的電腦上運行罷了。 但他是完全相信他的全球資訊網 終有一天會獨霸世界。 他試著說服我為它編寫瀏覽器, 因為他的系統沒有任何像是製圖、字型或版面的東西; 它只是純文本。 我認為,各位曉得,還蠻有趣的, 不過某個從歐洲核子研究組織(CERN)來的傢伙,他對這檔事沒興趣。 因此,我們並沒有這樣做。
In the next couple of years, the hypertext community didn't recognize him either. In 1992, his paper was rejected for the Hypertext Conference. In 1993, there was a table at the conference in Seattle, and a guy called Marc Andreessen was demonstrating his little browser for the World Wide Web. And I saw it, and I thought, yep, that's it. And the very next year, in 1994, we had the conference here in Edinburgh, and I had no opposition in having Tim Berners-Lee as the keynote speaker.
在後續幾年中, 超文本社區也沒有認同他。 在1992年,他的論文被超文本會議拒絕。 在1993年, 在一場於西雅圖舉行的會議上, 一個叫做Marc Andreessen的小伙子 展示了他的小全球資訊網瀏覽器。 我看到它,我想,沒錯,就是這樣。 來年,在1994年,我們在愛丁堡會議, 我對邀請 Tim Berners-Lee 作為演說主講人一事完全沒有異議。
So that puts me in pretty illustrious company. There was a guy called Dick Rowe who was at Decca Records and turned down The Beatles. There was a guy called Gary Kildall who went flying his plane when IBM came looking for an operating system for the IBM PC, and he wasn't there, so they went back to see Bill Gates. And the 12 publishers who turned down J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, I guess.
因此,這讓我躋身一群名人之列。 以前在迪卡唱片 有個叫做Dick Rowe的傢伙,他拒絕了披頭四。 有個叫Gary Kidall的傢伙, 在 IBM 要找人 為 IBM PC 進行系統操作時, 跑去駕駛他的私人飛機, 因為他當時不在,所以 IBM 回頭找上了比爾蓋茲。 還有我猜,大概 12 間 拒絕了 J.K. 羅琳的哈利波特原稿的出版社。
On the other hand, there's Marc Andreessen who wrote the world's first browser for the World Wide Web. And according to Fortune magazine, he's worth 700 million dollars. But is he happy?
另一方面,有Marc Andreessen, 他寫出了全世界第一個全球資訊網瀏覽器。 另外根據「財富」雜誌報導, 他擁有 700 萬美元的身價。 但他快樂嗎?
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
(Applause)
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