自20世紀80年代以來的十大炫酷發明(2)

osable Contact Lenses

7.一次性隱形眼鏡

Contact lenses have been around for decades, and they've changed quite a bit since the early days of hard plastic lenses. The 1970s saw the rise of soft lenses made from hydrogel. It's no secret why soft lenses quickly became popular: They were more air permeable than the older lenses and more comfortable to boot. Since then, both hard and soft contact lenses have seen improved permeability, and can be worn for longer periods of time.

隱形眼鏡的存在已經有幾十年了。從早期的硬塑料鏡片開始，新型的隱形眼鏡已經改善了很多。二十世紀七十年代，由水凝膠製成的軟性隱形眼鏡開始崛起。軟性隱形眼鏡隨之變得風靡全球。它們比舊的鏡片更具透氣性，且更方便佩戴。從那以後，硬性和軟性隱形眼鏡的透氣性都有所提高，而且可以長時間地持續佩戴。

In 1987, contact lenses became an even more convenient substitute for wearing glasses. That's the year disposable contact lenses hit the consumer market. Disposable lenses are soft contact lenses meant to be worn for a short period of time. Before disposable lenses, owning contacts was a bit like owning glasses. You wore the same pair every day and had to clean and care for them regularly. That meant losing a lens was a costly mistake.

1987年，隱形眼鏡代替眼鏡，成爲更方便的替代品。那一年，年拋隱形眼鏡搶佔了消費者市場。一次性隱形眼鏡是軟性隱形眼鏡，這意味着此類隱形眼鏡只能短時間佩戴。在一次性隱形眼鏡出現之前，擁有隱形眼鏡和擁有眼鏡就是一碼子事，因爲你每天戴同一副鏡片，也很難保證可以定期去清洗和護理，就無形中增加了丟失鏡片所要承受的損失。

With disposable lenses, that problem vanished. Since 1987, these contacts have become the go-to solution for in-eye vision correction. They're available in daily, weekly, and monthly forms.

有了一次性隱形眼鏡，這樣的問題就完全不存在了。1987年起，這些隱形眼鏡成爲內眼矯正視力的首選解決方案。隱形眼鏡還多了日拋、周拋、月拋等多種選擇。

Space Shuttle

6.航天飛機

After the lunar missions in the Late '60s and early '70s, the people at NASA dedicated themselves to developing a new type of vehicle that could venture into space and return home safely. The culmination of their research and development was the Space Shuttle. The engineers and mechanics designed it to be more than just a transportation vehicle -- the Space Shuttle would become an orbiting scientific laboratory capable of hosting numerous experiments designed to increase our understanding of the universe. The Space Shuttles also played an important role in deploying and maintaining equipment in space, including satellites and the International Space Station.

在60年代末期70年代早期的月球任務完成之後，美國國家航空和宇宙航行局（NASA）就致力於開發一種新的交通工具，使得飛行器能夠進入太空也能安全回國着陸。他們研發的最高成就就是航天飛機。工程師和機修工想要把航天飛機設計成可繞軌道運行的科學實驗室，且能夠承載大量幫助人們加深對宇宙理解的實驗項目，而不僅僅只是一個交通運輸工具。航天飛機在配置和維修包括衛星和國際空間站等在內的太空設備上也發揮着很大作用。

The first Space Shuttle launch was the Columbia on April 12, 1981. The mission lasted a little more than two days. The Columbia returned home safely and gave NASA valuable information about the design of the shuttle. A few tiles had broken off during the launch sequence, which informed NASA that engineers would need to make adjustments to head off future problems with other launches.

航天飛機的首次發射是1981 年4月12日的“哥倫比亞”號。這個任務持續了兩天多。“哥倫比亞”號的安全着陸，給美國國航局帶來了在航天飛機制造方面的諸多寶貴信息。在啓動序列期間，有幾個瓦片掉落，這讓美國國航局意識到，工程師必須得做一些調整來應對以後發射中可能會出現的問題。

Since Columbia's launch, there've been more than 130 Space Shuttle missions, and the program has inspired hundreds of children to study science and dream of space exploration.

自“哥倫比亞”號發射以來，已經完美執行了130多起航天飛機發射任務，與此同時，這一項目也激勵了無數夢想着太空探險的孩子學習科學的熱情。

and Macintosh Personal Computers

5.美國國際商用機器公司（IBM）和蘋果個人電腦

A computing revolution began in the 1970s. Early computers were massive machines -- some so large that they'd take up an entire floor of a building. Yet these machines had less processing power than a typical smartphone might boast today. As the era of miniaturization approached, computers shrunk. And hobbyists began to explore a world previously reserved for academic, government and research institutions. The personal computer became reality.

