塵封28年的視頻揭示喬布斯最大錯誤
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近日，人們在研究艾倫?索金的電影《喬布斯》的過程中，找到了一段塵封28年的老視頻。 這段老視頻是從兩個老式錄影帶拷貝過來的，除了錄影帶的擁有者，沒人知道它們的存在。這段視頻基本不具有任何紀錄片的制作效果。它太長了（2.5小時），制作太粗糙，而且整體色調太陰暗。但研究計算機歷史的人卻深知它的價值：它是在同時期的媒體報道之外，唯一一段記錄了1988年NeXT電腦首發慶典盛況的視頻影像。 此前，PBS電視臺攝制的紀錄片——《企業家們》（The Entrepreneurs）——是喬布斯在NeXT公司那幾年的唯一視頻記錄，其中有一段喬布斯參加一次異地會議的鏡頭，是喬布斯被排擠出蘋果公司（Apple）不久之后的一次會議上拍攝的。 我把這兩段視頻翻來覆去地看了好幾遍，最讓我震驚的是，即便在當時看來，NeXT電腦也是很明顯注定要失敗的。 在1985年的那次異地會議中，總是很有鏡頭感的喬布斯正站在一塊白板前，試圖為他的新公司設定優先要務：我們是要生產一款技術卓越的機器，還是要滿足3000美元的價格點，還是要趕在1987年以前推出新產品？ 以上三個目標，NeXT如果能滿足其中的兩個，就會大獲成功。但是直到1989年，NeXT電腦才有限地發布了新品，而且起價高達6500美元——還不包含一個價值2000美元的打印機，和一個2000美元的外接硬盤。 《財富》雜志前編輯布蘭特?施蘭德也參加了那晚在舊金山戴維斯音樂廳舉辦的正式發布會。在他撰寫的文章中，他稱NeXT電腦是“奪目”的，而且“相對來說不算貴”。近30年后，他在與里克?特策利合著的《成為喬布斯》（Becoming Steve Jobs）一書中回憶了那段歷史，其中關于NeXT的章節，可以說最好地解釋了喬布斯犯了什么錯，以及他從這段錯誤中學到了什么。 施蘭德寫道：“事實上，我們所有人都忽略了一點：這臺機器在市場上幾乎沒有任何機會能獲得成功。NeXT電腦的設計初衷根本站不住腳，那些異地會議上設立的目標也完全失敗了……” “游戲已經結束了，但我們幾乎沒有人意識到。” 在喬布斯放棄NeXT電腦、專注于將NeXT的創新軟件出售之前，NeXT電腦只生產了大約５萬臺左右。 NeXT發布后，根據喬布斯最初的設想，NeXT主要是通過大學合作項目在高校中銷售。因為NeXT定價過高，普通高校又往往拿不出足夠的資金。喬布斯就常常通過大幅度的折扣，甚至是贈與的方式，將NeXT電腦送進校園。 后來，免費贈送的例子越來越多，以至于NeXT自己的銷售人員都經常開這樣的玩笑： “提問：我們常說的助高校一臂之力，究竟是什么意思？” “回答：就是高校一伸出手臂，我們就免費捐贈。” 教育市場銷售乏力，喬布斯不得不改換思路。1989年3月，NeXT與商業地帶（Businessland）簽署協議，由商業地帶的連鎖零售店代銷NeXT電腦。這個策略也不成功，連鎖店在一年內只能賣出幾百臺電腦。 同時，NeXT電腦的質量也是個問題。喬布斯口中“領先5年”的未來科技在真正的用戶手里成了笑話。幾乎所有用戶都抱怨NeXT性能不如Sun的工作站，抱怨NeXT早期產品沒有彩色輸出，磁盤驅動器的配置太低等。喬布斯和他的NeXT團隊不斷改進產品，卻總也無法達到“領先5年”的標準。 但是，這臺電腦確實對后世產生了深遠影響，尤其是英國計算機科學家、“萬維網之父”蒂姆?伯納斯?李就是用這樣一臺電腦設計出了萬維網。 另外，熱門游戲《毀滅戰士》（Doom）、《毀滅戰士II》（Doom II）和《雷神之錘》（Quake）最早也是在NeXT電腦上設計出來的。NeXT的一些代碼可能一直延續到了今天。1996年，喬布斯將NeXT操作系統賣給了蘋果公司，同時這筆交易也使他重返蘋果。NeXT的面向對象型的軟件技術也成為了蘋果后來的OS X平臺的基礎。 這段塵封達28年之久的視頻，之所以能夠得到修復并公開，得益于塔夫茨大學（Tufts University）的新生湯姆?弗里克。他通過電子郵件向《財富》雜志描述了自己的修復過程： “這次活動的現場照明不是很理想，所有亮光和陰影部分都看不清楚。而且整段視頻的時間碼是疊加的。最糟糕的是，這兩張錄像帶是用錄過快艇影像的舊錄像帶重拍的，有一部分缺失了，還有一些部分是重復的。在時間碼的幫助下，我刪除了無用和重復的部分，然后將兩張錄像帶的內容拼接在一起，并且對色彩進行了修正，降低了過分渲染的效果。” “在視頻中，喬布斯還向觀眾展示了一段名叫‘制造機器的機器’的視頻，這是一段關于NeXT的革命性工廠的紀錄短片。這段視頻本來也從錄像帶中缺失了，但是我找到了一個版本，并且把它拼接進來。最后我給整段音頻降了噪，把VHS錄像帶中常有的噪音減小了。”（財富中文網） 譯者：樸成奎 |
Until the video below was discovered by researchers working on Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs, the only known recording of Jobs from his NeXT years was a PBS documentary called The Entrepreneurs that included footage from a 1985 offsite meeting shot shortly after Jobs was pushed out of Apple. The new video—re-created out of a pair of VHS tapes only their owner knew existed—has none of the documentary’s production values. It’s too long (2.5 hours), too raw, and way too dark. But it will be treasured by computer historians for what it is: The only record, outside of contemporaneous journalists’ reports, of the gala unveiling of the NeXT computer in 1988. What struck me, watching the two videos back to back, is how clear it should have been that the machine was doomed. In