雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(12)
After this flight of fancy, very typical of his conversation, he discussed various more serious proposals for storage,
and commented that 'the provision of proper storage is the key to the problem of the digital computer.'
並且說道，數字計算機的關鍵，就是合適的存儲設備：In my opinion this problem of making a large memory available at reasonably short notice is much more important than that of doing operations such as multiplication at high speed.
我認爲，最關鍵的問題不是如何執行乘法之類的運算，而是如何實現高速的大容量存儲。
Speed is necessary if the machine is to work fast enough for the machine to be commercially valuable,
如果機器要足夠快纔有商業價值，那麼高速就是必須的，but a large storage is necessary if it is to be capable of anything more than rather trivial operations.
如果機器的功能不光是基本運算，那麼大容量就是必須的。The storage capacity is therefore the more fundamental requirement.
因此，存儲能力是更爲基礎的需求。He then continued to give a succinct definition of 'building a brain':
接着，他給"建造一個大腦"做了一個簡明的定義：Let us now return to the analogy of the theoretical computing machines with an infinite tape.
現在，讓我們回到無限紙帶的理論計算機。It can be shown that a single special machine of that type can be made to do the work of all.
不難證明，一臺特殊的機器，可以實現所有的功能，It could in fact be made to work as a model of any other machine.
也就是說，它可以模擬任何其它機器，The special machine may be called the universal machine; it works in the following quite simple manner.
這種特殊的機器稱爲通用機。通用機的原理很簡單：When we have decided what machine we wish to imitate, we punch a description of it on the tape of the universal machine.
我們想讓它模擬何種機器，就在它的紙帶上寫入那種機器的描述數。This description explains what the machine would do in every configuration in which it might find itself.
這個描述數規定了該機器在各種狀態下應該做什麼。The universal machine has only to keep looking at this description in order to find out what it should do at each stage.
通用機只要一直根據這個描述數，來決定每個時刻應該做什麼。Thus the complexity of the machine to be imitated is concentrated in the tape and does not appear in the universal machine proper in any way.
因此，機器的功能是集中地體現在紙帶上，而不是體現在通用機上。