19世紀70年代，世界範圍內開始了一場電腦革命。早期的電腦都是十分龐大的機器——有些大到足足佔據了一整層樓。並且，這些機器加工處理的能力比現如今的智能機還要低。隨着微型化時代的到來，電腦的形態也開始縮小了。那些電腦愛好者開始探討先前政府部門以及科研機構等遺留下來的學術問題。自此，個人電腦日漸在大衆中普及。

IBM's 5150 Personal Computer launched in 1981. It contained an Intel 8088 processor and ran on version 1.0 of the PC-DOS operating system. The computer supported the Microsoft BASIC programming language. For much of the 1980s, IBM was synonymous with personal computers. You might say you own an IBM the same way you'd talk about owning a Windows PC nowadays. In fact, the old IBM PC is an ancestor to the Windows-based computers used by millions of people today.

1981年，IBM-5150號個人電腦首次亮相。它配備英特爾8088處理器，並延續了第一版的個人計算機磁盤操作系統 ——（PC—DOS）操作系統。這臺電腦支持微軟的基本編程語言。19世紀80年代的很長一段時間裏，IBM就是個人電腦的代名詞。可能你有一臺“IBM”就相當於你現在說你有一臺微軟電腦。實際上，以前的IBM個人電腦就是現在無數人所使用的微軟系統電腦的鼻祖。

In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh computer. It was the first personal computer to feature a graphics-based user interface. Other computers required users to type in commands to launch applications. The Macintosh used icons to represent programs and a strange device called a mouse. Though neither the mouse nor the graphic user interface were new ideas, they hadn't been part of the mass consumer market until the Macintosh hit store shelves.

1984年，蘋果推出了Macintosh電腦。它是首臺設有基於圖形用戶界面的個人電腦。而其他計算機則需要用戶輸入命令以啓動應用程序。蘋果電腦利用圖標來表示程序並配有一個稱之爲“鼠標”的陌生裝置。儘管鼠標和圖形用戶界面都不是什麼新想法，但直到蘋果個人電腦出現在商店的貨架上之後，才真正的佔領了大衆消費市場。

act Discs

4.激光唱片

Music collectors in the early 1980s had limited choices. Audiophiles claimed that the only sound worth hearing was stored on vinyl albums. But these records take up a lot of space and can be damaged easily. Cassettes and 8-track tapes took up less space, but the magnetic storage format degraded over time. Companies like Sony and Philips swooped in to create an alternative: the compact disc.

上世紀80年代的音樂收藏者們在音樂上的選擇很受限。發燒友稱，唯一值得細細品味的音樂都儲存在黑膠唱片裏。但是這些記錄介質佔用太多存儲內存，很容易損壞。而盒帶和八軌磁帶則不會佔用太多存儲內存，可其磁記憶體的格式卻會隨着時間流逝逐漸劣化。於是，索尼和飛利浦等這樣的公司便趁虛而入，創造出另一款替代品——激光唱片。

In the early to mid 1980s, engineers wrote a series of books that set out the standards for the compact-disc format. There were five books in the series, each a different color. The first book, which was red, established the basic standards for audio recording on compact disc. Later books expanded the standards, adding data storage capabilities to the CD and giving birth to the CD-ROM and CD-RW formats.

上世紀80年代早期，工程師們編著了一系列叢書，詳細規範了激光唱片的格式標準。 該系列叢書共有五本，分別以五種不同顏色來區分。第一本書是紅色的，它闡述了激光唱片音頻錄製的基本標準。後續的幾本書均在第一本的基礎上擴充了格式標準，在CD上附加數據儲存的能力，新創造包含CD-ROM和CD-RW格式的光盤。

Not only did this revolutionize the music industry, practically killing off the cassette and vinyl markets, but also the budding computer industry. Early floppy disks had limited storage capacity and could lose data if exposed to magnets. Compact discs stored information in an optical format and could hold far more data than typical magnetic disks. The first compact disc players were expensive, but by the 1990s the format dominated both the music and computer storage markets.

激光唱片不僅僅是音樂產業的一場革命，更是消滅了盒式磁帶和黑膠唱片的市場。早期的軟盤存儲能力有限，置於磁場中十分容易丟失數據。而激光唱片以一種視覺上可見的格式保存數據，且其可存儲量遠超傳統的磁體光盤。世界上首臺激光唱片播放機非常昂貴，直到上世紀九十年代，這種唱片格式纔開始在音樂和計算機存儲器市場佔據主要地位。

審稿：省略珺 校對：CMX