the 1985 offsite, Jobs—always aware of the camera—is seen at a whiteboard trying to set the new company’s priorities: Was it more important to create a machine with great technology, meet a $3,000 price point, or have it ready by 1987? Had NeXT met even two of those goals, it might have been a hit. But it wasn’t ready for limited release until 1989 and it started at $6,500—not including a $2,000 printer and a $2,000 external hard drive. Former Fortune editor Brent Schlender, who attended the black-tie gala at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, called the NeXT “dazzling” and “relatively inexpensive” in a front-page article in theWall Street Journal. He revisited the experience nearly three decades later in Becoming Steve Jobs(2015), co-written by Rick Tetzeli, whose chapter on NeXT is the best account in print of what Jobs did wrong and what he learned from his mistakes. “The truth that all of us missed was that this was a machine that had virtually no chance to succeed in the market,” Schlender writes. “The principles on which NeXT had been based were in tatters, the goals of those long-gone offsite meeting trashed… “The game was already over, but few of us knew it.” Only some 50,000 NeXT computers were built before Jobs abandoned his beloved magnesium cube and concentrated on selling NeXT’s innovative software. But the computer did manage to make a dent in the universe, most famously when Tim Berners-Lee used one to design the World Wide Web. The games Doom, Doom II, and Quake were also designed on NeXT machines. Some of its code probably still lives on today. Jobs sold NeXT’s operating system to Apple in the 1996 deal that brought him back to the company, and NeXT’s object-oriented software technology became the foundation on which OS X was built. Tom Frikker, the Tufts University freshman who restored the 28-year-old video for public release, described the process in an e-mail to Fortune: “The stage lighting at the event was not optimal; all of the highlights and shadows were blown out. A timecode had been superimposed over the whole video. Worst of all, the tapes had been recorded over a speedboat video, with some parts missing and others repeated. After deleting the ‘garbage’ and removing duplicate sections with help from the timecode, I spliced the two tapes together and worked on color correction, lessing the over-saturated effect present in the stage scenes.” “Part way through the presentation, Steve showed the audience a video called ‘The Machine to build the Machines’, a short documentary on NeXT’s revolutionary factory. This video was missing from the tape, but I was able to locate a version and splice it in. Finally, all of the audio was cleaned, with most of the ever-present VHS hum reduced.” |
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